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Article: The Caribbean
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE CARIBBEAN
Historiography often renders the Spanish Caribbean islands of the early modern period either as mere backwaters, the initial significance of which was rapidly overtaken by the much larger and more lucrative colonies of New Spain and Peru, or as the "Caribbean experiment," the sites where insular colonialism was first tried before being perfected on the continents. However, from the very first moment of contact the encounters and clashes between Spaniards and native peoples of the Caribbean forged the intellectual and cultural template for Spain's subsequent colonial rule in the rest of the hemisphere. Though the major colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola became ...