Relatively little is known about pre-colonial history in North America, due to the absence of writing from those times. This is pretty much true of all peoples that did not have writing.
The Mayan rulers carefully documented their vicious wars of conquest (among other things). Some believe the Incas, with their "quipu" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) recording devices, were on their way to a writing system. But that's really it re: pre-Columbian writing.
There is a fair bit known about the Mayans because of their writing (and a lot of that survived because it was carved into stone). But the N. American peoples did not have writing, and their lifestyle did not leave behind much for archeologists.
Quite a lot of the history has been written from the stories carried down, and I do believe the central and south american tribes had writing which is still largely ignored.
(Edit: quite a lot of the old stories are written down, downvoters- I cannot help if you don't value the current efforts. I won't be providing links as there is Google and I have to deal with a damn blizzard)
I understand that it's simpler to say just "Europeans" instead of "European colonial powers", but before you know it you may cast an unjust collective accuse over an entire continent full of people, many of which had nothing to do with the sins of America's colonization.