Who were the first Europeans to make settlements in North America?

This would probably be the Vikings. Leif Erikson and his men, but their settlement was not permanent. So your answer could be Christopher Columbus. It depends on what your looking for.

The First Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in North America - - at least the first for whom there is solid evidence - - were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985.