- The Dutch colony of New Netherlands was established in the Hudson River valley in the 1600s and was run autocratically by the Dutch West India Company for profit, with little religious freedom or democracy. It was renamed New York after being captured by the English in 1664.
- William Penn received a land grant from the King of England in 1681 to establish the colony of Pennsylvania as a place for Quakers to settle, with policies of religious tolerance, representative government, and free or cheap land. It became a haven for many immigrant groups.
- The Carolinas were initially settled by English colonists from the West Indies in the late 1600s. The economy relied heavily on the slave labor of Africans to grow