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The islands that became the Spanish West Indies were the focus of the voyages of the Spanish expedition of Christopher Columbus in America. Largely due to the familiarity that Spaniards gained from Columbus's voyages, the islands were also the first lands to be permanently colonized by Europeans in the Americas.
Spain owned several Pacific islands as part of the Spanish East Indies.After its defeat in the Spanish–American War of 1898, it lost the Philippines. The German–Spanish Treaty (1899) sold the Carolinas, Marianas and Palau to the German Empire.
The pirates were attacked in 1629 by Spanish forces commanded by Don Fadrique de Toledo, who fortified the island, and expelled the French and English. As most of the Spanish army left for the main island of Hispaniola to root out French colonists there, the French returned to Tortuga in 1630 and had constant battles for several decades.
After the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico were no longer part of the Spanish Empire in the New World. In the 20th century, the Caribbean was again important during World War II, in the decolonization wave after the war, and in the tension between Communist Cuba and the United States.
Reception of the Manila galleon by the Chamorro in the Ladrones Islands, Boxer Codex (c. 1590). With the Portuguese guarding access to the Indian Ocean around the Cape, a monopoly supported by papal bulls and the Treaty of Tordesillas, Spanish contact with the Far East waited until the success of the 1519–1522 Magellan–Elcano expedition that found a Southwest Passage around South America ...
The seven major islands, one minor island, and several small islets were originally volcanic islands, formed by the Canary hotspot. [46] The Canary Islands is the only place in Spain where volcanic eruptions have been recorded during the Modern Era , with some volcanoes still active (El Hierro, 2011). [ 47 ]
The islands, because of there being two excellent harbors on the largest island, Majorca, were a base for pirates from Sardinia and southern Gaul. [2] In 123 BC, a consul for that year, Q. Caecilius Metellus , conquered the islands, easily routing and subduing the population.
Ñ-shaped animation showing flags of some countries and territories where Spanish is spoken. Spanish is the official language (either by law or de facto) in 20 sovereign states (including Equatorial Guinea, where it is official but not a native language), one dependent territory, and one partially recognized state, totaling around 442 million people.