Spanish West Indies

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The Spanish West Indies (also known as "Las Antillas" in Spanish) consist of Cuba, Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Puerto Rico. Former members consist of Jamaica (until the 1655), Cayman Islands (Until ???), Trinidad (until 1797) and Bay Islands (until 1643).

[edit] Attacks and Life of the Past

In Puerto Rico the El Morro Castle was able to defeat the attacks by Drake and Hawkins in 1595. However, George Clifford, the Earl of Cumberland, led an attack with 1,400 troops in June 1598 that forced the garrison of 400 men to surrender, but the English lost 400 men to disease and left with slaves, sugar, ginger, and pearls in September.

Puerto Rico governor Juan Perez de Guzman began the policy of granting slaves asylum in 1664, and he urged Spain's Council of the Indies to adopt this policy. The British objected, and after 1683 they often occupied Vieques in order to catch fugitives and to trade with Puerto Rico. Contraband trading in Puerto Rico had become increasingly popular ever since they prohibited the cultivation of ginger in 1602. In 1691 a clergyman from San German was beaten up for reporting to San Juan illegal commerce in Ponce. As smuggling increased in the 1690s, private ships were encouraged to seize vessels; but this led to plundering any cargo ship.

Puerto Rico fought off minor invasions by the British in 1702 and the Dutch the next year. The mulatto Miguel Henriquez was so successful at privateering that King Felipe V commended him in 1713. In 1731 Governor Matias de Abadia was instructed to curb contraband trading, but he protected the French and Dutch corsairs while punishing British smugglers. Privateers from Puerto Rico seized a fleet of six English ships bound for North American colonies in 1734.

In 1597 the fortress at Castillo del Morro was completed to protect the Havana harbor. During the 17th century Cuba suffered epidemics and attacks by Europeans as the population increased from 20,000 to about 50,000. Tobacco cultivation was banned for ten years until 1614 when it was revived; but the entire crop had to be shipped to Seville. Pirate raids slowed down after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 as the English began executing buccaneers.

In 1708 a Spanish royal decree enabled slaves to purchase their freedom, and the vast majority of freed Africans in the West Indies were in the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and Cuba. In 1715 the Spanish established the Factoria in Cuba to monopolize the tobacco business, but the growers revolted against this two years later and again in 1720 and 1723. That year a Belgian set up a printing press, and in 1728 Dominicans founded the University of San Jeronimo at Havana. Slaves in the copper mines of Santiago, Cuba revolted in 1729 and again two years later.

Following royal orders, in 1605 Española governor Antonio de Osorio ignored cabildo protests and had the settlements at Puerto Plata, Montecristi, La Yaguana, and Bayaja burned to stop smuggling. Some rebelled and were defeated while others fled to Cuba. Only 2,000 livestock out of 110,000 survived in the new pasture. One third of the people from La Yaguana and Bayaja who were settled at Bayaguana died of hunger and disease by 1609. During the Thirty Years War (1618-48) the Dutch blocked Spanish shipping, and the sugar mills stopped producing. Governor Chavez de Osorio (1628-36) monopolized defense industries and acquired a fortune, as did his successor, Juan Bietrian de Biamonte (1636-44), who also controlled export licenses. He brought in 250 Portuguese soldiers to protect his tyranny. In 1662 colonists requested a license to import slaves for their cacao plantations, and the Crown replied that a contract to import 3,500 Africans annually into the Indies had been signed. An effort to recapture fugitive slaves called cimarrones in 1665 gained only seventy. The French attacked Santiago in 1667, and this was followed by a devastating hurricane the next year and a smallpox epidemic that killed about 1,500 in 1669. That year 400 Africans were brought to Española, but the colony could only afford to buy 140. In 1677 twelve slaves escaped from French territory and were given refuge and their freedom in Santo Domingo. In 1681 the Spaniards began selling horses, salted meat, and cowhides to the French. De Cussy's attack on Santiago de los Caballeros in 1690 burned 160 homes, but the Spaniards retaliated with an attack in the north the next year.

The Spanish colony on Española supplied the populated sugar-producing St. Domingue colony with cattle in the 18th century. When the Spanish governor imposed a tax on the cattle sold to the French in 1721, the people of Santiago rebelled against it until troops subdued them. The French gradually pushed the border east until it was fixed in the agreement of 1731. When the new governor Pedro Zorilla de San Martin discovered in 1741 that the French were taxing the meat, he prohibited the export of livestock. St. Domingue was suffering a drought, and they persuaded the Spanish governor to permit an export quota of 200 cattle per month. The conflicts continued until they signed a treaty in 1764 for the free trade of cattle.