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The Earliest Americans on Record

The corpus in order of birth, from the colonial period forward.

60 people

#	Person	Year
1	Powhatan 1547–1618 Paramount chief whose confederacy confronted the first permanent English colony at Jamestown.	1547
2	John Winthrop 1588–1649 Long-serving Massachusetts Bay governor whose vision of a covenant community influenced New England political culture.	1588
3	Anne Hutchinson 1591–1643 Religious dissenter whose trial and banishment exposed tensions over authority, gender, and conscience in Puritan New England.	1591
4	Pocahontas 1596–1617 Powhatan woman whose life and later myth became central to American narratives of early colonization.	1596
5	Roger Williams 1603–1683 Founder of Rhode Island and early advocate of religious liberty and separation of church and state.	1603
6	Metacom 1638–1676 Wampanoag leader whose war against New England colonies marked a decisive struggle over Indigenous sovereignty.	1638
7	William Penn 1644–1718 Founder of Pennsylvania who advanced representative government and religious toleration in colonial America.	1644
8	Cotton Mather 1663–1728 Puritan minister who wrote the official defense of the Salem witch court and later campaigned for smallpox inoculation.	1663
9	Zabdiel Boylston 1679–1766 The first physician to perform smallpox inoculation in North America	1679
10	Jonathan Edwards 1703–1758 Theologian and preacher whose role in the Great Awakening shaped American evangelical religion.	1703
11	Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790 Polymath who invented the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among many other creations.	1706
12	Roger Sherman 1721–1793 Only person to sign all four founding documents and author of the compromise that produced the Senate.	1721
13	Samuel Adams 1722–1803 Revolutionary organizer who helped mobilize resistance to British rule and build support for independence.	1722
14	George Mason 1725–1792 Founding-era statesman whose Virginia Declaration of Rights helped inspire the Bill of Rights.	1725
15	Benjamin Banneker 1731–1806 Free Black astronomer and almanac author who helped survey the federal district and challenged Jefferson on race.	1731
16	Martha Washington 1731–1802 First First Lady who defined the role and spent every wartime winter in the Continental Army's camps.	1731
17	Richard Henry Lee 1732–1794 Virginia delegate whose June 1776 resolution formally moved that the colonies be independent states.	1732
18	George Washington 1732–1799 First President of the United States and commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.	1732
19	Daniel Boone 1734–1820 Frontiersman who blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.	1734
20	John Adams 1735–1826 Second President and key Founding Father who helped secure independence and shaped early American diplomacy.	1735
21	Paul Revere 1735–1818 Silversmith and engraver whose Boston Massacre print and 1775 ride carried Revolutionary messaging.	1735
22	Patrick Henry 1736–1799 Revolutionary orator and Virginia leader remembered for mobilizing resistance and opposing centralized federal power.	1736
23	John Hancock 1737–1793 Merchant who presided over the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration first and largest.	1737
24	Thomas Paine 1737–1809 Pamphleteer whose Common Sense and Crisis essays mobilized American public opinion for independence.	1737
25	Benedict Arnold 1741–1801 Continental Army general whose plot to surrender West Point made his name the American synonym for treason.	1741
26	Nathanael Greene 1742–1786 Continental Army general whose Southern Campaign strategy helped exhaust British forces and secure American independence.	1742
27	Thomas Jefferson 1743–1826 Principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third President who oversaw the Louisiana Purchase.	1743
28	Abigail Adams 1744–1818 Correspondent and presidential spouse whose letters urged legal consideration for women in the new republic.	1744
29	John Jay 1745–1829 Founding Father, diplomat, Federalist Papers co-author, and first chief justice who helped construct the early republic.	1745
30	Robert R. Livingston 1746–1813 Chancellor of New York who administered Washington's oath and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase.	1746
31	John Paul Jones 1747–1792 Continental Navy captain whose Revolutionary War victories established early American naval tradition.	1747
32	James Madison 1751–1836 Fourth President and Father of the Constitution who co-authored the Federalist Papers.	1751
33	Betsy Ross 1752–1836 Philadelphia upholsterer traditionally credited with sewing the first American flag.	1752
34	Nathan Hale 1755–1776 Continental Army officer hanged as a spy at 21 whose scaffold line became Revolutionary legend.	1755
35	Alexander Hamilton 1755–1804 Founding Father who established the nation's financial system and co-authored the Federalist Papers.	1755
36	John Marshall 1755–1835 Chief justice who established judicial review and strengthened the Supreme Court and federal government.	1755
37	Aaron Burr 1756–1836 Third vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was later tried for treason.	1756
38	James Monroe 1758–1831 Fifth president associated with the Monroe Doctrine and an era of territorial expansion and one-party dominance.	1758
39	Noah Webster 1758–1843 Lexicographer whose spellers and American dictionary standardized United States spelling and schoolroom instruction.	1758
40	John Jacob Astor 1763–1848 America's first multimillionaire, made in furs, the China trade and Manhattan land	1763
41	Robert Fulton 1765–1815 Engineer and inventor whose steamboat Clermont revolutionized American river transportation.	1765
42	James Smithson 1765–1829 British scientist whose bequest founded the Smithsonian Institution, America's museum complex.	1765
43	Eli Whitney 1765–1825 Inventor of the cotton gin, which revolutionized Southern agriculture and had profound economic impacts.	1765
44	John Quincy Adams 1767–1848 Diplomat, sixth president, and later congressman who opposed slavery’s expansion and shaped early American foreign policy.	1767
45	Black Hawk 1767–1838 Sauk leader whose 1832 resistance to removal from Illinois lands became the Black Hawk War.	1767
46	Andrew Jackson 1767–1845 Seventh President whose populist policies and Indian Removal Act left a deeply contested legacy.	1767
47	Denmark Vesey 1767–1822 Free Black carpenter executed for organizing a large planned slave revolt in Charleston.	1767
48	Dolley Madison 1768–1849 First Lady who built the political salon of early Washington and saved the Washington portrait in 1814.	1768
49	Tecumseh 1768–1813 Shawnee leader who sought a broad Indigenous confederacy to resist U.S. territorial expansion.	1768
50	William Clark 1770–1838 Co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and later Superintendent of Indian Affairs.	1770
51	Sequoyah 1770–1843 Cherokee scholar who created the Cherokee syllabary, enabling mass literacy and strengthening Cherokee political and cultural life.	1770
52	William Henry Harrison 1773–1841 Whig general elected ninth president who died one month into his term.	1773
53	Sally Hemings 1773–1835 Enslaved woman at Monticello who bore children by Thomas Jefferson and negotiated their freedom in France.	1773
54	Meriwether Lewis 1774–1809 Co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which mapped the American West to the Pacific Ocean.	1774
55	Henry Clay 1777–1852 Senator and statesman known as the Great Compromiser for his role in preserving the Union.	1777
56	Roger B. Taney 1777–1864 Chief justice whose Court shaped federalism but is principally remembered for the disastrous Dred Scott decision.	1777
57	Zebulon Pike 1779–1813 Army officer who led expeditions to the Southwest and after whom Pikes Peak is named.	1779
58	Joseph Story 1779–1845 Early Supreme Court justice and legal scholar whose treatises and opinions strengthened federal judicial authority.	1779
59	John C. Calhoun 1782–1850 Vice president and theorist of slavery and states’ rights whose doctrines intensified sectional conflict.	1782
60	Martin Van Buren 1782–1862 Eighth president who helped build the Democratic Party machine and governed through the Panic of 1837.	1782