When European settlers arrived on the North American continent at the end of the fifteenth century, they encountered diverse Native American cultures-as many as 900, 000 inhabitants with over 300 different languages. These people, whose ancestors crossed the land bridge from Asia in what may be considered the first North American immigration, were virtually destroyed by the subsequent immigration that created the United States. This tragedy is the direct result of treaties, written and broken by foreign governments, of warfare, and of forced assimilation.
Source: The Library of Congress, American Memory.

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