4. The first English settlements in North America.

The Spanish established some of the earliest settlements in NA. The first town found by spanishmen in 1565 was called St.Augustine. Later in 1609 Santa Fe in New Mexico was also established by the spanishmen.

However the first beginnings of permanent settlement of NA were nearly a hundred years after Columbus's first voyage .The Englishman sir Waster Raleigh [roli] named the whole of NA for England and they called this place Virginia in honour Elisabeth1. The first English colonists were mostly adventurers and impoverished gentlemen incapable of working on the land. That’s why the early colonists in Virginia were complete failures.

The first successful and permanent settlement in Virginia was established in 1607, this place was called James Town. It was a very typical settlement- a fort, a church, and they began tobacco. English capitalists found 2 Virginia companies, a southern one, based on London, and a northern one based on Bristol. By 1619 Virginia had 1000 people .That year was noted for three events 1the arrival of a ship from England with 90 young maidens who were to be given as wives to those settlements who would pay 120 pounds of the tobacco for their transportation. 2the beginning of self-government .On the 30 July in Jamestown .Church met the first legislative assembly on the continent .There were a government, 6 councilors, 2 burgesses (a full right citizens) each from 10 plantations. 3 the arrival of Dutch ship with Negro slaves of whom it sold 20 to the settlers. First Negroes appeared in NA.

In 1620 a group of puritans refugees reached the coast of NA in their ship called Mayflower. They landed on Massachusetts coast and founded a settlement there, which they called Plymouth. This was the beginning of the northern English colonists in America .Those people were called the Pilgrim’s fathers .These pilgrims were prosecuted because they denied the primacy of the king and wished to set up their own separate church .The Pilgrim's fathers suffered terrible ¿ of first and half of them died during their first winter ,but those who survived for the first year managed to live and reap the harvest from the land. A year after their arrival and their ship came from England, they celebrated this event, besides the harvest they have gathered, and it was a feast of Thanksgiving. They still celebrate it every november as a public holiday (on the 4th Thursday). Between 1620-1640 the Piligrims fathers were followed by many more shipboards of settlers in New England, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina.

During the same period New Amsterdam was founded from Holland on the small island of Manhattan. The Dutch administration was oligarchic and the colony made rather slow progress.

In 1664 Charles 2 granted the area to his brother, the duke of York. In the summer of 1664 3 worships arrived in port New Amsterdam and English took over the colonies and changed its name to New York. Most of the Dutch settlers sick of dispoted rule made no objections to a change of sovereignty. Meanwhile further south Virginia developed, the settlers were helped by the beginning of the cruel slave trade. The merchants brought slaves from Africa.

The last European settlers come in 1683. This time the Quakers had become the most energetic representatives of England of the puritan traditions. The Quakers called themselves the society or friends. They believed in the quality of men. William Penn was prominent English Quaker led a group of religion sympathies to settle in America. To attract colonies he offered legal terms assuring all that they could obtain land and live in justice and quality. He directed the establishment of Philadelphia his city of brotherly love. The state Pennsylvania bears the name of William Penn's father.