It is doubtful that anybody in 1491 in had any idea how much the momentous occasion that was to occur the following year. If you could travel back in time and tried to tell people in Europe that a giant undiscovered continent lay westward across the Atlantic Ocean, most would likely laugh at you. You would likely get a similar response if you tried to tell Native Americans that the apocalypse was coming courtesy of pale strangers from across the sea. Don’t believe me? Imagine somebody trying to tell you something like that right now. Yeah, sounds pretty fucking crazy. Besides, given that two of the three great civilizations in what is today the United States had collapsed rather recently, most Native Americans had much larger worries than the ravings of some weirdly dressed stranger.
By 1491, the Mississippi culture had all but completely disappeared amongst the Siouan peoples of the Midwest, with the exception of some hold outs along the western edge of the Great Lakes. With their once mighty city-states largely abandoned, the Siouan were scattered and weakened. As a result, the Algonquian peoples of the Northeast were pushing westward across the Appalachian Mountains, seeking new hunting grounds as they themselves were being pushed out of up-state New York and Pennsylvania by the expansionist Iroquois, who were moving south from the area of the St. Lawrence River. Under such pressure, many of the Siouan peoples were increasingly beginning to move westward onto the edges of the Great Plains.
In the southeast the Muskogean remained firmly in control with many of the earlier Mississippi culture city-states still intact, though showing significant signs of decline. The region was a confusing mess of layered territorial claims, alliances, feuds, and rivalries. To the west, the Caddo peoples were also maintaining the remnants of the Mississippi culture. Though faced with increasing pressure from Siouan peoples moving westward, they were managing to hold their ancestral homelands along the eastern edges of the Great Plains in large part thanks to many Caddo groups forming defensive confederacies with each other. Several Caddoan groups were also expanding northward into Kansas.
In the southwest, the Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo had largely settled back into peaceful farming communities along the rivers and other waterways of their desert homes. The Navajo, who had entered the area some 90 years before, had largely done the same, taking on many of the agricultural and cultural aspects of the Pueblo and becoming closely aligned with them. However, the Apache, who had originally arrived with the Navajo, took a very different stance. Laying claim to the harsh environments away from easy sources of water, they lived a hunter-gatherer existence, raiding their neighbors as they saw fit. Some Apache bands had even began to expand onto the southern Great Plains, putting them into conflict with the Caddoan and other peoples already in the area.
Along the Pacific Coast, the multitude of peoples were living as they had for thousands of years, their cultures kept safely intact by the abundance of the fertile Pacific Coast and the protection of the mountains and deserts to the east. Scattered together were various speakers of the Salish, Penutian, Na-Dene, Hokan, Yukian, and Chimakuan language groups. Of these, the Salish and Penutian were most widespread. The Penutian tribes controlled large parts of California, the Cascade Mountains, the Oregon Coast, and the southern half of the Columbia Plateau. The Salish tribes were centered more around the Puget Sound and the northern half of the Columbia Plateau.
The remaining areas of what later became the United States, namely the Great Basin and the Great Plains were harsh environments, only able to support scattered populations and small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers. These were the homes of the Numic peoples, who lived in the Great Basin and the northern Great Plains, and the Tonkawa people, who lived in the southern Great Plains. Though massive buffalo herds roamed the large parts of both of these areas at the time, the difficulty of killing such large game made them not a significant food resource. As a result, both groups were largely left alone, though the Tonkawa were beginning to face incursions by the Caddoan people from the east and the Apache from the west.
South in Mesoamerica, the Aztec were becoming a major power. First migrating south into central Mexico in the thirteenth century, they took on many of the characteristics of advanced Mesoarmerican civilizations in the area and built a mighty city known as Tenochtitlan at the present day sight of Mexico City in 1325 CE. In 1425 CE, they began a series of wars of conquest against their neighboring city-states. By 1491 CE, they were the the largest and most successful of the powerful Mesoamerican city-states and kingdoms. Further to the south, in the Andes Mountains, the Inca began a major expansion of their territories in 1438 CE, conquering and assimilating their neighbors over the next eighty years. By 1491 CE, they were the largest empire in New World history, covering large parts of western South America.
