Chronology - Early English-speaking America

1578 – Queen Elizabeth I grants Richard Halykut (pamphleteer / inciter, 1553-1616)

And Walter Raleigh (entrepreneur, 1554-1615) a 6-year patent to explore Virginia

1585 – Richard Grenvile and John White sail to Roanoke Island. Ralph Lane is governor

1586 – John White appointed as Governor of Roanoke, sails with 150 people to establish the Cittie of Raleigh in Chesapeake Bay (Lost Colony); settlers stay in Roanoke, White returns to England and when he goes back to Roanoke finds the words CROATOAN and an abandoned island

1587-1625: James VI (and I of Ireland)

1606 –Virginia Company of London (from whence will come Jamestown) and the Virginia Charter (granting the colonists "all liberties, franchises and immunities" as though born under the rein of Engand - attributed by some to James Coke, attorney general of the Court)

1607 – Jamestown, by John Smith. Powhatan Tribe and Pocahontas; writes in 1624 the General History of Viriginia (see anthology, pp. 34-38)

1609-1610: John Smith leaves the settlement by 1609 – James River frozen, Jamestown’s hell

John Rolfe arrives in The Deliverance in 1610; brings the tobacco seed, marries Pocahontas in 1614; Thomas Dale is governor from 1611-1616 and will institute the first colonial law system in English Norht America (the Dale Code);  

Some women arrive by 1608-1609; 

Jamestown women: 

1619 slaves ("indentured servants"?) arrive in The White Lion; more women arrive in 1620

1620 - The Mayflower arrives in Cape Cod - The Mayflower Compact (anthology p. 40-42); hard winters and the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth (1621); the failed communist experiment

1621-1633 - William Badford, Governor of Plymouth Colony (writes History of Plymouth Plantation)

1630 - John Whinthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (speech on the Arabella, anthology p. 43-44)

1636 - colony of Rhode Island founded.by Roger Williams

1641–1652, 1660–1677 - James Berkeley, Governor of Virginia