Thirteen Colonies

In 1607, English settlers founded Jamestown, Virginia, hoping to find wealth. In 1620, the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower so they could worship as they chose. Settlers kept coming for jobs, land and escape from persecution. Of all the reasons the colonists came to America^Q73, the one most remembered is freedom.

Not everyone came by choice. Beginning in 1619 in Virginia, ships brought captive people across the Atlantic. The group of people who were taken and sold as slaves^Q75 were Africans. Hundreds of thousands were brought to North America. By 1776, about one in five people in the colonies was enslaved, and their forced labor built much of the colonial economy.

By the 1730s, Britain ruled 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast. They would become the 13 original states^Q81. Five of them are New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland. The other eight were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and Georgia.