The first Americans

At daybreak on the morning of Friday, August 3, 1492, an Italian adventurer named Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain to find a new way from Europe to Asia. His aim was to open up a shorter trade route between the two continents.

Ten weeks after leaving Spain, on the morning of October 12, he stepped ashore on the beach of a low sandy island. He named the island San Salvador. Columbus believed that he had landed in the Indies. For this reason he called the friendly, brown-skinned people who greeted him Indians.

In fact, Columbus was not near India. He reached a new continent. Europeans would soon name the new continent America, but for many years they went on calling its inhabitants Indians. Only recently have these first Americans been described more accurately as «native Americans» or Amerindians.

There were many different groups of Amerindians. Different tribes inhabited that land. These tribes followed very different ways of life. Some were hunters, some were farmers. Some were peaceful, others warlike. They spoke over three hundred separate languages.

Europeans called America «the New World.» But it was not new to the Amerindians. They had already been living there for maybe 50, 000 years when Columbus stepped on to the beach.

The Pueblo people were organized of the Amerindian farming peoples. They lived in groups of villages or in towns which were built for safety on the tops of cliffs. A people called the Apache were the neighbors of the Pueblo. The Apache never became settled farmers. They wandered the deserts and mountains in small bands, hunting deer and gathering wild plants, nuts and roots. The Apache were fierce and warlike.

The Iroquois were a group of tribes, who lived far away from the Pueblo and the Apache in the thick woods of North America. Like the Pueblo the Iroquois were skilled farmers. They were also hunters, fishermen and fierce warriors. Many miles to the west there was another warrior nation. This group called themselves Dakota, which means «allies.» They grew no crops and built no houses. For food, for shelter and for clothing they depended upon the buffalo. When the buffalo moved, they moved too.

WHY IS AMERICA CALLED «AMERICA»

Why did European geographers give the name America to the lands that Columbus discovered?

The reason is that to the end of his life Columbus believed that his discoveries were part of Asia. The man who did most to correct this mistaken idea was Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci was an Italian sailor from the city of Florence. During the late 1490s he wrote some letters in which he described two voyages of exploration that he had made along the coasts of South America. He was sure that these coasts were parts of a new continent. To honor Vespucci scientists named that continent America.