Colonial Empires

England gained its first North American colony when it took possession of St. John's, a large fishing settlement in Newfoundland used by fishermen from many nations, in 1583. France sent colonists to what is now Nova Scotia in 1604 and moved them in 1608 to Quebec, where a permanent settlement was founded. In 1607 the English founded Jamestown Colony in Virginia and the short-lived Popham colony in Maine.

In 1609 Henry Hudson claimed the Hudson River area for the Netherlands. The first Dutch posts were founded in 1614. Colonization of New England began in 1620. Sweden settled its only American colony, on the Delaware River, in 1638, and lost it to the Dutch in 1655. In 1664 the English conquered New Netherland, ending Dutch colonization in North America. Hudson Bay, discovered by Henry Hudson in 1610, became a center for the English fur trade in 1668. Soon after the Sieur de La Salle descended to the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682, the French began settling the Mississippi Valley, which they called Louisiana.

Spain did not long retain its monopoly in the Caribbean. England began colonizing unclaimed islands in 1625; France, in 1635. The Dutch acquired islands off South America in 1634, and Denmark began settling the western Virgin Islands in 1672.