Three months later, Columbus set sail back to Spain to bring word of his discovery to the King, leaving a number of his men behind. He did not wait long to depart back to the new world again, leaving in September, but this time he brought 17 ships and 1500 men with him including missionaries, soldiers and laborers, as well as cattle and seeds. Even with all these ships, the Spaniards did not realize that Cuba was an island until 1508 when Sebastian de Ocampo circumnavigated Cuba, proving that it was an island.

Before the Spanish had arrived there were 3 different native cultures: the Ciboneyes, the Guanahatabeyes and the Taínos. The Guanahatabeyes had been there the longest and it is thought that they probably came from Florida. The Ciboneyes and Taínos are though to have saile

The Spaniards philosophy was to work the slaves until they died, then buy new ones. Slaves in Cuba were the lowest form of life, not even treated as humans (Africans weren’t even officially considered human by the Catholic church until the mid 1800’s). Many slaves were not fed at all, and many were fed only rum, which is a bi-product of sugar cane. They would have to fend for themselves, eating bugs and rodents or whatever else they could find. Breeding of slaves was forbidden, due to the fact that it took the female slave out of the field for a long time and the child wouldn’t be able to work for quite a few years after that. Men and women were usually completely separated to prevent breeding. They were brutally beaten, sometimes beaten to death, if they didn’t work hard or fast enough. Slaves could not hold supervisor or management positions. They could not escape. They could not get married. They could not buy back their freedom. They were trapped in brutal slavery with no hope of escape. The only way to get off the island was to die.

d over from the West Indies. These tribes were nomadic societies that hunted using natural materials, such as unpolished stones, seashells and fish bones, for tools.

Slavery in Cuba was much different. England and the other European countries had discovered and become addicted to tea and coffee. They drank huge amounts of it and there was a huge demand for sugar to go along with this addiction. The Spanish recognized the opportunity and began using African slaves on Sugar Cane plantations, which demand the cheapest possible labor force. Working on these plantations was hard enough by itself, but the Spanish had a real gift for making things as absolutely miserable as possible.

In 1511, Diego Velasquez sailed from the Dominican Republic, then called Hispanola, to conquer and colonize Cuba. The Dominican Republic had already been colonized and the natives were put into slave labor. Velasquez was completely appalled at the lifestyle of the Cuban people when he arrived. "They're savages!" he said, "Without houses or towns and eating only the meat they are able to find in the forests as well as turtles and fish."

The Spanish had an Absentee Ownership program implemented at the time, which meant that the owner of a plantation did not need to live there. They just hired someone to manage it for them and they made all the money. As a result of this the island was a complete dump. If the owners would have lived there, they would have had nice houses, churches and even schools. But since they didn’t have to live there they didn’t care what was going on.

In the early 1700’s, the Royal Spanish authorities realized the opportunity to make huge sums of money from Cuba. They began to form monopolies on certain products. One agency called the “Factoria,” purchased all the tobacco products from Cuba at low fixed prices and made an absolute killing selling the products overseas. Another agency, the “Real Compania de Comercia,” formed a monopoly over all importing and exporting from Cuba. This agency developed a bad reputation very quickly by raising prices in Cuba on nearly everything. The Cubans hated them. This is one of the first factors that really made Cubans think about a revolution. The Cuban monopolies were abolished in 1817.

Cuba tried throu

Some topics in this essay:
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