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Indigenous peoples and European colonization
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge at least 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American culutures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. Indigenous peoples and cultures such as the Algonquian peoples, Ancestral Puebloans, and the Iroquois developed across the present-day United States. Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million.

Christopher Columbus began exlporing the Caribbean in 1492, leading to Spanish settlements in present-day Florida and New Mexico. France established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. The native population of America declined after European arrival,  primarily as a result of infectious diseases brought from Europe such as smallpox and measles,  and native peoples were displaced by European expansion. Colonial authorities pursued policies to force Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, and European settlers trafficked African slaves into the colonial United States through the Atlantic slave trade.

The original Thirteen Colonies were administered by Great Britain, and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for the development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening&mdash;a series of Christian revivals&mdash;fueled colonial interest in religious liberty.