British America

At the end of the 16th century, Spain was the dominant power in Europe, but England did not hesitate to challenge the Spanish in North America. Sir Walter Raleigh called the large, vaguely defined area of the east coast of the American Continent, Virginia, after Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin queen.

Raleigh sent over two colonies that settled Roanoke Island on the east coast of what became North Carolina. The first stayed one year (1585-86), and a second mysteriously disappeared without a trace, the fate of the inhabitants un-known, and today simply referred to as the“lost colony.”

In 1606, James I of England gave charters to Virginia Company of London and Virginia Company of Plymouth to settle the entire east coast of the North American continent. A year later, 105 male adventurers brought by three small ships, theSusan Constant, theGodspeed and theDiscovery, after an arduous four month voyage, landed on the coast of Virginia atCape Henry. The ships moved up the river which they named for James I, and establishedJamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. By the end of the seventeenth century, English colonies occupied the entire seaboard from Georgia to upper New York.

To remove England as a rival, Phillip II of Spain launched the Great Armada in 1688, but the combination of hardy English seamanship under Sir Francis Drake and devastating weather doomed the Spanish invasion. This would mark the nadir of Spanish naval power, vault England into the preeminent power on the seas, and pave the way for expansion of the British empire in North America.

Clash of Empires

After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the English controlled the eastern seaboard from Georgia to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with the Appalachian Range as the western boundary. A large area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River remained in dispute. France retained the province of Quebec. It also kept Louisiane, a large slice of territory in the middle of America which became known as theLouisiana Territory.

A cross north of Virginia Beach marks the site where the James-town settlers first came ashore at Cape Henry on April 26, 1607. From this site can be seen the Chesapeake Bay where Admiral de Grasse blocked the English fleet from Yorktown.