1600 By this date the Spanish (and Portuguese) had been established in South America and Mexico for 100 years and there was a huge incentive in Protestant England to catch up with the hated and feared Catholic Spaniards. Three things gave the then much weaker English the courage to start.

• The sinking of much of the Spanish navy by Sir Francis Drake in the English Channel, as the Spanish, sponsored by the Pope attempted to invade and conquer England and assassinate Queen Elizabeth 1st. (Spanish Armada 1588)
• The success of the English sea going pirates (Drake, Raleigh etc) in seizing the gold, silver and sugar carried by the Spanish ships from South America en route to Spain as they passed the Caribbean Islands.
• Sales talk by Sir Walter Raleigh on "how rich" settlers could get in "his" new land of Virginia in North America.

• Sir Walter Raleigh's Virginia in 1585, actually now North Carolina. The first settlement was Roanoke island which was sold on the basis it was at the same latitude of Southern Spain and hence wine could be produced. Actually Roanoke was not that much better than a mosquito infested swamp and the poor settlers soon died. The second area settled, in 1607 was just north, in Chesapeake bay where tobacco leaves imported from South America were successfully cultivated and sold back into England.
• In 1620, the now famous little ship the Mayflower, set sail from Plymouth, England for New York with a boatload of Protestant fundamentalists (Calvinists or Puritans as they were known in England, who under the more "Catholic" Church of England, were not allowed to follow their faith and were persecuted along with the remaining Catholics in England). They were swept north by heavy seas and landed instead near present day Provincetown close by Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which they called the Plymouth Colony.
• 1627 The Spanish Main now better known as the Caribbean after the Carib "Indians" who lived there. The English were well briefed as to the potential of the Caribbean islands by English pirates including Drake and Hawkins. The Spanish were well established in the Island of Espaniola now Haiti but Barbados was uninhabited, fertile and well watered. The English were attracted there with the hope of making a second Virginia but the tobacco they grew could not compete with the established Virginian crop. A cotton crop faired no better but the saviour was sugar. Barbados soon became the most valuable colony for England on the west side of the Atlantic.

French in Canada. Readers should remember that the French as well as the Spanish were in North America before the English. French navigator and explorer Jaques Cartier sailed down the St Lawrence sea way in 1536, planted the French Flag close to present day Montreal but there was no immediate royal backing to set up a colony. Montreal is less than 300 miles north west of Boston Massachusetts.

The East coast of North America, over the next 100 years came to be totally dominated by English immigrants in the so called 13 colonies, as follows:

Note:
- N stands for North or the "New" England colonies which were all settled within 16 years of each other by families with high moral codes who were being persecuted in England because of their more fundamental Protestant religions. Products exported to England included furs and pelts, timber for ships, fish.
- S stands for South where colonists were looking for riches from farming (Tobacco, Wheat, or Cotton. Sugar and wine were also tried.)
- M stands for Middle where a mixture of all types of colonists settled from England and continental Europe. This area was the original industrial powerhouse of North America but initially traded in wheat and firs.

The 13 colonies in order of settlement, all independently ruled from England were:

• 1607 Virginia S
• 1629 Massachusetts N
• 1632 Maryland N
• 1635 Rhode Island N
• 1636 Connecticut N
• 1664 New York M
• 1664 New Jersey M
• 1670 North Carolina S
• 1670 South Carolina S
• 1680 New Hampshire N
• 1681 Pennsylvania M
• 1702 Delaware M
• 1732 Georgia S
Plus
• 1610 Newfoundland N

The Southern colonies plus Barbados were dependent on negro slaves purchased from Africa for farm labourers as the original white "slaves" from England and Ireland could not work in the unaccustomed heat of the Southern Colonies.

The Northern Colonies were worked by a different breed of Englishmen generally with high moral standards developed through their Puritan (Calvinist) faith. It was not long before these northern colonialists were better educated than their cousins back in England.

These 13 colonies which were all east of the Appalachian Mountains occupied less than 1/20th of the North America Continent and by 1700 hosted 250,000 Englishmen. The huge remaining area was only colonised to a very limited extent by a very few European White Men mainly French and Spanish. The north part in what is now Canada had immigrants from two countries.

The English who, in 1668, claimed control of a territory called Rupert's Land (Hudson Bay and west to Alaska) some 10 times the size of the 13 colonies but much too far north for farming but great for hunting deer and beaver for fur hats and shoes back in England.

The French concentrated their exploration down the St Lawrence Seaway setting up forts in Quebec 1608, Montreal 1642 and Detroit 1701 eventually pushing south down the Mississippi river to New Orleans 1699. In the south the Spanish pushed north from Mexico looking for more gold and silver and crossed the River Grande as early as 1535.

Neither the French or Spanish governments could ever persuade their people to emigrate in anything like the numbers of the English. This was probably due to three main factors.

1. The French and Spanish always emigrated to government owned land. Whereas the English colonialists were granted ownership of largish tracts of land by royal charter. So the English became land owners to exploit the land as they wished while the French and Spanish remained as government employees.
2. In England after 1550 there was both religious turmoil and religious diversity but any religion except the new Church of England was outlawed. Hence there was a huge incentive for Catholics, Puritans, Lutherans, Calvinists and Quakers to emigrate to a land were they were free to worship as they wished. In France and Spain the Catholic Church remained the sole religion.
3. After 1600 in England the need for land for grazing more sheep was satisfied by land owners kicking out their tenant farmers. England at this time was the largest producers of wool in Europe. This coupled with a period of poor (economic) rule under James 1st and Charles 1st created a further incentive to emigrate.