Answer:
The Norse had explored and colonized north eastern North America c. 1000 CE, a later and more well known wave of European colonization of the Americas took place in the Americas between about 1500 CE and 1800 CE, during the Age of Exploration. During this time period, several European empires primarily Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France began to explore and claim the natural resources and human capital of the Americas resulting in the disestablishment of some Indigenous Nations, and the establishment of several settler-colonial states.[1] Some formerly European settler colonies including New Mexico, Alaska, the Prairies/northern Great Plains, and the "Northwest Territories" in North America; the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Darién Gap in Central America; and the northwest Amazon, the central Andes, and the Guianas in South America remain relatively rural, sparsely populated and Indigenous into the 21st century, however several settler-colonial states, including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and the United States grew into settler-colonial empires in their own right.[2] Many of the social structures including religions, political boundaries, and linguae francae that predominate the western hemisphere in the 21st century are descendants of the structures established during this period.
