The French were soon joined by Basques, Dutch and, by the early 17th century, by the English.  The Europeans traded with Natives for fur (especially beaver), fished, and gathered plants like sassafras, thought to be a cure for syphilis.

Between 1615 and 1618, a European disease (smallpox or yellow fever) for which the Native population had no immunity swept the coast. Many of the people who lived between Penobscot Bay (in present-day Maine) to the east side of Narragansett Bay (in present-day Rhode Island) died. Not all Native communities were affected : the Narragansett in what is now Rhode Island remained strong and began to demand tributes from the weakened Wampanoag bands.  Before the plague, the village of Patuxet (which became Plymouth) had a population of about 2000.  The village was depopulated from sickness.  Those who survived left to join other communities.

He [Samoset] told us the place where we now live is called Patuxet and that about four years ago all the inhabitants died of an extraordinary plague...  These people are ill affected towards the English, by reason of one Hunt, a master of a ship, who deceived the people, and got them under color of trucking [trading] with them, twenty out of this very place where we inhabit, and seven from the Nausets, and carried them away, and sold them for slaves...
Mourt's Relation 

Tisquantum (Squanto), a native of Patuxet,  was one of twenty people kidnapped by Thomas Hunt in 1614. After several years of being used as an interpreter by the English, Squanto returned to his homeland with explorer Thomas Dermer in 1619.  On his return, he found that Patuxet had been devastated by illness and the site deserted.

It was a short step from exploration to colonization.  Economic reasons were important in colonizing the Americas.  England faced stiff competition in international trade from Holland, Spain and France.  Colonies would provide England with her own spices, medicines and dyes, rather than trading for them.  Colonies would also be markets for English goods.

The English were moving into a region where Native Peoples already lived.  Seventeenth-century Europeans believed that their colonizing effort was justified because, unlike the Native, they were "improving" the land, in European ways of intensive farming and permanent villages.  The Europeans also believed that their colonizing effort was justified by the introduction of Christian religion.  The English were in competition with Catholic Spain and wanted to secure America for the Protestant faith.