Half a century of conflict between Britain and France over North America culminated in the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years’ War in Europe. Unlike the three previous Anglo-French wars, which were outgrowths of European conflicts, this one began with colonial initiatives. Fur traders and Virginia planters were interested in exploiting and developing the Ohio River valley region. The French, determined to secure the territory against encroaching British and American traders and land speculators, built a chain of forts along...

The yearly Meeting of Pennsylvania Quakers banned its members from participating in the slave trade.

The Dutch West India Company was formed in 1621 with a charter to establish colonies in North America in part to prevent the growth of rival empires. The company’s director, Peter Minuit, negotiated the acquisition of Manhattan from the Manhate Indians in 1626. Though it had essentially been granted a monopoly on trade with the Americas, the company’s attempts at attracting Dutch settlers were largly unsuccessful. The company also took part in the slave trade, moving slaves from the west coast of Africa to the West Indies and South America...

Established in seventeenth-century England, the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, was a Christian Protesant sect. Persecuted in both England and early colonial America, Quakers found a home in William Penn’s Pennsylvania, which supported Quaker adherance to pacificism, religious tolerance, and the equality of men and women. Quakers were also instrumental leaders of the abolitionist movement in colonial America and the founding era.