Native to Colonial America
Competition for “New” World
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As you can see from this map, the entire region of North America was populated with hundreds of different native peoples, ranging from hunting-gathering subsistence to sophisticated farming. This was not an unsettled, virgin land as the Europeans suggested. The first Americans were often very advanced, with elaborate architecture and infrastructure. There were hundreds of languages and even more sub-dialects.
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This map demonstrates what a small amount of land was occupied by Europeans by the mid-17th century. This also highlights the diversity of European settlements. The Spanish, French, English and Dutch differed in their reasons for coming to this part of the world and how they structured their American colonies. Most importantly, their interactions with native peoples varied a great deal.
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Approximately 100 years after the time period depicted in the previous map, the Europeans have spread out over the coastline but still occupy a rather small portion of what is today the U.S. Please also note that the French dominated the interior, west of the Proclamation line and the Spanish claimed the western portion of the continent. None of the European nations considered the native peoples the rightful owners of this land, despite having lived here for at least 10,000 years.
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