COLONIZATION OF CUBA (1492 – 1762)

When Colon arrives in Cuba to October 27 in 1492, put him for name Juana in honor to the Spanish heiress. However, when being little gold in the island, Colon the abandonment in benefit of The Spaniard. In 1512 Diego Velazquez of Cuellar leads an expedition from The Spaniard with the objective of conquering Cuba for the Hispanic crown. At the end of 1514, the conquerors had seven establishments: Bararitus, Santiago from Cuba, Bayamo, Port Prince (Camagüey). Sancti Spiritus, Trinidad and primitive Havana.

Velazquez treatment of protecting the Indians of the Spanish excesses, but it was difficult. Hatauey, boss taino and leader of the Cuban resistance, I organize a rebellion, but it was captured and he/she died in the blaze.

As soon as the Spaniards came undone of Hatauey and of Guama, another leader of the revolt, they extracted the gold of the local mines and they founded country properties by means of the system of you commend that required a lot of indigenous forced manpower. Brother Bartolomé of the Houses, the "apostle of the Indians", He beg to the Spanish crown that the Indians received a treatment but human and in 1542 you commend them they were suppressed. During this period, the pock tithe to the native population and in 1550 alone they were about 5.000 dispersed survivors.

In 1522, to cover the lack of workers, the Spaniards began to care slaves from Africa. Contrary to those that were taken to North America, the Afro-Cuban ones grouped and they conserved certain own cultural elements. During this time, the cattle raising, the tobacco and the sugar became the commercial but important resources.

From half-filled of the s. XVI until half-filled of the s.XVIII, Cuba constitutes the center of a fight of power among the wealthy Spanish merchants, the pirates and the kings. The Havana was plundered in 1555, this force to the construction of strengths as much in its port as in that of Santiago from Cuba. The assaults of the pirates revealed the naval weakness of the Spaniards, and other European powers took advantage of the occasion to get bigger presence in the region. The Britons took Jamaica in 1655 the Cuban population's was subjected to a threat of constant attack; Haiti key in French hands in 1697, and some determined that Cuba was the next one.

In 1762 Spain you implies in the the Seven year-old war between Great Britain and France. With the attention Spanish setting in this conflict, June 6 the British troops disembarked in Cojimar, near of The Hbana, and 30 in the same month assaulted the castle of The Muzzle from behind; the Spaniards surrendered August 13. The Britons occupied Havana during eleven months, in those that 4.000 African slaves introduced and they opened commercial roads with their colonies in North America. At the beginning of 1790, hundred of slaves thousands were led to Cuba, after a rebellion of captive in Haiti, this consolidate the Cuban primacy in the sugar production. The Treaty of Paris 1763 returned the island to Spain in exchange for Florida and, as compensation, the Spaniards received the territory of Louisiana of French hands.