JAMESTOWN CHRONOLOGY

1570-71: Spanish Jesuits set up a mission on the York River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. Within six months, the Spaniards were killed by local Indians. 

1585-87: Three separate voyages sent English explorers and settlers to the coast of what is now North Carolina, then known as Virginia. John White, who was governor of a colony on Roanoke Island and had gone back to England for supplies, returned in 1590 and found no trace of the settlers.

1607: On May 13, nearly five months after departing from England, an expedition of 104 colonists arrived at a site on the James River selected for settlement. The group was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, whose investors hoped to make a profit from the resources of the New World. The group named their settlement for King James I.

1608: Captain Christopher Newport, commander of the 1607 Jamestown expedition who had sailed back to England, returned to Virginia in January with settlers and goods. It was the first of a series of regular arrivals in the colony. John Smith was elected president of the governing council in the fall. Smith left for England the next fall (1609) to recover from a wound caused by a gunpowder explosion and never returned to Virginia.

1611: Elizabeth City and Henrico were established, marking the beginning of expansion beyond Jamestown.

1613: Pocahontas, a daughter of Powhatan, powerful leader of 30-some Indian tribes in coastal Virginia, was kidnapped by the English.

1614: The first sample of tobacco cultivated by John Rolfe was shipped to England by this time. Tobacco was the "golden weed" that ensured the economic survival of the colony.  Pocahontas married Rolfe after being baptized in the Anglican Church, and an eight-year period of peace between the English colonists and Powhatan Indians ensued.

1617: Pocahontas died in England.

1619: The first representative legislative assembly in British America met at Jamestown on July 30. The first documented people of African origin in Virginia arrived in late summer aboard an English ship flying Dutch colors.

1620: The Plymouth colony was established in Massachusetts.

1624: King James revoked the charter of the Virginia Company, and Virginia became a royal colony.

1699: The capital of Virginia was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION CHRONOLOGY

1763: The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War (French and Indian War). France, in defeat, gave up most claims to North American territory. Britain wanted the colonies to help pay the war’s debts, but the colonies were increasingly ready for self-government.

1764-70: Britain imposed a series of taxes on the American colonies, but finally, after protests and resistance from the colonists, repealed all but the tax on tea, which cannot be grown in North America.

1773: The Tea Act gave the British East India Company a monopoly on sales. In December, Patriots dressed as Indians boarded ships in Boston harbor and dumped more than 300 chests overboard. The following March, Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, closing the harbor.

1774: The First Continental Congress met and formed the Continental Association, an agreement calling on the colonies to stop all imports from Britain.

1775: In April, British troops attempting to capture colonial military supplies exchanged gunfire with Massachusetts minutemen at Lexington and Concord. In June, the Battle of Bunker and Breed’s hills took place in Boston. George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental forces, and Congress enacted Articles of War.

1776: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in Philadelphia, won thousands over to the idea of American independence. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4.

1778: France and the United States signed treaties of alliance and commerce.

1781: American and French forces laid siege to the British army trapped at Yorktown, Virginia. This climactic military campaign of the Revolution concluded with the formal British surrender on October 19.

1783: The final treaties ending hostilities were signed in Paris. The last British troops in the United States left New York in November.

1787: The Federal Constitution Convention convened in May in Philadelphia and approved the new Federal Constitution in September. The constitution went into effect in June 1788 after it had been ratified by nine states.

1789: George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States in April. In September, Congress proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution. By December 15, 1791, ten of them, known as the Bill of Rights, had been ratified by enough states to make them part of the Constitution.