Who were the first colonists to come to America?

Answer 1

From an Article by "Icabod" The first people into the Americas were nomadic hunters. They didn't plan to come here, they followed the migrations of the game. There was no point where somebody said "hey, welcome to the New World" Like most people, they were interested in getting enough to eat and leaving things a bit better for their children. We don't consider them "Native Americans" as they weren't born here and they predate the development of today's Native Americans(Indians). Rather we call them "PaleoIndians." The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is thought to have explored the northeast coast of what is now Canada and spent at least one winter there. Many European fishermen fished the waters off the northern coasts of North America and the US but did not settle there. The Spanish conquistadores explored the Southwest of what would become the US in the 1500s but did not establish permanent settlements. St. Augustine, Florida, was founded in 1565 by the Spanish. The British tried to establish a settlement in Virginia, known as Roanake, Virginia, in 1587 but the colony, known as the lost colony, did not survive. The Jamestown colony in 1607 was the first permanent British colony in North America.