American History before America

As part of my conviction that "American" history has for far too long existed on an East-West trajectory as opposed to a North-South one which is more historically accurate and culturally even more relevant now than ever, I assigned my American Studies students to read and/or view the film of Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion/Account in survey AMS classes.
An interesting true account of de Vaca's "adventure" after his Spanish crew was shipwrecked in Florida. He eventually walked to Texas. He was nearly unrecognizable to the Spanish soldiers that found him and his slave and indigenous companions.
A story of an encounter between Europeans and indigenous people a century or so before the pilgrims.
Czar