<P> The Spanish established dominance over the Native American tribes in Florida but attracted few European settlers to the colony . They sponsored a series of missions led by Franciscan friars to create a buffer zone of loyal Native American subjects, but the colony frequently suffered raids from rival tribes . Encouraged by the apparent weakness of Spanish rule in Florida, Barbadian planter John Colleton and seven other supporters of Charles II of England established the Province of Carolina in 1663 . Though a previous royal charter for the colony had been granted, the lands south of Virginia were sparsely settled prior to the 1660s . Settlers in the Carolina Colony established two main population centers, with many Virginians settling in the north of the province and many English Barbadians settling in the southern port city of Charles Town . The Carolina Colony allied with the Yamassee Indians to conquer other Native Americans in conflicts such as the Tuscarora War, but eventually destroyed the Yamassee in the Yamasee War of 1715 - 1717 . </P> <P> Following the success of the Jamestown and Plymouth Colonies, several more English groups established colonies in the region that became known as New England . In 1629, another group of Puritans led by John Winthrop established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and created an economic and military alliance with the Narragansett tribe . By 1635, roughly ten thousand English settlers lived in the region between the Connecticut River and the Kennebec River . Between 1636 and 1638, the English settlers and their Native American allies fought the Pequot War against the Pequot tribe, which had played an important role in the fur trade . The English settlers prevailed in the war, destroying the Pequots as a polity and establishing their dominance over the remaining local tribes with the Treaty of Hartford . Puritan settlers established the Connecticut Colony in the region the Pequots had formerly controlled, and established an alliance with a group of former Pequots known as the Mohegan . Another group of settlers established the New Haven Colony to the west of the Connecticut Colony . </P> <P> In 1643, the five Puritan colonies founded the New England Confederation to provide for mutual defense against the Dutch and hostile Native Americans . Two other English colonies, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and Saybrook Colony, did not join the confederation, although Saybrook was incorporated into the Connecticut Colony in 1644 . Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, a Puritan leader who was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony after he advocated for a formal split with the Church of England . Rhode Island was granted an unprecedented parliamentary charter in 1644, and experienced tensions with its neighboring colonies . Aside from Rhode Island, the New England colonies developed a religious practice known as Congregationalism, with individual churches acting autonomously . As New England was a relatively cold and infertile region, the New England colonies relied on fishing and long - distance trade to sustain the economy . </P> <P> England sought to assert more centralized control of the New England colonies in the second half of the 17th century, but the expense of the war with the Dutch ensured only limited English control of the colonies, especially in the Massachusetts Bay Colony . In 1662, Charles II of England granted charters to Connecticut Colony and Rhode Island Colony . Connecticut's participation in the capture of New Netherland was rewarded with a generous western border set at the midpoint between the Connecticut and Hudson rivers, thus setting the western border of New England . Throughout New England, the colonists opposed Charles II's policies of religious toleration, which they feared would eventually lead to the establishment of a neo-feudal system in the New World . In the 1690s, as the New England colonies became increasingly fearful about threats from Catholics and Native Americans, the small New England town of Salem held a series of witch trials which resulted in the executions of twenty people . The trials were disbanded by royal governor William Phips in 1693 . </P>

Who founded colonies in the region between virginia and new england