The story of what would become the United States begins long before European arrival. The first inhabitants, known as Paleo-Indians, migrated from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge roughly 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and spread throughout the continents, developing diverse cultures suited to varied environments. By the time Europeans arrived, North America was home to sophisticated civilizations such as the Mississippian culture, builders of monumental sites like Cahokia; the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest; and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy of the Northeast. The Haudenosaunee, possibly founded as early as the twelfth century, united five (later six) nations under a democratic structure that would later influence the architects of the U.S. Constitution.
European colonization of North America was driven by the pursuit of wealth, the search for trade routes, the desire for religious freedom, and the competitive ambitions of emerging nation-states. Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands all planted colonies. England's first permanent settlement, Jamestown, was founded in Virginia in 1607 and struggled through starvation and conflict with Native Americans before finding stability through tobacco cultivation. Meanwhile, in 1620, a group of religious dissenters known as Pilgrims sailed aboard the Mayflower and signed the Mayflower Compact before landing at Plymouth, establishing a self-governing community aided by the Wampanoag people.
Over the following century and a half, English settlers established the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast, which developed distinct regional economies: fishing and trade in New England, mixed agriculture in the Middle Colonies, and plantation agriculture in the South. Despite these regional differences, the colonies shared a common language, legal traditions, and growing frustration with British policies that would eventually push them toward revolution.