When the first Europeans arrived on the shores of the land that today is called America, they had no idea that the native people greeting them were citizens of only one of the over five hundred different nations that existed at the time. The customs, traditions, cultures and languages of these native people were as diverse as those of the Europeans. However, that was not the way the Spanish, French, English, and other colonizers saw it. To them, one Indian was the same as another.
