origins of the american traditions :: essays research papers

The origins of the traditions held by the population of American started from the time that this land was first set foot on by the human species and was compounded throughout the rest of time. The immigrants, and slaves expanded up on the traditions of the original settlers. And along with those they brought their own religions and cultures that also added to the traditions of this country.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Long before the Europeans ever set foot on to the fair soil, people from Asia came to the land that now makes up the Americans. They came by crossing the land and ice bridge once located across the Bering Strait between the Alaska and Russia. This location is now submerged by water. The exact date of the first human arrivals in America is unknown but estimated to be range from twenty thousand to fifty thousand years ago. The Asians that made the trip across the land bridge are the predecessors of the Native Americans that were located in the Americas as the Europeans began to arrive. If the features are compared between these two the similarities are striking and the facts behind this theory become ever more prevalent.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Native Americans that were Descendants of the Asian populated North, Central, and South America creating a large variety of cultures. In the late fifteenth century, there were perhaps 240 distinct Native American cultures just in North America alone with a population estimated at between one to two million people. Although these two million people varied greatly in there social cultures, government, economic systems, and others aspects of their life, they shared between them a common respect for and connection with the natural world. Were as the Europeans encroaching upon their land tended only to look at the natural world as something to be subdues owned and used for personal gain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The First Europeans to arrive in America are believed to be Norse sailors from Scandinavia. Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the red who settled Greenland, established a brief settlement in current day Canada around the year one thousand. After this brief settlement the Europeans did not return for nearly five hundred years on a misguided voyage not in tended for the Americas but for the Orient. This discovery was made by the Italian Explorer Christopher Columbus, who had the misconception that he had reached India when he had made land fall on the present-day island of th4e Bahamas, henceforth the natives whom he met being called â€Å"Indians†.