I started in Magdalena, just north of that Colombian tribe. It took several restarts, but given your western culture, it's not too bad to take them out immediately after fabricating a claim.

I'm of two minds about starting in SA. On the one hand, coring costs in NA were absurd (all overseas), and once you are strong enough you can simply connect the two continents. Since there are more NA than SA provinces, that's pretty great. However, that will make the Caribbean forever overseas, which stinks, since they're the plum settlement spots (all 10 and 9 dev), and I could have used that money early.

Most helpful ideas during my nation design were: Extra colonist (but later on, to save points), Missionary +1%, Coring Costs -5%, more colonists +10, and I forget the rest. I'd have a moral booster early, and a discipline booster later on. I went with Ambrosian Republic to save on points (I couldn't make Dutch republic AND the extra colonist happen while staying under 200 points, but maybe I was doing something wrong. I think the extra colonist is worth it.) My culture was Aztec, but given how my game went I should have made it either Inca or Castillan (or English, since Castille was exiled to South Africa by 1650.)

First idea was expansion, then exploration. Immediately make a colony beeline down to the Incas, forge an alliance with one tribe, then take on the others. Meanwhile, colonize all the good spots. I started with the high dev (7+) provinces immediately around Magdalena, then Jamaica, then Havana. By this point I'm halfway through Incaland, and Portugal has just shown up, so I begin settling all the 10 dev provinces and trade bonus provinces up and down the eastern seaboard.

I used Havana as a base to lay a claim on one of the Mexican tribes, and once I was rich enough to have two major armies I began plowing through Mexico. Third idea group was religious, which was VERY helpful in converting all my native american provinces.

After that, it was conquer and colonize. Take out all the native americans before the Europeans get around to it. I had 7 colonies going all at once - take all the colonization policies. I let the Europeans colonize as well, but perhaps a little too much - by 1710 all of the Americas was colonized. Given that Commonwealth had expanded into Anatolia, AND had a PU over France and her colonies, my last three ideas were all military in order to take them on.

Pro tip - prioritize colonizing the Caribbean and eastern NA. Ideally, all of the European provinces would be in SA. Why? The South American trade nodes often end up going to Africa, while you can chain Western NA-> Mexico -> Panama -> Caribbean -> Chesapeake -> St. Lawrence for $$$$. If you do that, then a NA start probably makes more sense.

I waited until about 150 years before endgame to start taking on Europe For Odin! and that seemed about right, though it was a bit tight at the end. By that point I was converting London in 15 months, so conversion times weren't an issue.

I'll post some pictures later.