This document provides an overview of the geography, history of exploration and settlement, interactions between European settlers and Native Americans, and patterns of life in the English colonies of North America. It describes the major physical regions of the United States and climate variations. Europeans explored North America seeking wealth, trade routes, and religious freedom in the 16th-17th centuries. Contact introduced diseases that devastated Native populations. Relations between colonists and tribes varied widely. The Southern colonies relied on plantation agriculture and indentured then slave labor while the North and Middle colonies had smaller family farms. Port cities were economic hubs and taverns served similar functions inland.