This course will take students through the formative years of our continent, beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese explorations of the New World, leading up through the settlements of Jamestown, Plymouth, and the Jesuit missions in New France, and culminating in the great war for the continent waged between France and Britain from 1755 to 1763, setting the stage for the American War of Independence one decade later, highlighting specifically the contributions made by Catholics in the settlement of North America.