1608 – Several Germans were among the settlers at Jamestown.

1626 – Peter Minuit, a German, came to New Amsterdam to serve as the governor of the Dutch colony, New Netherlands. Later he governed the Swedish colony in Delaware.

1683 – Thirteen families of German Mennonites seeking religious freedom arrived in Pennsylvania; led by Franz Pastorius, they purchased 43,000 acres of land and founded Germantown, six miles north of Philadelphia.