The first Europeans began to settle in the Northeast in the 1600s. They saw America as a wilderness full of unknown people and scary creatures.
What would make someone leave home and travel to such a strange place? Some people, such as English Puritans and Quakers, came for religious freedom because they were forbidden to worship as they chose in Europe.
Others hoped to find land to farm, and some wanted to make money from natural resources. English settlers in the Northeast founded eight colonies, or settlements ruled by a faraway government. The colonists bought land or took it by force from the Native Americans who were already living there.
