Indian, American. The people now known as Indians or Native Americans were the first people to live in the Americas. They had been living there for thousands of years before any Europeans arrived.
The Vikings are believed to have explored the east coast of North America about 1000 and to have had some contact with Indians. But lasting contact between Indians and Europeans began with Christopher Columbus's voyages to the Americas. In 1492, Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain. He was seeking a short sea route to the Indies, which then included India, China, the East Indies, and Japan. Europeans did not then know that North and South America existed. When Columbus landed in what is now known as the West Indies, he did not realize he had come to a New World. He thought he had reached the Indies, and so he called the people he met Indians.
Almost every Indian group had its own name. Many of these names reflected the pride of each group in itself and its way of life. For example, the Delaware Indians of eastern North America called themselves Lenape, which means genuine people. Today, many Indians refer to themselves as Native Americans.
No people lived in the Americas before the Indians arrived. Most scientists think the first Indians came to the Americas from Asia at least 15,000 years ago. Other scientists believe the Indians may have arrived as early as 35,000 years ago. At the time the Indians came, huge ice sheets covered much of the northern half of the earth. As a result, much of the earth that is now underwater was dry land. One such area that was dry then but is submerged now is the Bering Strait, which today separates Asia and North America. The Indians, following the animals that they hunted, wandered across this land, a distance of about 50 miles (80 kilometers). By 12,500 years ago, Indians had spread throughout the New World and were living from the Arctic in the north all the way to southern South America.
The Indians spoke hundreds of different languages and had many different ways of life. Some groups lived in great cities and others in small villages. Still others kept moving all year long, hunting animals and gathering wild plants.
The Aztec and the Maya of Central America built large cities. Some of the Aztec cities had as many as 100,000 people. The Maya built special buildings in which they studied the moon, the stars, and the sun. They also developed a calendar and a system of writing.
Many of the Indians of eastern North America lived in villages. They hunted and farmed, growing such crops as maize (corn), beans, and squash. At the southern tip of South America, the Indians lived in small bands that moved from place to place in search of food. They ate mainly fish and berries. These Indians spent so much time searching for food that they seldom built permanent shelters, made clothes, or developed tools.
The history of the New World includes the story of relations between the Indians and the European explorers, trappers, and settlers. Most of the Indians were friendly at first and taught the newcomers many things. The European explorers followed Indian trails to sources of water and deposits of copper, gold, silver, turquoise, and other minerals. The Indians taught them to make snowshoes and toboggans and to travel by canoe. Food was another of the Indians' important gifts. The Indians grew many foods that the newcomers had never heard of, such as avocados, corn, peanuts, peppers, pineapples, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes. They also introduced the whites to tobacco.
The Indians, in turn, learned much from the whites. The Europeans brought many goods that were new to the Indians. These goods included metal tools, guns, and liquor. The Europeans also brought cattle and horses, which were unknown to the Indians.
The Europeans and the Indians had widely different ways of life. Some Europeans tried to understand the Indians' ways and treated them fairly. But others cheated the Indians and took their land. When the Indians fought back, thousands of them were killed in battle. At first, they had only bows and arrows and spears, but the Europeans had guns. Even more Indians died from measles, smallpox, and other new diseases introduced by the whites.
As the Europeans moved westward across North America, they became a greater and greater threat to the Indian way of life. Finally, most of the remaining Indians were moved onto reservations. Today, most Indians in North America still do not completely follow the ways of white people. In some areas of Central and South America, several tribes have kept their language and way of life. But most of the tribes have become part of a new way of life that is both Indian and European.
Scholars called anthropologists, who study human culture, classify the hundreds of North and South American Indian tribes into groups of tribes with strong similarities. These groups are called cultural areas. This article discusses Indians in terms of 15 cultural areas. The cultural areas of Canada and the United States are (1) the Arctic; (2) the Subarctic; (3) the Northeast, often called the Eastern Woodlands; (4) the Southeast; (5) the Plains; (6) the Northwest Coast; (7) California; (8) the Great Basin; (9) the Plateau; and (10) the Southwest. Those of Latin America are (1) Middle America, (2) the Caribbean, (3) the Andes, (4) the Tropical Forest, and (5) the South American Marginal Regions.
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