In 1705, the Virginia General Assembly enacted a slave code which illustrated the transition between indentured servitude and slavery. Meanwhile, in New York, a slave rebellion encouraged governments across British North America to adopt similar measures.

A dispute over claims to the Spanish Crown leads to war between the Spanish, French, and British settlers in North America. The British capture French positions in Canada, but the war heavily taxes the resources of New England and presages the coming conflict in the 1750s, the French and Indian War.

As the story of the American Founding advances to the 18th Century, we look back on the 17th Century, the settlement of the Eastern Seaboard, and the social and political trends leading to the century of revolution and independence.

James II ascended to the throne in England in 1685 and consolidated much of the northern English settlements in the future United States into the Dominion of New England, which was met with intense and directed resistance by New Englanders themselves.

To clear a debt to William Penn's family, King Charles II granted him land between Maryland and New York which became the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware after struggling in their early years to form an effectual government and guarantee religious freedom.

After farmers on Virginia's western frontier were drawn into conflict with Native Americans in 1675, a young leader named Nathaniel Bacon rose to lead rebels against Sir William Berkeley and the Virginia government, and, at least for a few months, controlled the Commonwealth, fundamentally transforming it politically and economically.

After the uncooperative and at times openly hostile administrations of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay accused him of planning war, Metacom (Philip), leader of the Wampanoag, ignited an effort of native resistance against the English that drove them from the frontier for almost half a century, yet ended in defeat for the Native Americans.

After the Restoration of the monarchy, Charles II granted land south of Virginia to eight of his closest supporters who clashed with settlers to achieve their goal of establishing a utopian, constitutional government in the newly-named Carolinas. 

After the defeat of King Charles I in the English Civil War, many of his supporters, nicknamed "Cavaliers," fled to Virginia and helped to lay the groundwork for the important societal transformations which would occur there in the 1670s.

After his father George Calvert successfully campaigned for a charter to found a free Catholic settlement in North America, Cecil Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore, led a group of increasingly diverse and diligent settlers to land north of the Potomac River, eventually enacting the famous Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 to allay conflict.