Moore's raids on the Spanish missions of Apalachee in 1704 were the most destructive English colonial military action in the Southeast. Moore destroyed 13 of 14 Spanish missions and killed or enslaved the entire Apalachee population — some 2,700 people. The raids eliminated the Spanish-allied mission system that had been the economic foundation of Florida, reducing Spanish Florida to little more than St. Augustine and its immediate vicinity.
European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.
~1,400 Apalachee killed; ~1,300 enslaved
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