Many people believe that the first humans to cross the Bering Strait and settle in what is now North America did so during the end of the Ice Age.
They eventually settled in various parts of North and South America, giving rise to new people groups and cultures.
Many scholars are sure that waves of people arrived at various times and by various mechanisms, whereas some Native American groups .
Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who came to North America intended to colonize the land from the indigenous people who lived there.
Native Americans were able to establish a robust economic system based on trade with Europeans because they had extensive knowledge of the North American continent .
Native Americans had a hard time continuing to live on the country they had known for generations in the face of massive westward expansion.
Many Native American tribes were relocated to reservations in the western United States after President Andrew Jackson's passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.
Despite the loss of some cultural practices to colonialism, war, and missionary work, many indigenous groups today nonetheless hold fast to a distinct identity.