1. The defeat of the Spanish Armada ended Spanish control of the seas and cleared the way for England and other European nations to start colonies in north America.

2. In 1584, queen Elizabeth gave Sir Walter Raleigh the right to claim any land in north America not already owned by a Christian monarch.

3. His scouts founded Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day north Carolina. however, both attempts to settle the land failed.

4. In 1606, a group of merchants known as the Virginia company sent 144 settlers to build a new colony in America where they were to look for gold and

5. Establish trade in furs these new colonists named their settlement

6. Jamestown

7. Because of disease and the fact that settlers searched for gold and silver when they should have been growing food only thirty-eight of the settlers were alive a year later.

8. The Virginia colonists never found gold or silver, but they did discover how to grow tobacco for profit. their relations with neighboring native Americans also improved when a colonist,

9. john Rolfe, married Pocahontas the daughter of chief Powhatan. as Jamestown grew, colonists rebelled against the rigid discipline of the virginia company.

10. In 1619, a new governor, Sir Yeardley, ended military rule and allowed the colonists to elect representatives

11. Called Burgesses to an assembly. the assembly had the right to make local laws. in 1619,

12. A Dutch ship brought the first Africans to Jamestown.

13. the first African American child born in the colonies was William Tucker, a free man. After 1640, however, shiploads of Africans were being brought to north America to be sold as slaves