Yes, there were already indigenous people living there!
Chat with our AI personalities
Christopher Columbus lived long before the United States was established. He arrived in the Bahamas in 1492. The US was established in 1776.
The West Indies were inhabited by indigenous peoples when Christopher Columbus arrived. These included the Taino in the Bahamas and Cuba, the Caribs in the Lesser Antilles, and the Arawak in the Greater Antilles.
Arrived in 1492
Technically, Columbus never arrived in what is now mainland America. However his first voyage across the Atlantic was in 1492. There's a handy rhyme: Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred and ninety-two. He hit the Bahamas and thought he was in India
When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, he thought he had landed in Asia, specifically in the East Indies.