North America

=== Post-contact, 1492–1910 ===
{{main|European colonization of the Americas}}
{{further|Timeline of the European colonization of North America|British America|French America|New Spain|Russian colonization of the Americas}}
[[File:QueenAnnesWarBefore.svg|thumb|A 1702 map of North America showing forts, towns, and (in solid colors) areas occupied by [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonial settlements]]]]
During the so-called [[Age of Discovery]], Europeans explored overseas and staked claims to various parts of North America, much of which was already settled by indigenous peoples. Upon Europeans' arrival in the "[[New World]]", indigenous peoples had a variety of reactions, including curiosity, trading, cooperation, resignation, and resistance. The [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous population declined]] substantially following European arrival, primarily due to the introduction of Eurasian diseases, such as [[smallpox]], to which the indigenous peoples lacked immunity, and because of [[American Indian Wars|violent conflicts]] with Europeans.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Concise History of World Population: An Introduction to Population Processes |last=Massimo Livi Bacci |first=Malden |place=Massachusetts |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |year=2001 |edition=3rd |isbn=978-0-631-22335-1 |pages=42–46}}</ref> Indigenous culture changed significantly and their affiliation with political and cultural groups also changed. Several linguistic groups [[Language death|died out]], and others changed quite quickly.

On the North America's southeastern coast, Spanish explorer [[Juan Ponce de León]], who had accompanied Columbus's second voyage, visited and named in 1513 ''[[Spanish Florida|La Florida]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bergreen|first=Lawrence|author-link=Laurence Bergreen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Dyhtkk4VQcC|title=Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1493–1504|publisher=Penguin Group US|year=2011|isbn=978-1-101-54432-7|page=127|access-date=13 September 2020|archive-date=17 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217004027/https://books.google.com/books?id=3Dyhtkk4VQcC|url-status=live}}</ref> As the colonial period unfolded, Spain, England, and France appropriated and claimed extensive territories in North America eastern and southern coastlines. Spain established permanent settlements on the Caribbean islands of [[Hispaniola]] and [[Cuba]] in the 1490s, building cities, putting the resident indigenous populations to work, raising crops for Spanish settlers and panning gold to enrich the Spaniards. Much of the indigenous population died due to disease and overwork, spurring the Spaniards on to claim new lands and peoples. An expedition under the command of Spanish settler, [[Hernán Cortés]], sailed westward in 1519 to what turned out to be the mainland in Mexico. With local indigenous allies, the Spanish [[Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire|conquered the Aztec empire in central Mexico]] in 1521. Spain then established permanent cities in Mexico, Central America, and Spanish South America in the sixteenth century. Once Spaniards conquered the high civilization of the Aztecs and Incas, the Caribbean was a backwater of the Spanish empire.

Other European powers began to intrude on areas claimed by Spain, including the Caribbean islands. France took the western half of [[Hispaniola]] and developed [[Saint-Domingue]] as a cane sugar producing colony worked by black slave labor. Britain took [[Barbados]] and [[Jamaica]], and the Dutch and Danes took islands previously claimed by Spain. Britain did not begin settling on the North American mainland until a hundred years after the first Spanish settlements, since it sought first to control nearby [[Ireland]].