RED INDIANS CROSSED AMERICA

Indigenous people crossed into America when the two continents were joined by a land bridge which is now called the Bering Strait. They came from north-east Asia between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago.

The earliest evidence suggests the American continent was inhabited around 15000 years ago.

In Mexico, Chile and Brazil finds are dated as early as 30,000 or even earlier.

Indigenous people are usually classified as Mongoloid peoples and seen as a distinct racial group. The Inuits (Eskimos) and Aleuts (inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands) who are definite Mongoloid. They inhabited the New World before the first explorers landed in the late 15^th century.

Archaeological findings show that there may have been several colonisations. The first colonisers had little more than stone tools. The hunters and gatherers spread south killing the plentiful games with their stone-pointed lances.

These indigenous people are now named Amerindians and slowly started agriculture. They developed differently to the Old Wold. It is assumed that it started 7000 or more years ago. It was mainly maize, squash and beans. Cassava being grown in tropical forest regions.

It was a slow progress with no domestic animals, apart from llamas and guinea pigs and no draught animals to pull the plough.

Farmers in the Andes developed skills in working metal from 1000 BC.

Complex societies started in South and Central America. They developed into highly sophisticated civilisations such as the Aztecs and Incas. However, they were destroyed by the arrival of the Conquistadores (Spanish) and other European explorers during the 16^th century.

The worst killing of Indian tribes were happening during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries when the USA government gave their land to European settlers. If they were not killed right-out they were forced into reservation with very poor land or no land at all relying on food supply from the US government which were handled through agents. These agents were mostly crooks and sold their supply to fil their own pockets.

To demoralise them further and to increase starvation; the US Army killed all the buffaloes on the Great Plain which was the Indians' source for meat and clothing. The huge herds of buffaloes kept the grass growing; nowadays it is a dust bowl. Well done politicians.  

They also discovered, now, that buffaloes' meat is the best with the least fat.