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Major Events
Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
1558
English crush Irish uprising
1565-1590
Drake circumnavigates the globe
1577
Raleigh founds Roanoke colony
1585
England defeats Spanish Armada
1588
James I becomes king of England
1603
Spain and England sign peace treaty
1604
Virginia colony founded at Jamestown
1607
Rolfe perfects tobacco culture in Virginia
1612
First Anglo-Powhatan War ends
1614
First Africans arrive in Jamestown
1619
Virginia House of Burgesses established
1619
Virginia becomes a royal colony
1624
Maryland colony founded
1634
Large-scale slave-labor system established in English West Indies
1640s
Second Anglo-Powhatan War
1644
Act of Toleration in Maryland
1649
Charles I beheaded
1649
Cromwell rules England
1649
Charles II restored to English throne
1660
Barbados slave code adopted
1661
Carolina colony created
1670
Tuscarora War in North Carolina
1711-1713
North Carolina formally separates from South Carolina
1712
Yamasee War in South Carolina
1715-1716
Georgia colony founded
1733