Immigration and Settlement Patterns that Have Shaped the United States
The oldest continuous city in the United States is St. Augustine, Florida, founded in September 1565 by Pedro Menendez on behalf of the Spanish Crown, and serving as the capital of Spanish Florida for 200 years. A little over half a century later in 1620, English settlers known as Pilgrims landed on the coast of what is now Massachusetts and founded the Plymouth Colony. In between these dates, Jamestown got its start in what is now coastal Virginia. While St. Augustine was founded as a response to Spanish fears that France was making inroads on its New World territory, Plymouth Colony was founded for religious reasons. Jamestown was founded by early venture capitalists in search of profit (although territorial and religious reasons also came into play). Many factors played a part in the immigration and settlement of the New World.
Colonists came from all over Europe to settle the seaboard of the future United States. The French settled the Great Lakes region, the Ohio Valley region, and the Mississippi Delta area (although they would lose these territories to the British in the French and Indian War), while the Dutch settled what they called New Netherlands around today’s New York State. In 1626 a Dutch colonist purchased Manhattan Island, naming the island New Amsterdam. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was settled shortly thereafter in 1628, and Maryland in 1634.
The Indians who had settled the land millennia ago often helped settlers, but Europeans given permission by Indians to live within their territories often took this permission “as a right to own and permanently occupy the land. For their part, Native people believed that the newcomers had no right to permanently possess Native lands. In addition, Native people sometimes left their villages to hunt, fish, or gather resources. Frequently, they returned to their villages only to find the land occupied by colonists” (Tayac, Shupman, and Simermeyer, n.d., par. 4). Conflicts soon arose. Wars and skirmishes between Indians and settlers became a feature of early settlement and westward expansion. Sometimes, in response to these conflicts, Indian tribes themselves immigrated to other areas.
