In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the Bahamas in the name of Spain on October 10th, but it turned out to be so much more than an island group. Soon, all the European nations raced to grab a chunk of the New World and its fine resources. However, there was one problem. This land was already claimed by millions of Natives to the land, and the Natives were well off without the Europeans. During the Great Ice Age about 20,000 years ago, humans arrived on North America through the Bering Strait Land Bridge that connected Alaska to the eastern-most tip of Siberia. The humans spread out and populated the land from Canada to Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. Thousands of diverse tribes and cultures developed from the ancestor migrants. All of the tribes started out as hunter-gatherer nomadic clans, but agriculture took the continents by storm at c. 5000BCE, and maize drastically increased the population and allowed the tribes to settle down and …show more content…
Most tribes were matriarchal. The Aztecs had a king, named Moctezuma, who was in charge of the political system than governed the Aztec empire. Almost all tribes had armies that battled with each other and expanded their territory. However, the Natives did not have a European complex of superiority when it came to the land. They did not believe that humans were the dominion of the world, and that all earths creatures, plants or animals, were equal and should be respected. They often found spirits in nature and became one with the land. The Iroquois confederacy was a remarkable example of a Confederation. The Iroquois was split up into 5 tribes known as Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. They all governed themselves separately with separate leaders, but met every so often to discuss matters of importance. They also had a matrilineal line, which passed property down the mother’s side. This was not a common