• From area now called Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Norway)  
• Also called Norsemen, they were skilled sailors and shipbuilders.  
• Traders, and sometimes raiders of the European coast  
• Eric the Red and Leif Ericson (Leif “the Lucky”)  
• Earliest Europeans (long before Columbus) we know of to come to North America  
• Locate: Greenland, Canada, Newfoundland

The Earliest Americans

CROSSING FROM ASIA TO NORTH AMERICA

• During the Ice Age, nomadic hunters cross from Asia to North America (now the Bering Strait). (Crossing a land bridge is just one of many theories.) Different peoples, with different languages and ways of life, eventually spread out over the North and South American continents.
• These early peoples include: Inuits (Eskimos) Anasazi, pueblo builders and cliff dwellers
• Mound builders

The Earliest Americans

NATIVE AMERICANS

In the Southwest

• Pueblos (Hopi, Zuni)
• Dine (Navajo)
• Apaches

The Earliest Americans

NATIVE AMERICANS

Eastern “Woodland” Indians

• Woodland culture: wigwams, longhouses, farming, peace pipe, Shaman and Sachem
• Major tribes and nations (such as Powhatan, Delaware, Susquehanna, Mohican, Massachusett, Iroquois Confederacy)

The Earliest Americans

NATIVE AMERICANS

In the Southeast

• Cherokee
• Seminole

Early Exploration of North America

EARLY SPANISH EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT

• Ponce de Leon, legend of the Fountain of Youth  
• Hernando de Soto  
• Founding of St. Augustine (oldest continuous European settlement in what is now the U.S.)  
• Geography: Caribbean Sea, West Indies, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River

Early Exploration of North America

EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

• Early Spanish explorers in the lands that are now the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California; missionary settlements (missions), especially in Texas and California  
• Coronado and the legend of the “Seven Cities of Cibola” (of Gold)  
• Geography: Grand Canyon and Rio Grande  
• Conflicts between the Spanish and the Pueblos (1680 revolt led by Popé)

Early Exploration of North America

THE SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

• Many explorers undertook the perilous, sometimes fatal, voyage to find a short cut across North America to Asia, including: John Cabot: Newfoundland Champlain: “New France” and Quebec Henry Hudson: the Hudson River  
• Geography “New France” and Quebec Canada, St. Lawrence River The Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario