wyspy: History of the Caribbean

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The history of the Caribbean reveals the region's significant role in the colonial struggles of the European powers since the 15th century. In the modern era, it remains strategically and economically important. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean and claimed the region for Spain. The following year, the first Spanish settlements were established in the Caribbean. Although the Spanish conquests of the Aztec Empire and the Inca Empire in the early sixteenth century made Mexico and Peru more desirable places for Spanish exploration and settlement, the Caribbean remained strategically important. From the 1620s and 1630s onwards, non-Hispanic privateers, traders, and settlers…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 88

French Caribbean Settlements: Guadeloupe's Subsidiary Status. Abstract: This article presents Guadeloupe as a case study with a focus on its early settlement era (1635–1660), prior to the advent of the sugar industry. It is an often-overlooked period and locale within French Caribbean historiography, with little available literature in English. The colonization of Guadeloupe in 1635 was especially more chaotic and conflict ridden than that of St Christophe and Martinique, France's earliest settlements. The article further examines how Guadeloupe's unstable beginnings contributed to her sluggish economic development and undermined her status as a colony for more than a century after the arri…