Early America

The most recent Ice Age was about 35,000 years ago. Much of the world’s water was frozen into big sheets of ice. A land bridge-as wide as 1,500 kilometers-joined Asia and North America. By 12,000 years ago, humans lived throughout much of what now are the Americas.

The first “Americans” crossed the land bridge from Asia. Historians believe that they lived in what now is Alaska for thousands of years. They moved south into today’s mainland United States. They lived by the Pacific Ocean in the Northwest, in the mountains and deserts of the Southwest, and along the Mississippi River in the Midwest.

These early groups are known as Hohokam, Adenans, Hopewellians, and Anasazi. They built villages and grew crops. Their lives were connected to the land. Family and community were important to them. History shows they told stories and shared information mostly by talking, not writing. Some used a form of picture writing called hieroglyphics. Nature was important to their spiritual beliefs. Some groups built big piles of earth in the shapes of snakes, birds, or pyramids. The different groups traded with each other, but they also fought.

No one knows why, but these groups disappeared. Other groups, Hopi and Zuni, later came to this land and prospered. By the time the first Europeans arrived, about two million native people lived in what now is the United States.

Historians believe that the Norse may have been the first Europeans to arrive. They came from Greenland, where Erik the Red had started a settlement around 985. In 1001, Erik’s son, Leif, explored the northeast coast of what now is Canada. Remaining pieces of Norse houses were found in northern Newfoundland.

It took almost 500 years for other Europeans to reach North America, and another 100 for them to build permanent settlements. The first explorers did not know about America. They were looking for a way to go to Asia from Europe by sea. Other Europeans who arrived later-mostly Spanish and Portuguese, but also Dutch, French, and British-came for land and the riches of the “New World.”

The most famous explorer was Christopher Columbus. He was Italian, but Queen Isabella of Spain paid for his trips. Columbus landed on islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1492. He never reached what is now the United States.

In 1497, John Cabot, an explorer sailing for England, landed in eastern Canada. His arrival established a British claim to land in North America.

During the 1500s, Spain explored and claimed more land in the Americas than did any other country. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Léon landed in Florida. Hernando De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 and then explored all the way to the Mississippi River.

Spain conquered Mexico in 1522. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado wanted to find the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. He started looking in Mexico and then traveled north to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and into the Great Plains.

Other Europeans, such as Giovanni da Verrazano, Jacques Cartier, and Amerigo Vespucci, explored further north. The two American continents were named after Amerigo Vespucci.

The first permanent European settlement in North America was Spanish. It was built in St. Augustine in Florida. Thirteen British colonies to the north would later form the United States. Virginia and Massachusetts were the two earliest.

It wasn’t just explorers who settled in the New World. People started to come to the New World to live. These people were immigrants from Europe.