How Did The Paleo-Indians Come To North America?

Early settlements in North America - prior to Columbus [generalization of what they were like]

According to the standard accepted theory, the Clovis people were the first inhabitants of the Americas. The Clovis people crossed the Beringia land bridge during the period of the last ice age, from there they spread across the Americas through an ice free-corridor. However, recent finding have suggested that the first people did not walk to America but came by boat. This paper will examine evidence found in Haida Gwaii and other sites along North and South America that supports a different view of human migration to the Americas, the coastal migration theory.

These nomads continued moving all the way to South America. By the time Europeans arrived in America, there were already at least forty to fifty million indigenous people inhabiting the land (Faber 4-5). Other explorers, from Norway, Greenland, and Iceland reached America centuries before Columbus (Faber ix). Although these people attempted to live in this new land, they didn’t stay long, and failed to create a lasting historical impact (Faber 20-26).

The Native Americans would offer the Europeans almost everything they had, which included fish and turkey to bread and the companionship of the chief’s daughter. The Europeans mistook the Native American’s generosity as evidence they were childlike. The old land in Columbus’ time was luscious and full of many different types of wildlife. Today that land is used and farmed down to provide food and tools for the Americans living here in the United States. “The land they left is different now. The white pines that towered over New England became masts for the Royal Navy's sailing ships. The redwoods that stretched from the Rockies to the Pacific exist in pockets smaller than the Indians' shrunken reservations. The hours long thunder of bison hooves no longer shakes Kansas or Nebraska, where only a few stretches of grassland remain on the prairie (pg. 6 Lord,

Agriculture, especially corn growing, was important for the size and sophistication of the Native Americans.

We have all heard the story of how America came to be, and how Native Americans were pushed out because of this. In regards to the west coast, the history is a bit different. There is evidence of natives living in California since from at least 17,000 BCE. Prior to contact with Europeans, the California region contained the highest native American population north of what is now Mexico. Because of the temperate climate and easy access to food sources, approximately one-third of all Native Americans in the United States were living in California.

Another important aspect to the success of the trip to California was the help from the Native Americans. When Smith and his men were going through great basin they were fighting starvation. The resources that kept them alive was given to them by the Paiute Indians. These resources included much needed food. Also, when Smith’s party was running out of supplies in

Anthropological theories concerning the peopling of North America is a topic that is widely debated. By far, Western scientists seem to agree that: “As a result of the vast amount of water that was locked up in glacial ice toward the end of the Pleistocene era, there was a worldwide drop in sea level of as much as 400 feet” (Sutton 19), creating a land link, known as the Beringia, between Asia and Alaska. Starting from this point about the land link, we find that Elias’s article “First Americans Lived on Bering Land Bridge for Thousands of Years,” is the most agreeable theory about the peopling of North America.

There were a large amount of Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. Before reading 1491 by Charles C. Mann, I believed that there were only a small amount of people in the Americas. According to Henry F. Dobyns, the “Western Hemisphere held 90 to 112 million people”, which was more than the amount of people living in Europe.

Before the Gold Rush of 1849, California was a sparsely populated, unimportant territory of the United States mostly inhabited by the people of Mexico. However, that all changed when on January 24, 1848; carpenter and small time sawmill operator James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River that would forever change the history of California and America1. Not only did the Gold Rush lead to California’s admittance into the Union in 1850, it also rekindled the idea of the American Dream. Hundred’s of thousands of people poured into the state by the lure of quick and infinite riches. As a result of the Gold Rush, California

How did contact between the European arrivals and the native peoples of the Americas affect both groups?

Before the missions came to exist the land which is today known as California has already been inhabited by Indigenous people for thousands of years. The land was their treasure and they celebrated in their everyday life while also using its resources. Once Europeans came in the picture the establishment of the missions began. One of these missions was the San Gabriel Arcángel mission. As they were introduced the indigenous people were brought to them with the goal being to Christianize and civilize them.

Indians arrived in America some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Archeological findings and Radiocarbon testing suggested that the prehistoric people who populated the Americas were hunters following the herds of wooly mammoths. They walked from Siberia across a land bridge into Alaska. They headed south toward warmer climates, slaughtering the mammoths as they went. As the glaciers melted, the oceans rose and covered this land bridge, creating the present-day Bering Strait and separating Alaska from Russia. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, they were millions of what might be called First Americans or Amerindians occupying the two continents of Americas. The first noted documentation of the Beringia theory of the peopling of North America was by Jose de

As the years went on, more and more Americans began moving to California. Sutter was enthused and saw them as opportunities to enhance his kingdom. Sutter had no idea that this was just a glimpse of the migration that was soon to come. Encouraged by the skill level of the new Americans, Sutter decided to become a mill and lumberman. Now, he just had to find the right location and a talented craftsman.

People were migrating to California for work because they did not have enough money for both food or rent. The poor people think the rich has it better than they do and they think they are at the bottom while everyone else is at the top. They are not able to buy clothes. “You gypsy workers can live on a buck a day”(Hunter ). The migrating workers swarmed to California for work. If the kids got hungry the government would hear about it they had very little to eat (Hunter).