A Chronology of American History: 15th | 16th | 17th | 18th | 19th | 20th

17th Century

1607
May 13: The first permanent English colony is founded in Jamestown, Virginia.

1619
July 30: Virginia's House of Burgesses convenes; it is the first legislative assembly in English North America.

August: A Dutch ship carries 20 blacks to Virginia. We now know that these were not the first blacks to arrive in Virginia.

1620
May 21: The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 adult males in Provincetown Harbor, Mass., represents the first agreement on self-government in English North America.

December 26: The Pilgrim Separatists land at Plymouth, Mass.

1621
December 25: Massachusetts Governor William Bradford forbids game-playing on Christmas day.

1622
March 22: Indian attacks kill one-third of the English settlers in Virginia.

1624
John Smith publishes his General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, which describes his rescue by Pocahontas.

May: The Dutch establish the colony of New Netherland.

May 1: The Maypole at Mare Mount. In what is now Quincy, Mass., Thomas Morton and others set up a May Pole, engaged in drinking and dancing with Indian women, and celebrated "the feasts of the Roman Goddes Glora, or the beastly practises of the Madd Bacchinalians," according to Massachusetts Governor William Bradford. Morton was deported to England.

1632
Charles I grants Lord Baltimore territory north of the Potomac River, which will become Maryland. Because the royal charter did not restrict settlement to Protestants, Catholics could settle in the colony.

1634
Massachusetts' sumptuary law forebodes the purchase of woolen, linen or silk clothes with silver, gold, silk, or lace on them.

1636
June: After being expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony, Roger Williams founds Rhode Island, which becomes the first English colony to grant complete religious tolerance.

1637
November 7: Massachusetts banishes Anne Hutchinson for preaching that faith alone was sufficient for salvation.

1638
March: The first Swedish colonists settle in Delaware.

1654
The first Jews arrive in New Amsterdam, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in Brazil.

1660
May: Massachusetts forbids the celebration of Christmas.

December 1: Parliament adopts the First Navigation Act, which requires all goods carried to and from England to be transported on English ships and that the colonies could export cotton, ginger, sugar, tobacco, and wool exclusively to England. Other Navigation Acts were enacted in 1662, 1663, 1670, and 1673.

1661
September: Governor John Endicott orders an end to persecution of Quakers in Massachusetts, where three Quakers had been executed.

1662
A synod of Massachusetts churches adopts the Halfway Covenant, which permits baptism of children whose parents had not become full church members.

1664
Maryland adopts a statute denying freedom to slaves who converted to Christianity. A similar act was adopted by Virginia in 1667.

September 7: The Dutch surrender New Netherland to the English, who rename the colony New York. The Dutch temporarily regained possession in 1673 and 1674.

1669
John Locke drafts the Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas, which combines a feudal social order with a stress on religious toleration.

1675

June 24: King Philip's War begins. Relative to the size of the population, this conflict between the New England colonists and