I had a professor in college in the 1980s who wrote a book that joked about how Native Americans were just wandering around the landscape aimlessly not knowing what to do with themselves until the Europeans thankfully "discovered" them circa 1492.

Check out the book 1491, about the great Chinese naval expedition that supposedly reached the West Coast of North America.

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Population.html

Interesting tidbit from this article:

As for the Indians, evidence suggests that they often viewed Europeans with disdain. The Hurons, a chagrined missionary reported, thought the French possessed "little intelligence in comparison to themselves." Europeans, Indians said, were physically weak, sexually untrustworthy, atrociously ugly, and just plain dirty. (Spaniards, who seldom if ever bathed, were amazed by the Aztec desire for personal cleanliness.) A Jesuit reported that the "Savages" were disgusted by handkerchiefs: "They say, we place what is unclean in a fine white piece of linen, and put it away in our pockets as something very precious, while they throw it upon the ground." The Micmac scoffed at the notion of French superiority. If Christian civilization was so wonderful, why were its inhabitants leaving?