Pre-Columbian Period

Native American Indians have been living in America long before the white man ever came here.  There were probably about 10 million Indians living in North America at the time the “white man” arrived.  The first Native Americans were believed to have arrived during the last ice-age.  Somewhere around 20,000-30,000 years ago and they came through a land-bridge across the Bering Sound, from northeastern Siberia into Alaska.  The name “Indian” was given by Christopher Columbus who believed mistakenly that the mainland and islands of America were part of the Indies in Asia.

New France, is a term that was used to refer to the area that the French colonized in the North America. Jacques Cartier, Samuel Champlain and other early explorers opened up new routes along St. Lawrence River to allow further exploration works into the North America territories. Champlain explored other places down to the Lake Champlain building up settling areas.

The English and French both developed colonies in the Americas with the purpose of expanding and growing their territory. The beginning of the England’s colonization in America started with James I and Charles I’s religious forces pushing for a civil war. The English were happy to ship Puritans and Catholics across the sea. So those who were unhappy at home, had the opportunity to go live in a new place that accepted their religious beliefs (Jones, 36). While the beginning of France’s colonization in America began in the 1600s, after France’s domestic situation improved, King Henry IV decided it was time to build colonies within the Americas. Both nations had difference in their ways of governing, developing relationships with Indians, and handling the demand for labor in the New World.

Native Americans were the first people to live in America before any other man came. It is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot on America, there were about 10 million Native Americans living in America, North of Mexico (“American”). Native Americans had all separated and made their own tribes. Some of the many Native American tribes that still exist are those of the Iroquoian tribes, consisting of five, now six,

The founding of Jamestown was brought about in June of 1606 when King James I, granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London. The Virginia Company of London was a joint stock company established during this time with the purpose of growing settlements in North America. This group of London entrepreneurs had hopes of profit in building a secure settlement on Jamestown Island, and with the help of three ships and 100 colonists, The London Company became the first English Settlers in North America.

Jamestown, Virginia was America’s first founded permanent English colony. It was founded on May 14, 1607 when the first English colonists arrived and discovered the land. The Virginia Company settlers landed on Jamestown looking to create a colony about 60 miles from the Chesapeake Bay. The settlement of Jamestown was one of the first cultural encounters that planted the seeds of what would eventually become the nation America is today .

The Virginia colony was founded by John Smith a english explorer and some other colonist in the year 1607. The colony was one of the first 13 colonies that was located on the atlantic coast of North america . The colony was named after Queen Elizabeth l. John Smith was also a solider, map maker and a trader. He was captured and taken in december of 1607 by a Powhatan hunting party. Later he was saved by chief powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas by coming in between him and a blow from her father.

New France was an established colony created by France along the St. Lawrence River.It was founded in 1534 by Jacques Cartier. In New France’s one hundred and fifty years as a french colony of British North America, no more than 10,000 people immigrated there. New France faced many difficulties, some being with the Aboriginals and later with the British. In 1663 New France became a legitimate province of France.

These people that we broadly categorize as Native Americans descended from a small band of men and women who had crossed the Bering Strait land bridge between Alaska and Siberia about 12,000 years ago. The bridge closed about a thousand years after their arrival, effectively barring anyone else from joining them. As a result, they effectively closed themselves out from the rest of the world for thousands of years. This gave them the chance to thoroughly “explore the entire continent” and learn how to properly cultivate the land around them, and also grow their population to 10s of millions (Resendez 139).

It was during the Paleo-Indian period when early nomads crossed into the Americas over 15,000 years ago. These were the "First People" to inhabit the Americas. They 'd first crossed into North America until eventually splitting off from other groups and eventually migrating south through Mexico into the Yucatán Peninsula of Mesoamerica.

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

Once the English colonists decided on a site for their settlement they quickly set to work, as Thomas Abby tells us, "Now falleth every man to worke, the Councell contrive the Fort, the rest cut downe trees to make place to pitch their Tents; some provide clapboard to relade the ships, some make gardens, some nets, &c. The Salvages often visited us kindly(Tyler, 123)."

In modern America, we often take for granted the natural world that surrounds us and the American culture which is built upon it. For many of us, we give little thought to the food sources that sustain and natural habitats that surround us because when viewed for what they are, most people assume that they have “simply existed” since the country was founded. However, the documentary ‘America Before Columbus’ provided this writer an extremely interesting record of how the America we know came to exist. In the documentary, one of the most interesting discussions centered on the fact that it was not merely the arrival of conquistadors and colonists that irrevocably changed the landscape of the Americas, but that it was also the coined term known as the “Columbian Exchange” that afforded these travelers the ability to proliferate so successfully. The basic definition of the Columbian exchange is one that defines the importation of European flora and fauna. It could also loosely represent other imports, both intended and unintended, such as tools, implements, and even disease. Armed with this definition, it takes little imagination to envision how differently the Americas might have developed had any significant amount of the native European flora, fauna, or other unintended import not been conveyed to the Americas through the Columbian Exchange. Beyond the arrival of explorers, settlers, and colonists to the New World, the breadth of what the Columbian Exchange represented to

Long before any white man ever set foot in this hemisphere, there were fully functional and highly developed societies here. These civilizations were sophisticated, could even be considered more advanced than the European nations at the time. While the rest of the Eastern world was in the dark Middle Ages, the people here were flourishing.