Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The island of Cuba was inhabited by various Native American cultures prior to the arrival of the explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492. After his arrival, Spain conquered Cuba and appointed Spanish governors to rule in Havana. The administrators in Cuba were subject to the Viceroy of New Spain and the local authorities in Hispaniola.
The first contact between Spain and the island of Cuba was in October 1492 when explorer Christopher Columbus arrived to Cuba. The first permanent Spanish settlement on the island began in 1511 when Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar established a settlement in Baracoa. [1]
In 1560 the island was already a strategically important point for the commercial distribution to the Antilles and Central America. Corona divided the government of the Island between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the latter being controlled by the powerful Cuenca Family. Between years 1717 and 1727, the royal monopoly of the tobacco was ...
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the first governor of Cuba. In 1511, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar set out with three ships and an army of 300 men from Hispaniola to form the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, with orders from Spain to conquer the island. The settlement was at Baracoa, but the new settlers were to be greeted with stiff resistance ...
The Caribbean islands became less central to Spain's overseas colonization, but remained important strategically and economically, especially the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. Smaller islands claimed by Spain were lost to the English and the Dutch, with France taking half of Hispaniola and establishing the sugar-producing colony of St ...
Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain [39] and named it Isla Juana ("John's Island") after John, Prince of Asturias. [40] Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, conquistador of Cuba. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa.
After first landing on "Guanahani" in the Bahamas, Columbus found the island which he called "Isla Juana", later named Cuba. [18] In 1511, the first Adelantado of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the island's first Spanish settlement at Baracoa; other towns soon followed, including Havana, which was founded in 1515.
Most of the new settlements were sited on the coast near gold deposits and significant populations of Indian laborers. Bayamo was founded in 1513, followed in 1514 by Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, and Havana. Havana, destined to become the premier city of Cuba, was originally founded on the south coast. Camagüey was established in 1515.