In 1607, England planted a small settlement on the coast of Virginia. That settlement — Jamestown — was the beginning of everything. From it grew the Colonial Period of American history, a span of nearly 170 years during which 13 colonies took root along the East Coast, shaped by waves of immigrants seeking opportunity and freedom, and shadowed from the very beginning by the institution of slavery.

Jamestown: England’s First Permanent Settlement

The Colonial Period The era of American history from 1607 to 1776, during which England established 13 colonies along the East Coast of North America. began in 1607, when England founded Jamestown England's first permanent settlement in North America, established in 1607 in present-day Virginia. It marks the beginning of the Colonial Period. in what is now the state of Virginia. This was England’s first permanent settlement in North America, and it set the stage for more than a century and a half of colonial expansion.

Many of the colonists who came to Jamestown were motivated by economic opportunity. Some hoped that land would be easier and cheaper to acquire in North America than in England, making farming a more viable prospect. Others believed they might discover valuable metals — gold or silver — in the new land.

The early years in Jamestown were extraordinarily harsh. Many colonists died from hunger, disease, and the brutal winter weather. Conflict with Native Americans over control of the land claimed further lives on both sides. For a time, the settlement’s survival was genuinely uncertain.

Slavery in the Colonies

As Jamestown stabilized and grew, the colonists found increasing success by cultivating crops — particularly tobacco, and later cotton — which they sold profitably to England. But success created a new problem: there were not enough people to work the land. The colonists’ solution was one of the darkest chapters in American history.

Other European colonial powers had already begun enslaved persons People who were forcibly taken from Africa and transported to the Americas to be bought and sold as property, forced to work with no freedom. Also referred to as slaves or enslaved Africans. in large numbers to work in their colonies. Millions of African people were forcibly placed on ships and transported across the Atlantic to North and South America. These were not migrants seeking a better life — they were human beings who had been abducted and stripped of every freedom.

The first group of enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619 — just twelve years after the settlement was founded. Enslaved Africans were forced to labor on farms in brutal conditions, with no legal rights, no pay, and no prospect of freedom. The practice of slavery became embedded in colonial life and would persist for over two centuries, ultimately becoming one of the central causes of the Civil War.

The Growth of the Colonies and the Pilgrims

As Jamestown grew, colonists moved into surrounding areas, and the settlement eventually became the colony of Virginia. Other groups of English colonists were also making their way to North America.

In 1620, a group of English colonists known as the Pilgrims A group of English colonists who sailed to North America in 1620, founding the colony of Massachusetts. Many came seeking religious freedom from the Church of England. established the colony of Massachusetts. Unlike the colonists at Jamestown, who were primarily motivated by economic opportunity, many of the Pilgrims came to North America seeking religious freedom — the ability to practice their faith without interference from the English government or the Church of England.

The Pilgrims’ arrival added a new dimension to colonial life. Religious freedom — already a powerful motivation for migration — would become one of the defining values of the American experiment, and is enshrined today in the First Amendment.

More and more colonists from England continued to arrive in the decades that followed, pushing further along the East Coast and establishing new settlements. In time, these settlements grew into 13 distinct colonies.

The 13 Original Colonies

By the time of the American Revolution, England had established 13 colonies along the East Coast of North America. These colonies were home to people of many different backgrounds, faiths, and economic circumstances — but they shared a common relationship with Great Britain as colonial subjects.

The 13 original colonies were: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Wrapping Up

The Colonial Period is the soil from which the United States grew. Jamestown’s founding in 1607 began a chain of events — economic ambition, religious migration, the horrors of slavery, and the gradual development of self-governing communities — that would eventually produce a revolution. Understanding this period, including its darkest elements, is essential to understanding why the colonists ultimately concluded they had to break free from British rule. The next subchapter picks up exactly where this one ends: at the moment that tension finally exploded into war.