On several topics here, we had discussions about famous families from our South (Ohmuchievich, Masibradich, Martolosich, Jakovljevich, Skochibucha, Sagroevich), who were well know overseas sailors of their time, but we never hadn't discussion about their participation in conquest of the New World.
After the Columbus's discovery of America (1492), some of the most powerful maritime merchant fleets of that time were those of Spain and Ragusa. These two states are especially important to us because our first contacts to New World came right through these two maritime states.
At first, Ragusa was a state leaned on Serbian Lands in its background, from where came most of its that time population (esspecialy after fall of Bosnia in 1463, and Herzegovina 1482), and second, Spain of that time was a state that recruited many sailors from Ragusa to its maritime service.
So in short period after first expeditions to New World, people from our lands started to participate in sailings across the Atlantic, and probably were the first one from these parts of World who left their genetic traces in the Central and North America.
These practices are continued through whole 16, 17, and 18th century (it is possible that some Serbs took participation in American War for Independence also, we have some records from 1781, where is mentioned count Vecsovich from Venice, who is expected to brought more Dalmatians), but first Serbian settlements aren't recorded before the start of 19th century. It is the time when we have the first recordings of Serb settling in New Orleans, mostly sailors and fishermen from Montenegro and Herzegovina, who immigrated to New Orleans seeking employment.
In the same time, Serbs are settling in Alabama and Mississippi, and as well as in California, where they joined the Gold Rush.
First larger Serb settlements are recorded in last decades of 19th century, when they were leaving maritime regions of Austria-Hungary, but also its other parts (Bosnia, Slavonia, Hungary...), and settling mostly in California, which had climate similar to that of the Dalmatian coast.
One of first Serbian settlers was
Djordje Shagich (ser. Ђорђе Шагић), also known as Djordje Ribar, or in English George Fisher (born in Stolni Beograd, Hungary), who came to United States after fall of First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813), and in following years made a great political career.
In a short period, many other Serbs start arriving to United States, which is possible to trace through immigration records where they were recording variously, mostly by their country of origin, because of what we find the recorded also as: Turks, Bulgarians, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians and Austro-Hungarians. Through the census from 1910 we can ascertain that just in USA there were more than 50.000 Serbs (dominantly from Austro-Hungary)
In attachment I'm sending few maps for better understanding of political occasions in the time of Spanish king Phillip II (1556–98), of the time before American War of Independence, political borders of modern North America, and approximately ethnic and political borders of Balkans in first decade of 19th century.
And in some new posts, I'll try to extract some past and modern American surnames that originate from our Lands, with information where exactly are they from.