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The colonial period
Outline of America History
The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a floodtide of newcomers numbered in the millions. Impelled by powerful and diverse motivations, they built a new civilization on a once savage continent.
The first English immigrants to what is now the United States crossed the Atlantic long after thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. Like all early travelers to the New World, they came in small, overcrowded ships. During their six- to 12-week voyages they lived on meager rations. Many of them died of disease; ships were often battered by storms, and some were lost at sea.