5. The English colonies in North America were born of religious persecution.
An Atlantic voyage was a perilous journey, fraught with dangers from rival nations, pirates, and the perils of the sea. Yet it was a journey taken willingly by those fleeing religious intolerance and persecution in the 1600s. The colonies which gained the English a toehold in North America were less successful financially for their backers than those of the Caribbean, but more attractive to settlers in search of land on which to build homes and farms. Eventually, thirteen English colonies emerged on the North American continent. Meanwhile, the slave trade provided labor to the colonists and profits to its practitioners. English forts were erected along the African coast to support the slave trade and protect the traders.