History

It is generally accepted that mankind arrived in America from Asia approximately 15,000 years ago, maybe even earlier. Coming by way of land bridge accross what is now the Berling Strait. And it´s also generally agreed - from archaeolgy findings in Mongolia, Sibiria and North America and studies in physical anthropology, lingustic and other disipines - that they came from eastern Asia in one or more migrations.

They were primitive hunters of Mongolian desent, searching for food and were following the big herds of grass-eating animals who were crossing the land bridge that from time to time during the ice age connected Sibiria with Alaska. They got settled down in this new country and for thousands of years new waves of imigrants followed on behind. Under hand the older imigrants got pushed away further to the South and West, untill they finaly had been spread out over the hole North and South of America, and gradually both continent got populated.

Some of the imigrants kept on further South over the panama isthmus, other kept on east to the Atlantic coast or further into the big wooded regions, while some tribes settled down on the wide spread prairie. And so were the foundation stone of a numbered of different civilazitions and cultures settled, developing differently depending on the georaphicly and climatic conditions.

When the first whites sailed over the Atlantic the number of Indians in North America were about 1 milllion, they were divided in more than 600 nations, which were divided in hundreds of tribes, seven Indian areas with and marked different culture. These areas were; The Eastern wooded region, Southwest wooded region, the prairie, Tableland, the South west, California, and the Northwest coast. All Indians lived in villages, every tribe had it´s own traditions, legends and individual difference in costumes, ceremonies and religious custom practice. But among the prairie Indians the conditions of life and the way of living were much the same.

The Indians existence in the villages were municipal established, every man, woman and children had it´s own special function, every family had it´s occupation and duty towards the village, and every village had it´s duty towards the tribe.The family and tribe loyalty were very strong, every Indian felt like an big heir to a big and very old tradition, which was his duty and honor to maintain.

-The Discovery Of America - Who was first? -

Even if most people today knows that Christopher Columbus wasn´t the first white man to discover America the Americans still celebrate the Columbus day at 12th of October every year. It was that day the lost sailor found the island south of North America and thought he had come to India.
Christopeher Columbus had waited many years to do this journey and in 1492 the queen Isabella had given him the finances which made it possible. Columbus sailed out from a little harbor called Palos in Spain with three ships - Santa Maria, La Pinta and La Niña. On Oct 12th after some difficulties the sighted land. Columbus named this island San Salvador that means, "blessed savior" in Spanish.
It wasen´t North America that Columbus found as many think it was. It was one of the islands we call the West Indies.

In four voyages made between 1492 and 1504 he discovered and explored the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Charted most of the caribbean islands. Sighted the northeast coast of South America.
Columbus returned to Spain with many new products that Europeans never had seen before. Things like tobacco, cacao, sweet corn, coconuts and potatoes. He also brought with him tales of darke-skinned native people whom he called "Indians" because he assumed that he had been sailing in the Indian Ocean. But it was an Italian by the name of John Cabot voyaging for England´s Henry VII who in 1497 after seven weeks of sailing came ashore at the North American coast. He arrived in New Foundland or posibly in Nova Scotias coast in Canada.

But they were far from being the first Europeans in America. In the year 1000 A.D Scandinavian Vikings explored the American coastline. This was 500 years before Columbus. It was a man called Leif Erikson son of Erik the Red who had heard of an Icelander by the name of Bjarne Herjolfson. He had drifted by the wind way out of course and spotted a flat wooded coastline far westward. Trying to follow Bjarnes tracks Leif Erikson led his Vikings over the Atlantic Ocean to the new land. Probably they came ashore in today´s New England coast and they named their discovery Vinland after the wild grapes that grew there. Scholars can´t decide though if it was in New England or New Foundland that the Vikings arrived in. Evidence does exists of a landing in New Foundland were they astablished a colony and from that base they sailed along the coast of North America. They observed the flora, fauna and the native people that they called "skrälingar".
After a few years the colony in Vinland were abandoned. Probably after a hostile attack by the native people.

An other source tells us about an Irishman, Saint Brendan who sailed to find a "Land promised to the Saints". He set out in the year 540 A.D. In a manuscript from the 600th century Navigato Sancti Brendani tells a story which is full of marvelous achievements and devout thinking that it for years was considered just to be a collection of tales. The story tells us that angels disguised as birds guided Brendan. He was also helped by whales to find his way on the Ocean.

Many scholars think that the voyages actually did take place. It is supposed that Brendan set sail from Kerry on Ireland. They took a northerly course and eventually they came across an iceberg, which shows that they passed Greenland into Davis Strait. They also passed through an area of dense mist, which can be New Foundland banks where the warm Gulfstream meets the Artic current. Later Brendan and his men landed on a flat tropical island covered with exotic vegetation and surrounded by crystal-clear water. Beautiful birds and naked dark-skinned pygmies inhabited it. Perhaps Brendan had sailed down the coast of North America out of sight of land and arrived in the islands of Bahamas. The pygmy people could have been the Arawaks the original inhabitants of the islands. It is possible that Brendan and his men discovered what today is Florida. The whole story is however hard to belive and not have been written down until several centuries after the events is described, it is possible that it was considerably embellished. However the ancient sagas of the Norsmen or Vikings admit that the Irish was the first. The Viking voyages to North America are now established as historical fact. The intrepid Norsman land-hopped via Iceland and Greenland and under Leif Erikson reached the coast of North America in the year 1000 A.D. The stories of their voyages to this land beyond the sea - referred to as Markland, Helluland and Vinlad - are told in the Norse sagas written in Iceland between 1320 and 1350. Not much attention was paid to these sagas untild as recently as 1837, when they were re-examined and it was found that their descriptions of Vinland´s climate geography and native life fitted that of the coast of New England.

We can never be sure who discovered America as the first one because one people divided into different tribes already explored the continenet. They would be the first one...

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