Relaxing Music | Terry Lee Nichols | River of Life

Beginning with the Vikings’ brief stint in Newfoundland circa 1000 A.D. and continued through England’s colonization of the Atlantic coast in the 17th century, which laid the foundation for the United States of America. The centuries following the European arrivals would see the culmination of this effort, as Americans pushed westward across the continent, enticed by the lure of riches, open land and a desire to fulfill the nation’s manifest destiny.

For nearly 150 years, beginning in the early seventeenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century, France claimed a major portion of North America extending in an arc from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to New Orleans. Working with Indians to exploit the fur trade, the French explored and mapped much of the continent’s interior east of the Rocky Mountains, focusing on the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and the lower Mississippi. Although the French lost this territory to the British following the French and Indian War in 1763, small, scattered French settlements persisted along these major water routes. ​

Source by Relaxing Music