lina and Newfoundland and Narvaez made his disastrous expedition to Florida. Ferdinand de Soto in 1539-42 led a Spanish expedition from the coast of Florida westward, discovering the Mississippi River (April, 1541). Simultaneously with this expedition, Coronado's men explored a great part of what is now the Southwestern United States. A Spanish settlement was made at Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1565; and in 1584-85 Sir Walter Ralegh (q.v.) sent two expeditions to the coast of North Carolina, and attempted to form a settlement on Roanoke Island. None of the settlements attempted during the sixteenth century, however, except Saint Augustine, had any permanence; and it was not until the seventeenth century that the Europeans, and especially the English, devoted their enterprises to colonization rather than to exploration. King James in 1606 granted a charter to a large colonizing corporation which comprised two companies, the London Company, which received certain rights between 34° and 41° north latitude, and the Plymouth Company, which received certain rights between 38° and 45°. The London Company in 1607 founded Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement within the limits of the present United States. Here in 1619 a representative assembly was called, the first in the New World. In 1607, also, two members of the Plymouth Company, Sir Ferdinand Gorges and Sir John Popham, sent out an expedition to the Kennebec, where the settlers experienced a severe winter, and in 1608 abandoned the undertaking. In 1620 certain dissenters who had secured a grant from the London Company landed by mistake farther northward and settled Plymouth. Between these two colonies the Dutch had already established themselves (1613) at New Amsterdam. Quebec was settled in 1608, and a large part of the country on the Great Lakes and on the Mississippi was explored by Nicolet (1634), by Marquette and Joliet (1673), and by La Salle (1682), and settlements were early made by the French at the outposts of Kaskaskia and Arkansas Post, and at Mobile and Vincennes. Thus the beginnings were made of two distinct movements of the incoming population, in the course of one of which the English were to occupy practically the entire Atlantic seaboard of the present United States, excluding Florida, while in the course of the other the French were to establish themselves at strategic points on the two great waterways. The colonizing work of the French was such as to make conspicuous the trading post, the military element, and the bureaucratic class, and to minimize the features of public development, of local political life, and of permanence in method and purpose. The English, on the other hand, brought with them their school, their Church, and their political forms, and founded colonies on lines which were adhered to throughout their later development. (The early history of the various colonies, the union of which formed the United States, will be found under the heads of the different States.) In some of the colonies representative governments were maintained, in which all officers, both executive and judicial, as well as the entire legislature, were chosen by the people. On the other hand, in the royal provinces, such as Virginia and New York, the chief judicial and executive officers, as well as members of the upper branch of the legislature, were appointees of the Crown, the general population sharing in the provincial government only through the choice of the members of the legislature. This distribution of privilege characterized also the proprietary provinces, such as Maryland, in which, however, appointments were made by the proprietors instead of by the Crown. Thus in the royal and proprietary provinces the ultimate authority was outside of the province, while in charter provinces all authority apparently was within each province, and there was in the scheme by which these provinces were organized no effective means of subordinating their political actions to the power of the central administration except through the alteration or abolition of their charters.
During the colonial period there were several instances of the tendency of the colonies, having very similar institutions and ideals, to act jointly as a confederate body. The first effort at a union of colonies was in 1643, when Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed, under the title of ‘The United Colonies of New England,’ a confederacy, which existed for nearly forty years, for mutual defense against the French, Dutch, and Indians. They also experienced the benefit of united action during the early Indian wars, and again in 1754, the year of the opening of the French and Indian War (q.v.). At that time also, the colonies being strongly advised by the Lords of Trade to unite for general defense, a formal plan for a permanent general government of all the English colonies was drawn up by Benjamin Franklin (q.v.) and presented at the Albany Convention (q.v.); but it was rejected by both the colonies and the Crown.
Although the several colonies were at no time organically connected, except through the King, the basis for union was early laid in the establishment of local governments in which the controlling principles were similar. There appeared also a substantial identity in forms and in practices of local government. This made it natural that occasionally during the colonial period there should appear marked tendencies toward union. In some respects, however, different types of population distinguished the several portions of settled territory, a fact due in some measure to the various classes of people in England from which the immigrants came. Thus during the period between 1620 and 1640 large numbers of dissenters withdrew from England, and the settlements in the north increased in number and population, the main colony of Massachusetts Bay being established in 1628-30, and numerous towns in the neighboring district being soon founded, while settlements were made (1635-36) at Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, the three towns which originally constituted the colony of Connecticut, and for the administration of which was adopted in 1639 the first written constitution of representative government. In 1638 the colony of New Haven was established. In this period also the same body of population extended northward into what became New Hampshire, as well as into the northeastern portion of Massachusetts. On the other hand, a representative of the aristocratic class founded the colony of Maryland in 1634. During the period of the Commonwealth in England most
