The Americas, also known as the Western Hemisphere or the New World, is a landmass that covers 8% of the world and 28.4% of its and area. After 3,500 BC, the Inuit tribe spread across the Americas, beginning the settlement of the continents of North America and South America. The Native Americans would live in tribes in accordance with nature until the 1500s, when the Spanish Empire and other European empires would colonize the Americas and slaughter the natives with disease and with weapons. Today, Native Americans are sidelined in society on both continents, with the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean being virtually wiped out, with a new mestizo race (mixed indigenous and European descent) rising to replace the natives. In the United States and Canada, the colonists and later immigrants set up multicultural societies that had nothing to do with their native roots, while Latin America mixed native and Iberian customs and culture. The Spanish language is spoken in most of Central America and South America, Dutch in Curacao and Suriname, English in Guyana, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean nations in addition to the United States, Belize, and Canada, Portuguese in Brazil, French in the Windward Islands and parts of Canada, and indigenous languages in some Latin American nations.