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What you have to do first is read through the Treaty of London (1604).

That's where the Roman Catholic King of North America (and a bunch of other stuff) divided the continent among various parties for settlement.

He, not the English, set aside a rather drought ridden, desolate, almost abandoned piece of territory called Virginia, to Protestants!

Catholics got the rest of the place ~ at the time he carved out Acadia for Scotland he had hopes for a Catholic King.

Even today it's not exactly clear how the English came to think of Virginia as THEIRS ~ so you'll have to read a lot more of that treaty.

BTW, the TREATY was crammed down the other powers throats. It was called Treaty of London since that is where the King of Spain thought a good place to meet to decide such matters ~ there were cartographers, expert explorers, etc.

The King of Spain specifically prohibited the Dutch from benefitting from all of this and set rules of reciprocal religious toleration for both Catholics and Protestants.

ANYWAY, history always marches on so by 1624, just before the blow up known as the Thirty Years War, there was a Protestant Dutch colony at New York, a Catholic Dutch colony at New Jersey (which seems to have started out long before the Spanish evacuated the region). The English had several settlements in diverse place. By 1638 there was also a Swedish colony in SE PA and Central Maryland.(relocated from Delaware)

All through the period of early settlement ~ for about a century and a half, King Philippe III's rules prevailed in both Catholic and Protestant territories in the Americas. IN Europe the final settlement of the 30 years war led to a different sort of toleration. But, America was huge, wild and wonderful so much of this really didn't matter.

To a degree the Spanish decree that all of North America be Catholic except that part set aside for Virginia prevailed right down to the very end when their own colonies sought independence. Still, when Mexico succeeded Spain, they kept that rule on Texas ~ you had to be Catholic to live in Texas ~ else you had the 3 month visitation rule.

Now, think of the problem the English, Swedish, Dutch and others had with the situation in America. The whole place was Catholic except a very small part reserved for them by the King of Spain. Worse, they held it under the stipulations established by the king ~ and that included a period of reciprocity due Catholic merchants, etc. Anyone else was excluded according to the rule set by the KIng of Spain.

Which means that the English, et al, probably didn't think all that much about it! Nor did the Catholics consider it all that terribly important either. They were free to go to zones set aside by the kIng of spain ~ e.g. to Canada, to Acadia, to New Spain ~ ...... ~ it's all in that Treaty the King of Spain imposed on America when he carved it up to facilitate development.