Spain

• The Spanish were the first European nation to colonize the eastern United States. Spanish exploration of the New World began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed on San Salvador Island in the modern-day Caribbean Sea. The first Spanish explorer to reach the what we now call the United States was Ponce de Leon, who explored Florida in 1513 and 1521. Lucas Vasquez de Allyon was the first Spaniard to reach the future sites of the Georgia and South Carolina colonies. In 1566, the Spanish established Santa Elena, located in modern-day Parris Island, South Carolina, as the capital of Spanish Florida. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish built Catholic churches, called missions, throughout Georgia and South Carolina.
  
  

English

• The European power responsible for developing the 13 colonies was England. One of the first English attempts at an American colony was on Roanoke Island in what would later become North Carolina. This colonization attempt was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584. However, the colony disappeared in 1590. In 1607, a group of English settlers, led by Captain John Smith, created the Jamestown colony in what we now know as Virginia. During the 18th century, the English wrestled away land from the French, Dutch and Spanish to form the 13 colonies. The English reigned over the 13 colonies until the end of the American Revolutionary War.
  
  

Dutch

• In the early 17th century the Netherlands, sent the Dutch East India Company to colonize uncontrolled areas of the Americas for the fur trading industry. The Dutch discovered and claimed much of modern-day New England, New York and New Jersey. New Netherlands was the name of the Dutch colony; New Amsterdam, the colony's capital, was built on Manhattan Island. While the colony was a commercial venture initially, New Netherlands developed into a civilian colony over the course of the 17th century. The end of the Dutch colony came in 1684, when the English won the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
  
  

France

• France the only major European power never to colonize in the 13 colonies region. Jacques Cartier was the first French explorer to reach the New World in the 1530s. However, the French were unable to permanently colonize the Americas until the mid-17th century. France's primary colony was New France, which would eventually become Quebec, Canada. However, the French were able to seize control of the entire Mississippi Valley in the late 17th century, thanks to the efforts of French explorer, Sieur de La Salle. After the French and Indian War in the 1750s, the English conquered Quebec and forced many of the French to move to modern-day Louisiana, where they developed the Cajun French culture.