История Карибского бассейна: от колонизации до современности.

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The history of the Caribbean reveals the significant role the region played 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 established permanent colonies and trading posts on the Caribbean islands neglected by Spain. Such colonies spread throughout the Caribbean, from the Bahamas in the northwest to Tobago in the southeast. Furthermore, during this period, French and English buccaneers settled on the island of Tortuga, the northern and western coasts of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), and later in Jamaica. After the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico were no longer part of the Spanish Empire in the New World. In the 20th century the Caribbean was again important during World War II, in the decolonization wave after the war, and in the tension between Communist Cuba and the United States. Exploitation of the labor of indigenous peoples and the demographic collapse of that population, forced migration of enslaved Africans, immigration of Europeans, Chinese, South Asians, and others, and rivalry amongst world powers since the sixteenth century have given Caribbean history an impact disproportionate to its size. Many islands have attained independence from colonial powers and sovereignty, others have formal political ties with major powers, including the United States. The early economic structure integrating the Caribbean into the Atlantic world and world economic system continue to have an impact on the modern Caribbean region.

At the time of European contact in 1492, Caribbean islands were densely populated by different indigenous groups. Recent scholarly research has investigated the origins and evolution of the islands' population over the entire period. At the beginning of the current geological epoch, the Holocene era, the northern part of South America was occupied by groups of small game hunters, fishers and foragers. These groups occasionally resided in semi permanent camp sites, while mostly being mobile in order to make use of a wide range of plant and animal resources in a variety of habitats. Archaeological evidence suggests that Trinidad was the first Caribbean island to have been settled as early as 9000/8000 BCE. However, the first settlers most likely arrived in Trinidad when it was still attached to South America by land bridges. It was not until about 7000/6000 BCE, during the early Holocene that Trinidad became an island rather than part of the mainland due to a significant jump in sea level by about 60 m., which may be attributable to climate change. The conclusion is that Trinidad was the only Caribbean Island that could have been colonized by indigenous people from the South American mainland by not traversing hundreds or thousands kilometres of open sea. The earliest major habitation sites discovered in Trinidad are the shell midden deposits of Banwari Trace and St. John, which have been dated between 6000 and 5100 BCE. Both shell middens represent extended deposits of shells discarded by human populations utilizing the crustaceans as a food source and stone and bone tools. They are considered to belong to the Ortoiroid archaeological tradition, named after the similar but much more recent Ortoire site in Mayaro, Trinidad. Scholars have attempted to classify Caribbean prehistory into different "ages," a difficult and controversial task. In the 1970s archaeologist Irving Rouse defined three "ages" to classify Caribbean prehistory: the Lithic, Archaic and Ceramic Age, based on archaeological evidence. Current literature on Caribbean prehistory still uses these three terms, but, there is much dispute regarding their usefulness and definition. In general, the Lithic Age is considered the first era of human development in the Americas and the period where stone chipping is first practiced. The ensuing Archaic age is often defined by specialized subsistence adaptions, combining hunting, fishing, collecting and the managing of wild food plants. Ceramic Age communities manufactured ceramic and made use of small scale agriculture. With the exception of Trinidad, the first Caribbean islands were settled between 3500 and 3000 BCE, during the Archaic Age. Archaeological sites of this period have been located in Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao and St. Martin, followed closely by Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. This settlement phase is often attributed to the Ortoiroid culture. Between 800 and 200 BCE a new migratory group expanded through the Caribbean island: the Saladoid. This group is named after the Saladero site in Venezuela, where their distinctive pottery (typically distinguished by white on red painted designs) was first identified. The introduction of pottery and plant domestication to the Caribbean is often attributed to Saladoid groups and is considered the beginning of the Ceramic Age. However, recent studies have revealed that crops and pottery were already present in some Archaic Caribbean populations before the arrival of the Saladoid. Although a large number of Caribbean Islands were settled during the Archaic and Ceramic Ages, some islands were presumably visited much later. Jamaica has no known settlements until around 600 CE while the Cayman Islands show no evidence of settlement before European arrival. Following the colonization of Trinidad, it was originally proposed that Saladoid groups island hopped their way to Puerto Rico, but current research tends to move away from this stepping stone model in favor of the southward route hypothesis. The southward route hypothesis proposes that the northern Antilles were settled directly from South America followed by progressively southward movements into the Lesser Antilles. This hypothesis has been supported by both radiocarbon dates and seafaring simulations. One initial impetus of movement from the mainland to the northern Antilles may have been the search for high quality materials such as flint. Flinty Bay on Antigua, is one of the best known sources of high quality flint in the Lesser Antilles. The presence of flint from Antigua on many other Caribbean Islands highlights the importance of this material during the Pre Contact period. The period from 650 to 800 CE saw major cultural, socio political and ritual reformulations, which took place both on the mainland and in many Caribbean islands. The Saladoid interaction sphere disintegrated rapidly. This period is characterized with a change in climate. Centuries of abundant rainfall were replaced by prolonged droughts and increased frequency of hurricanes. In general, the Caribbean population increased, with communities changing from scattered single villages to the creation of settlement clusters. Agricultural activity increased. Analysis of cultural material has also shown the development of tighter networks between islands during the post Saladoid period. The period after 800 CE can be seen as a period of transition in which status differentiation and hierarchically ranked society evolved, identified by a shift from achieved to ascribed leadership. After about 1200 CE this process was interrupted by the absorption of many Caribbean settlements into the evolving socio political structure of the Greater Antillean society. This process disrupted more or less independent lines of development of local communities and marked the beginnings of sociopolitical changes on a much larger scale. Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib speaking and Arawak speaking groups. DNA studies changed some of the traditional understandings of pre Contact indigenous history. In 2003, a geneticist from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Juan Martínez Cruzado, designed an island wide DNA survey of Puerto Rico's modern population. The received understanding of the profile of Puerto Ricans' ancestry has been as mainly having Spanish ethnic origins, with some African ancestry, and distant and less significant indigenous ancestry. Martínez Cruzado's research revealed that 61% of all Puerto Ricans have Amerindian mitochondrial DNA, 27% have African and 12% Caucasian. According to National Geographic, "Among the surprising findings is that most of the Caribbean’s original inhabitants may have been wiped out by South American newcomers a thousand years before the Spanish invasion that began in 1492. Moreover, indigenous populations of islands like Puerto Rico and Hispaniola were likely far smaller at the time of the Spanish arrival than previously thought."

Soon after the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, both Portuguese and Spanish ships began claiming territories in Central and South America. These colonies brought in gold, and other European powers, most specifically the English, Dutch and French, hoped to establish profitable colonies of their own. Imperial rivalries made the Caribbean a contested area during European wars for centuries. In the Spanish American wars of independence in the early nineteenth century, most of Spanish America broke away from the Spanish Empire, but Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under the Spanish crown until the Spanish–American War of 1898.

The Spanish encounter with lands and peoples unknown to them before the 1492 began with the first voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus, sailing under license from Queen Isabel I of Castile. Permanent Spanish settlement began in 1493. The first quarter century of Spanish settlement in the Caribbean set enduring patterns that were to be replicated throughout the Americas. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire and the subsequent conquest of Peru with their dense indigenous populations organized in high civilizations and the discovery of rich deposits of precious metals, the Caribbean ceased to be the primary focus of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. But the administrative, social, and cultural patterns the Spanish set in the Caribbean were enduring. Spanish contact and exploitation of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean had devastating consequences for the natives. Natives' deaths through disease and overwork prompted in Spanish settlers' search for indigenous labor on other Caribbean islands, resulting in the enslavement of natives and their transportation to the islands of Spanish settlement. Most saliently, the crown considered the indigenous population their new vassals and the crown attempted to stem the precipitous loss of indigenous population and settlers' enslavement and maltreatment of the indigenous population by enacting laws to curb settlers' exploitative activities. During Columbus's first voyage of exploration in 1492, he made contact with the Lucayans, whom he called "Indians" (indios) in the Bahamas and the Taíno in Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola. Starting with his second voyage in 1493, Spaniards came to settle permanently in the region dubbed "The Indies". Spaniards saw evidence of gold deposits when seeing natives' gold personal ornaments enticing the Spanish search for wealth. Although Spain claimed the entire Caribbean and concluded the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) with Portugal that divided the world between the two monarchies, Spaniards settled only the larger islands of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) (1493), where they founded the permanent settlement of Santo Domingo. The Spanish later founded settlements on Puerto Rico (1508); Jamaica (1509); Cuba (1511); and Trinidad (1530), and the small 'pearl islands' of Cubagua and Margarita off the Venezuelan coast because of their valuable pearl beds, which were worked extensively between 1508 and 1530. The Spanish settled permanently in the Caribbean, establishing as far as possible lives similar or better than what they had in Iberia. Unlike the Portuguese pattern of expansion that created a series of small trading posts or forts, Spaniards' expectation was to create Spanish style cities with permanent residents. They expected to use forced labor of the indigenous population to make European settlement not only possible but also profitable. Spaniards required the natives produce food for European settlers, putting strain on agriculture that did not generally produce major surpluses. Spaniards took it as their right to force the indigenous to labor for them in enterprises often far from natives' home villages. The allocation of labor to individual Spanish settlers was via grants, called encomiendas; the holders of these grants, encomenderos set indigenous to search for deposits of gold and mine it. The most famous account of the abuses and exploitation was by Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who influenced the Spanish crown to create laws to end the abuses and to attempt to stem the precipitous plunge of the indigenous populations. To supplement and then replace the dwindling indigenous labor force, the Spanish transported enslaved Africans to the Caribbean to work on plantations cultivating cane sugar, a high value export product. Spaniards continued their explorations of islands and the lands around the Caribbean Sea in search of sources of dense indigenous populations and material wealth. The expedition of Spanish settler on Cuba, Hernán Cortés, resulted in Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, which shifted the crown's focus to Mexico.

Although the Caribbean remained strategically important for the Spanish Empire, other European powers established a presence in the Caribbean after Spain's main interest turned toward Mexico and Peru, where there were dense indigenous populations that could be forced to labor and where there were rich deposits of silver. The Dutch, the French and the English conquered islands claimed by Spain but not effectively controlled. For European powers without colonies in the Americas, the islands presented possibilities for commercial development of sugar plantations on the model established by the Spanish, using enslaved African laborers. Also important was that the islands could serve as bases for trade and piracy in the region. Piracy in the Caribbean was widespread during the colonial era, especially between 1640 and 1680. The term "buccaneer" is often used to describe a pirate operating in this region. Francis Drake was an English privateer who attacked many Spanish settlements. His most celebrated Caribbean exploit was the capture of the Spanish Silver Train at Nombre de Dios in March 1573. British colonization of Bermuda began in 1612. British West Indian colonization began with Saint Kitts in 1623 and Barbados in 1627. The former was used as a base for British colonization of neighboring Nevis (1628), Antigua (1632), Montserrat (1632), Anguilla (1650) and Tortola (1672). French colonization too began on St. Kitts, the British and the French splitting the island amongst themselves in 1625. It was used as a base to colonize the much larger Guadeloupe (1635) and Martinique (1635), St. Martin (1648), St Barts (1648), and St Croix (1650), but was lost completely to Britain in 1713. From Martinique the French colonized St. Lucia (1643), Grenada (1649), Dominica (1715), and St. Vincent (1719). English admiral William Penn seized Jamaica in 1655 and it remained under British rule for over 300 years. In 1625 French buccaneers established a settlement on Tortuga, just to the north of Hispaniola, that the Spanish were never able to permanently destroy despite several attempts. The settlement on Tortuga was officially established in 1659 under the commission of King Louis XIV. In 1670 Cap François (later Cap Français, now Cap Haïtien) was established on the mainland of Hispaniola. Under the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain officially ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France. The Dutch took over Saba, Saint Martin, Sint Eustatius, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, Tobago, St. Croix, Tortola, Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Anguilla and a short time Puerto Rico, together called the Dutch West Indies, in the 17th century. Denmark Norway first ruled part, then all of the present U. S. Virgin Islands since 1672, Denmark sold sovereignty over the Danish West Indies in 1917 to the United States, of which they are still a part.

"The official plantocratic view of slave marriage sought to deny the slaves any loving bonds or long standing relationships, thus conveniently rationalising the indiscriminate separation of close kin through sales." "From the earliest days of slavery, indiscriminate sales and separation severely disrupted the domestic life of individual slaves." Slaves could be sold so that spouses could be sold separately. "Slave couples were sometimes separated by sale  They lived as single slaves or as part of maternal or extended families but considered themselves 'married. Sale of estates with "stock" to pay debts, more common in the late period of slavery, was criticised as separating slave spouses. John Stewart argued against separation as leading slave buyers to regret it because of "despair[,]  utter despondency[,] or 'put[ting] period to their lives. Separated slaves often used free time to travel long distances to reunite for a night

European plantations required laws to regulate the plantation system and the many slaves imported to work on the plantations. This legal control was the most oppressive for slaves inhabiting colonies where they outnumbered their European masters and where rebellion was persistent such as Jamaica. During the early colonial period, rebellious slaves were harshly punished, with sentences including death by torture; less serious crimes such as assault, theft, or persistent escape attempts were commonly punished with mutilations, such as the cutting off of a hand or a foot. In European colonies in the Caribbean, each colony had to develop laws regulating slavery. British West Indian colonies were able to establish laws regulating the institution through their own local legislatures, and the assent of the colony's governor (who served as a representative of the Crown). In contrast, French, Danish, Dutch and Spanish colonies were strictly controlled by their metropole, including the implementation of slave codes. The French regulated slaves under the Code Noir (Black Code) which was in force in all of France's colonies, and was based upon early French slave practises in the Caribbean colonies.

The plantation system and the slave trade that enabled its growth led to regular slave resistance in many Caribbean islands throughout the colonial era. Resistance was made by escaping from the plantations altogether, and seeking refuge in the areas free of European settlement. Communities of escaped slaves, who were known as Maroons, banded together in heavily forested and mountainous areas of the Greater Antilles and some of the islands of the Lesser Antilles. The spread of the plantations and European settlement often meant the end of many Maroon communities, although they survived on Saint Vincent and Dominica, and in the more remote mountainous areas of Jamaica, Hispaniola, Guadeloupe and Cuba. Violent resistance broke out periodically on the larger Caribbean islands. Many more conspiracies intended to create rebellions were discovered and ended by Europeans before they could materialise. Actual violent uprisings, involving anywhere from dozens to thousands of slaves, were regular events, however. Jamaica and Cuba in particular had many slave uprisings. Such uprisings were brutally crushed by European forces.

Not all Caribbean islands have become independent, as of the early 21st century. A number of islands continue to have government ties with European countries, or with the United States. French overseas departments and territories include several Caribbean islands. Guadeloupe and Martinique are French overseas departments, a legal status that they have had since 1946. Their citizens are considered full French citizens with the same legal rights. In 2003, the populations of St. Martin and St. Barthélemy voted in favor of secession from Guadeloupe in order to form separate overseas territories of France. After a bill was passed in the French Parliament, the new status took effect on February 21, 2007. Puerto Rico and the U. S. Virgin Islands are officially territories of the United States, but are sometimes referred to as "protectorates" of the United States. They are self governing territories subject to Congress plenary powers over the territories. British overseas territories in the Caribbean include: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos. Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten are all presently separate constituent countries, formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles. Along with Netherlands, they form the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Citizens of these islands have full Dutch citizenship.

President James Monroe's State of the Union address in 1823 included a significant change to United States foreign policy which later became known as the Monroe Doctrine. In a key addition to this policy called the Roosevelt Corollary, the United States reserved the right to intervene in any nation of the Western Hemisphere it determined to be engaged in "chronic wrongdoing". This new expansionism coupled with the loss of relative power by the colonial nations enabled the United States to become a major influence in the region. In the early part of the twentieth century this influence was extended by participation in The Banana Wars. Areas outside British or French control became known in Europe as "America's tropical empire". Victory in the Spanish–American War and the signing of the Platt amendment in 1901 ensured that the United States would have the right to interfere in Cuban political and economic affairs, militarily if necessary. After the Cuban revolution of 1959 relations deteriorated rapidly leading to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis and successive US attempts to destabilise the island. The US invaded and occupied Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic and Haiti) for 19 years (1915–34), subsequently dominating the Haitian economy through aid and loan repayments. The U. S. invaded Haiti again in 1994 to overthrow a military regime, and restored elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide. In the 2004, Aristide was overthrown in coup d'état, and flown out of the country by the U. S Aristide later accused the U. S. of kidnapping him. In 1965, 23,000 US troops were sent to the Dominican Republic to intervene into the Dominican Civil War to end the war and prevent supporters of deposed left wing president Juan Bosch taking over, in what was the first U. S. military intervention in Latin America in more than 30 years. President Lyndon Johnson had ordered the invasion to stem what he claimed to be a "Communist threat", but the mission appeared ambiguous and was condemned throughout the hemisphere as a return to gunboat diplomacy. On October 25 1983 the United States invaded Grenada to remove left wing leader Hudson Austin, who had deposed Maurice Bishop nine days earlier on October 16. Bishop was executed three days later on the 19th. The United States maintains a naval military base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. The base is one of five unified commands whose "area of responsibility" is Latin America and the Caribbean. The command is headquartered in Miami, Florida. As an arm of the economic and political network of the Americas, the influence of the United States stretches beyond a military context. In economic terms, the United States represents a primary market for the export of Caribbean goods. Notably, this is a recent historical trend. The post war era reflects a time of transition for the Caribbean basin when, as colonial powers sought to disentangle from the region (as part of a larger trend of decolonisation), the US began to expand its hegemony throughout the region. This pattern is confirmed by economic initiatives such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which sought to congeal alliances with the region in light of a perceived Soviet threat. The CBI marks the emergence of the Caribbean basin as a geopolitical area of strategic interest to the US. This relationship has carried through to the 21st century, as reflected by the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. The Caribbean Basin is also of strategic interest in regards to trade routes; it has been estimated that nearly half of US foreign cargo and crude oil imports are brought via Caribbean seaways. During wartime, these figures only stand to increase. It is important to note that the United States is also of strategic interest to the Caribbean. Caribbean foreign policy seeks to strengthen its participation in a global free market economy. As an extension of this, Caribbean states do not wish to be excluded from their primary market in the United States, or be bypassed in the creation of "wider hemispheric trading blocs" that stand to drastically alter trade and production in the Caribbean Basin. As such, the US has played an influential role in shaping the Caribbean's role in this hemispheric market. Likewise, building trade relationships with the US has always figured in strongly with the political goal of economic security in post independence Caribbean states.

The mainstay of the Caribbean economy, sugar, has declined gradually since the beginning of the 20th century, although it is still a major crop in the region. Caribbean sugar production became relatively expensive in comparison to other parts of the world that developed their own sugar cultivation industries, making it difficult for Caribbean sugar products to compete. Caribbean economic diversification into new activities became essential to the islands.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Caribbean islands enjoyed greater political stability. Large scale violence was no longer a threat after the end of slavery in the islands. The British controlled islands in particular benefited from investments in the infrastructure of colonies. By the beginning of World War I, all British controlled islands had their own police force, fire department, doctors and at least one hospital. Sewage systems and public water supplies were built, and death rates in the islands dropped sharply. Literacy also increased significantly during this period, as schools were set up for students descended from African slaves. Public libraries were established in large towns and capital cities. These improvements in the quality of life for the inhabitants also made the islands a much more attractive destination for visitors. Tourists began to visit the Caribbean in larger numbers by the beginning of the 20th century, although there was a tourist presence in the region as early as the 1880s. The U. S. owned United Fruit Company operated a fleet of "banana boats" in the region that doubled as tourist transportation. The United Fruit Company also developed hotels for tourist accommodations. It soon became apparent, however, that this industry was much like a new form of colonialism; the hotels operated by the company were fully staffed by Americans, from chefs to waitresses, in addition to being owned by Americans, so that the local populations saw little economic benefit. The company also enforced racial discrimination in many policies for its fleet. Black passengers were assigned to inferior cabins, were sometimes denied bookings, and were expected to eat meals early before white passengers. The most popular early destinations were Jamaica and the Bahamas; the Bahamas remains today the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean. Post independence economic needs, particularly in the aftermath of the end of preferential agricultural trade ties with Europe, led to a boom in the development of the tourism industry in the 1980s and thereafter. Large luxury hotels and resorts have been built by foreign investors in many of the islands. Cruise ships are also regular visitors to the Caribbean. Some islands have gone against this trend, such as Cuba and Haiti, whose governments chose not to pursue foreign tourism, although Cuba has developed this part of the economy very recently. Other islands lacking sandy beaches, such as Dominica, missed out on the 20th century tourism boom, although they have recently begun to develop eco tourism, diversifying the tourism industry in the Caribbean.

The development of offshore banking services began during the 1920s. The close proximity of the Caribbean islands to the United States has made them an attractive location for branches of foreign banks. Clients from the United States take advantage of offshore banking services to avoid U. S. taxation. The Bahamas entered the financial services industry first, and continues to be at the forefront of financial services in the region. The Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and the Netherlands Antilles have also developed competitive financial services industries. In recent years reduced interest rates and higher costs related largely to anti money laundering compliance have led to the closure of many correspondent banking arrangements by extra regional banks.

Ports both large and small were built throughout the Caribbean during the colonial era. The export of sugar on a large scale made the Caribbean one of the world's shipping cornerstones, as it remains today. Many key shipping routes still pass through the region. The development of large scale shipping to compete with other ports in Central and South America ran into several obstacles during the 20th century. Economies of scale, high port handling charges, and a reluctance by Caribbean governments to privatise ports put Caribbean shipping at a disadvantage. Many locations in the Caribbean are suitable for the construction of deepwater ports for commercial ship container traffic, or to accommodate large cruise ships. The deepwater port at Bridgetown, Barbados, was completed by British investors in 1961. A more recent deepwater port project was completed by Hong Kong investors in Grand Bahama in the Bahamas. Some Caribbean islands take advantage of flag of convenience policies followed by foreign merchant fleets, registering the ships in Caribbean ports. The registry of ships at "flag of convenience" ports is protected by the Law of the Sea and other international treaties. These treaties leave the enforcement of labour, tax, health and safety, and environmental laws under the control of the registry, or "flag" country, which in practical terms means that such regulations seldom result in penalties against the merchant ship. The Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Antigua, Bermuda, and St. Vincent are among the top 11 flags of convenience in the world. However, the flag of convenience practice has been a disadvantage to Caribbean islands as well, since it also applies to cruise ships, which register outside the Caribbean and thus can evade Caribbean enforcement of the same territorial laws and regulations.

1492 Spanish arrival on the Lucayan Archipelago, Hispaniola and Cuba. 1493 Spanish arrival on Dominica, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Antigua, Saint Martin, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Jamaica. 1496 Spanish foundation of Santo Domingo colonization of Hispaniola begins. 1498 Spanish arrival on Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, Margarita Island. 1499 Spanish arrival on Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire. 1502 Spanish arrival on Martinique. 1508 Spanish colonization of Puerto Rico and Aruba begins. 1509 Spanish colonization of Jamaica begins. 1511 Spanish foundation of Baracoa colonization of Cuba begins. 1520 Spaniards removed last Amerindians from Lucayan Archipelago ( population of 40,000 in 1492 ). 1525 Spanish colonization of Margarita Island begins. 1526 Spanish colonization of Bonaire begins. 1527 Spanish colonization of Curacao begins. 1536 Portuguese arrival on Barbados. 1592 Spanish colonization of Trinidad begins. 1623 English colonization of Saint Kitts begins. 1627 English colonization of Barbados begins. 1628 English colonization of Nevis begins. 1631 Dutch colonization of Saint Martin begins. 1632 English colonization of Montserrat and Antigua begins. 1634 Dutch conquest of Spanish Curaçao. 1635 French colonization of Guadeloupe and Martinique begins. 1636 Dutch conquest of Spanish Aruba and Bonaire. 1648 English colonization of The Bahamas begins. 1649 French colonization of Grenada begins. 1650 English colonization of Anguilla begins. 1654 Dutch colonization of Tobago begins. 1655 English conquest of Spanish Jamaica. 1681 English colonization of Turks and Caicos begins. 1697 by Peace of Ryswick, Spain ceded western third of Hispaniola (Haiti) to France. 1719 French colonization of Saint Vincent (Antilles) begins. 1734 English colonization of Cayman Islands begins. 1797 British conquest of Spanish Trinidad.