Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
From its early days as an English colony to its rise to the forefront of the
world stage in the 20th century, American history has been anything but
dull. War against the British, westward expansion, slavery and its abolish-
ment, Civil War and Reconstruction, the Great Depression, the postwar
boom and more recent conflicts in the 21st century - they've all played a
part in shaping the nation's complicated identity.
First Inhabitants
Among North America's most significant prehistoric cultures were the Mound Builders,
who inhabited the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys from around 3000 BC to AD 1200.
In Illinois, Cahokia was once a metropolis of 20,000 people, the largest in pre-Columbian
North America. Similar mounds rise up throughout the eastern USA, including several
along the Natchez Trace in Mississippi.
By the time the first Europeans arrived, several different groups of Native Americans
occupied the land, such as the Wampanoag in New England, the Calusa in southern Flor-
ida and the Shawnee in the Midwest. Two centuries later, they were all but gone.
European explorers left diseases in their wake to which indigenous peoples had no immu-
nity. More than any other factor - war, slavery or famine - disease epidemics devastated
Native American populations by anywhere from 50% to 90%.
Before Jamestown or Plymouth Rock, a group of 116 British men and women set up a
colony at Roanoke, North Carolina in the late 1580s. When a supply ship returned three
years later, the settlers had disappeared. The fate of the 'Lost Colony' remains one of
America's greatest mysteries.
European Claims
In 1492 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, backed by Spain, voyaged west looking
for the East Indies. He found the Bahamas. With visions of gold, Spanish explorers
quickly followed: Cortés conquered much of today's Mexico, Pizarro conquered Peru, and
Ponce de León wandered through Florida looking for the fountain of youth. Not to be left
out, the French explored Canada and the Midwest, while the Dutch and English cruised
North America's eastern seaboard.
