The term Native Americans refers to the hundreds of distinct societies- including Aleuts, Eskimos, Cherokee, Zuni, Sioux, Mohawk, Aztec, and Inca- who were the original inhabitants of the Americas. Thousands of years ago, migrating people crossed a land bridge from Asia to North America where the
5 Bering Strait (off the coast of Alaska) lies today, and over the centuries they spread throughout the West hemisphere. When Christopher Columbus and other European explorers arrived late in the fifteenth century, Native Americans numbered in the millions and had a thirty-thousand-year history in this hemisphere (Dobyns, 1966).