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Baracoa was visited by Christopher Columbus on 27 November 1492. It is the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba.<br/><br/> Christopher Columbus (c. 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer from Genoa, Italy, whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the 'New World'.
Hatüey (- died February 2, 1512), was a Taíno chief from the island of Hispaniola. He fled to Cuba during the Spanish conquest where he attained legendary status for leading a group of natives in a fight against the invading Spaniards.
Hatüey (- died February 2, 1512), was a Taíno chief from the island of Hispaniola. He fled to Cuba during the Spanish conquest where he attained legendary status for leading a group of natives in a fight against the invading Spaniards.
A 1639 nautical map of Hispaniola (center-left), the most populous island in the Americas, and Puerto Rico (right). The name originally given by Christopher Columbus, who founded the first European colonies in the New World here during his first two voyages, was La Isla Espanola (&quot;the Spanish island&quot;), which was shortened to Espanola and then Latinised to Hispaniola.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to transport African slaves to the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti). They were soon followed by the Portuguese, France, Britain and the Netherlands. The alarming death rate in the native population spurred the first royal laws protecting them (Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513). The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501 soon after the Papal Bull of 1493 gave all of the New World to Spain. The cross-Atlantic slave trade was not abolished by European courts until around 1800.