West Indies History

Following Christopher Columbus' expedition to the Americas, both Spanish and Portuguese ships began to sail to the New World, claiming territories. By the early 1600's, Dutch, British and French ships began sailing the Atlantic, establishing settlements in the area.

Colonization
The West Indies, which was surrounded by miles of ocean, began to be populated by various settlements from different nations.This area would become the central power struggle between the different European nations seeking to increase their wealth and power around the globe.

Nations began to claim newly found lands in the new world, and profited from them. Wealth was just as important as military strength, and became the judge of power throughout the West Indies.

Though it was a new world the native people of the West Indies, the Taino Tribe, came into contact with the Europeans. Lacking the education, skillfully made ships and weapons of the Europeans, they were commonly enslaved or driven out of their lands. On the islands once only inhabitted by the natives, sugar cane plantations began to start farming, and settlements were erected. However, having a desperate need for workers, European plantation owners commonly filled their workforce with the enslaved native population, as well as shipping in African slaves.

Due to the harsh treatment of the Europeans and the diseases that they brought with the them, the native culture withered.

