1 ene 1498 año - Fort of Santo Domingo

Descripción:

Christopher Colombus and his followers made Hispaniola the base of Spanish operations in the Caribbean. Colombus' original plan was to build trading posts where merchants could trade with locals for products in high demand in Europe. However, it quickly became clear that the Caribbean offered no silk or silver European markets and so the Spanish attempted to support their empire through mining gold and agriculture. The Spanish employed the Encomeienda system in which Spanish encomerendos had the right to compel the Taino to work in their mines or fields while also taking responsbility of their workers' wellfare and conversion to Christianity. Social abuse and disruption brought demographic decline to Taino populations as did the introduction of smallpox. About the 1640s, English, French and Dutch settlers began migrating to the Caribbean with the intention of establishing plantations to plant profitable cash crops like sugar and tobacco. Because indigenous populations declined rapidly, Europeans later imported millions of slaves to operate their estates.

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