Brief History of the Caribbean Through Emancipation
Brief History of the Caribbean through Emancipation
1492 – When Queen Isabella of Spain sent Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean. His official mission was to discover a new trade right to Asia and “Christianize” the “heathers” who lived there.
▪ Christopher Columbus and the Spanish “conquistadores” who followed him made little secret of their real interest.
▪ When Columbus landed in the Bahamas and saw the native Arawaks adorned with gold trinkets, he was convinced that mythical “El Dorado” – Golden Land – must be nearby.
▪ In years the conquistadores pushed further and further into the Americas, driven by their greed for precious metals.
▪ They were also driven by a lust for power. Many were “hidalgos” or knights, who helped to grab enough land and wealth in the New World to join the Spanish ruling class. Once the land had been claimed for Spain conquest, the Spanish Monarchy awarded them “encomienda” – rights to rule over areas of land inhabited by Amerindians.
▪ The Spaniards forced the Indians into slavery in gold mines and on their colonial farms and ranches.
Destruction of the Arawaks by the Spanish; Carib resistance to the British and French
▪ When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean, there were two Amerindian peoples living there: the Arawaks centered the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles, and the Caribs in the Eastern Caribbean. Both had come from the tropical rain forest areas of northwestern South America.
▪ The Indians were subsistence farmers and fishermen, growing corn cassava, sweet potatoes, cotton and tobacco. They navigated among the islands in dug-out canoes, which they used for inter-island trade, and in the case of the Caribs, to raid the Arawaks for goods and slaves.
▪ The Arawaks when Columbus encountered included their major subgroups.
1. The Lucayanons – living in the Bahamas
2. The Borequinos – Puerto Rico
3. Tainos - Cuba
▪ Though not
1492 – When Queen Isabella of Spain sent Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic Ocean. His official mission was to discover a new trade right to Asia and “Christianize” the “heathers” who lived there.
▪ Christopher Columbus and the Spanish “conquistadores” who followed him made little secret of their real interest.
▪ When Columbus landed in the Bahamas and saw the native Arawaks adorned with gold trinkets, he was convinced that mythical “El Dorado” – Golden Land – must be nearby.
▪ In years the conquistadores pushed further and further into the Americas, driven by their greed for precious metals.
▪ They were also driven by a lust for power. Many were “hidalgos” or knights, who helped to grab enough land and wealth in the New World to join the Spanish ruling class. Once the land had been claimed for Spain conquest, the Spanish Monarchy awarded them “encomienda” – rights to rule over areas of land inhabited by Amerindians.
▪ The Spaniards forced the Indians into slavery in gold mines and on their colonial farms and ranches.
Destruction of the Arawaks by the Spanish; Carib resistance to the British and French
▪ When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean, there were two Amerindian peoples living there: the Arawaks centered the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles, and the Caribs in the Eastern Caribbean. Both had come from the tropical rain forest areas of northwestern South America.
▪ The Indians were subsistence farmers and fishermen, growing corn cassava, sweet potatoes, cotton and tobacco. They navigated among the islands in dug-out canoes, which they used for inter-island trade, and in the case of the Caribs, to raid the Arawaks for goods and slaves.
▪ The Arawaks when Columbus encountered included their major subgroups.
1. The Lucayanons – living in the Bahamas
2. The Borequinos – Puerto Rico
3. Tainos - Cuba
▪ Though not