John B. Driggs epub Short Sketches from Oldest America. [Philadelphia]

About the Book The Americas were settled by people migrating from Asia at the height of an Ice Age 15,000 years ago. There was no contact with Europeans until Vikings appeared briefly in the 10th century, and the voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492. America's Indigenous peoples were the Paleo-Indians, who were initially hunter-gatherers. Post 1492, Spanish, Portuguese and later English, French and Dutch colonialists arrived, conquering and settling the discovered lands over three centuries, from the early 16th to the early 19th centuries. The United States achieved independence from England in 1776, while Brazil and the larger Hispanic American nations declared independence in the 19th century. Canada became a federal dominion in 1867. Also in this Book The history of Native Americans in the Americas commenced tens of thousands of years ago with the settlement by the Paleo-Indians. A wide variety of cultures existed during this era, and subsequent contacts with Europeans had profound impacts on their history. In the United States, the Archaic period lasted until 1000 BC, including a major culture of Mound builders, whose territory stretched from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The Post-Archaic stage includes the Formative, Classic and Post-Classic stages. From the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th through 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans in North America declined through: epidemic diseases, violence and warfare at the hands of explorers and colonists, displacement from ancestoral lands, and internal warfare. In Central America the key civilizations were the Aztec and Mayan Empires. The Aztec Empire began as an alliance of three Nahua altepetl city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan, which ruled the area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until the Spanish conquistadores under Hernán Cortés defeated them (1521). The Maya Mesoamerican civilization was noted for its hieroglyphic script, as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. In South America, the Norte Chico civilization in Peru is the oldest civilization in the Americas and while development was interrupted by Portuguese and Spanish colonization, and a demographic collapse ensued, the continent's mestizo and indigenous cultures remain distinct from those of the colonizers. This was one of the first six independent civilizations in the world, being contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids. About us Leopold Classic Library has the goal of making available to readers the classic books that have been out of print for decades. While these books may have occasional imperfections, we consider that only hand checking of every page ensures readable content without poor picture quality, blurred or missing text etc. That's why we: republish only hand checked books; that are high quality; enabling readers to see classic books in original formats; that are unlikely to have missing or blurred pages. You can search "Leopold Classic Library" in categories of your interest to find other books in our extensive collection. Happy reading!