When was the country we now know as the United States first settled? If we forget the lesson of the last chapter for the moment - that Native Americans settled - the best answer might be 1526. In the summer of that year, five hundred Spaniards and one hundred black slaves founded a town near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in present-day South Carolina. Disease and disputes with nearby Indians caused many deaths in the early months of the settlement. In November, the slaves rebelled, killed some of their masters, and escaped to the Indians. By then only 150 Spaniards survived; they retreated to Haiti. The ex-slaves remained behind and probably merged with nearby Indian nations.
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