Imagine a huge continent with no people – just land and animals. Many thousands of years ago, there were no people in North and South America.
No one knows for sure when the first people came. One idea is that long ago, hunters came from Asia to the northwest part of the Americas. Over thousands of years, more people came from Asia. Their children and grandchildren spread south and east. These people are now called Indigenous peoples. They settled all of North and South America. In the 1400s, they were the only humans living in the Americas. But soon, others would join them from many places. Over 500 years, these newcomers would make the United States a land of many different peoples.
