French Claims

1. Giovanni da Verrazano – Italian navigator who explored part of North America’s eastern coast, including New York harbor 2. Jacques Cartier – explored the St. Lawrence River 3. The French monarchy was preoccupied with European wars as well as with internal religious conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestant Huguenots. 4. Samuel de Champlain – established first permanent French settlement in America in 1608 at Quebec, a fortified village on the St. Lawrence River. He was later regarded as the “Father of New France” because of his strong leadership in establishing the colony. 5. Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette – 1673; explored the upper Mississippi River 6. Robert de La Salle – 1682; explored the Mississippi basin, which he named Louisiana (after the French king, Louis XIV)

Dutch Claims 7. Henry Hudson –1609; sailed up a broad river (later named for him as the Hudson River), an expedition that established Dutch claims to the surrounding area that would become New Amsterdam (and later New York) .

Early English Settlements 8. John Cabot – helped English defeat Spanish fleet – the Spanish Armada – in 1588. 9. The English devised a practical method for financing the costly and risky enterprise of founding new colonies. This was called joint-stock companies.

Jamestown 10. King James I chartered the Virginia Company, a joint-stock company that established the permanent English colony in America at Jamestown in 1607.

Early problems. 11. The first settlers of Jamestown suffered great hardships from Indian attacks, famine, and disease–and their own mistakes.

Tobacco prosperity. 12. Captain John Smith – led the establishment 13. John Rolfe – established a tobacco industry

Transition to a royal colony. 14. Charter was revoked in 1624, and the colony was under the direct control of King James I.