The New World

Although Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean in 1492 and although John Cabot (for the English) landed on Newfoundland in eastern Canada in 1497, the English concern with the New World and the beginning of English settlement there did not start in earnest until around 1600. Sir Humphrey Gilbert reinforced the English claim to eastern Canada by travelling to Newfoundland in 1583, English settlements arose along the eastern coast of what was later to become the United States, e.g. at Jamestown in Virginia in 1607. Finally the English established a bridgehead in the Caribbean with the settlement of Barbados in the south-east of this region in 1627.

The 17th century brought a considerable expansion of the English presence in the New World, often to the detriment of claims by other European powers, e.g. England took Jamaica from the Spanish in 1660 and obtained New York (then New Amsterdam) from the Dutch in 1664. They furthermore competed with the French for hegemony in Canada throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

The original settlement of the United States was motivated by the flight from religious persecution, perceived or real, in the early 17th century by the Puritans in New England and in the 18th century by the Scots and Ulster Scots Presbyterians who settled in Pennsylvania and the lower Appalachian area, somewhat inland from the south-east coast of America. Later emigration, i.e. after the 18th century, was motivated by economic necessity as with the large exodus of southern Irish who went to the United States in the second half of the 19th century.