Beginnings (before 1630)
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia, crossing the Bering land bridge and arriving in the present-day United States at least 12,000 years ago; some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival. The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement in the Americas. This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos.
Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. The city-state of Cahokia was the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in present-day United States. In the Four Corners region in present-day Southwestern United States, the culture of Ancestral Puebloans developed over centuries of agricultural experimentation. The Algonquian, consisting of peoples who speak Algonquian languages, were one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples. These people were historically prominent along the Atlantic Coast and in the Saint Lawrence River and Great Lakes regions. Before European immigrants made contact, most of the Algonquian relied on hunting and fishing, and many supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans, and squash, known as the "Three Sisters". By European contact in the 17th century, they practiced slash and burn agriculture, using controlled fire to extend farmlands' productivity and manage land. The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice. The Iroquois confederation Haudenosaunee, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established between the 12th and 15th centuries.
Estimating the native population of North America following the arrival of European immigrants is difficult. Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated a population of 93,000 in the South Atlantic states and a population of 473,000 in the Gulf states, but most academics regard this figure as too low. Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting that approximately 1.1 million resided on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 in the Florida peninsula.
The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sent by France to the New World in 1525, encountered Native American inhabitants in the present-day New York Bay region. The Spanish Empire set up their first settlements in Florida and New Mexico, including in Saint Augustine, which is often considered the nation's oldest city, and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, including in New Orleans and Mobile.
Colonization, settlement, and communities (1630–1763)
The continent's first elected legislative assembly, the House of Burgesses in Virginia, was founded in 1619. In 1636, Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded as the first institution of higher education. The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who fled England seeking religious freedom. The native population of America declined after European arrival, primarily as a result of infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles. By the mid-1670s, the British defeated and seized the territory of Dutch settlers in New Netherland, in the mid-Atlantic region.
In the 17th century, during European colonization, many European settlers experienced food shortages, disease, and conflicts with Native Americans, including in King Philip's War. In addition to fighting European settlers, Native Americans also often fought neighboring tribes. But in many cases, the natives and settlers came to develop a mutual dependency. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, and Native Americans traded for guns, tools, and other European goods. Native Americans taught many settlers to cultivate corn, beans, and other foodstuffs. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural practices and lifestyles. With the increased European colonization of North America, however, Native Americans were often displaced or killed during conflicts.
European settlers also began trafficking African slaves into the colonial United States via the transatlantic slave trade. By the turn of the 18th century, slavery supplanted indentured servitude as the main source of agricultural labor for the cash crops in the American South. Colonial society was divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and several colonies passed acts for or against it.
In what was then considered British America, the Thirteen Colonies were administered as overseas dependencies by the British. All colonies had local governments with elections open to white male property owners except Jews and, in some areas, Catholics. With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steadily growing settlements, the colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s, known as the Great Awakening, fueled colonial interest in both religion and religious liberty. Excluding the Native American population, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, representing a population that was then roughly a third the size of Great Britain. By the 1770s, despite continuing new immigrant arrivals from Britain and other European regions, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed for the development of self-governance in the colonies, but it encountered periodic efforts by British monarchs to reassert royal authority.
