This article explores the unique history of Cuba, from its encounters with Christopher Columbus to its enduring struggle against the US trade embargo. It highlights the island's rich cultural heritage and the resilience of its people.
Cuba is unique in more ways than one. The country has been under the longest trade embargo in modern history — since 1960. Since the Revolution, the US has seen 13 presidents remit office. All these American presidents have remitted office after failing to achieve regime change in the Caribbean country through what the Cuba ns consider as the economic asphyxiation of their homeland.
Christopher Columbus first reached the Bahamas in the year 1492 before heading to Cuba, which was the first geographical entity in that part of the world that attracted his attention. He is believed to have said of Cuba, ‘The most beautiful island that eyes ever beheld.’ Columbus never travelled to any part of what is now called the United States. The Italian explorer, who launched voyages sponsored by the Spanish monarchy, was on his way to the east along with his crew and they thought they had reached the shores of India. For centuries, after Columbus and his men returned to Spain from the Caribbean in early 1493, Cuba endured the Spanish conquest and the near extinction of its indigenous races, called the Taino, because of persecution and epidemics. The Taino people introduced the concept of hammocks to the world and offered the roots of words such as barbeque, canoe, and hurricane to their colonizers. In 1511, Diego de Velazquez, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage in late 1493, founded the first Spanish settlement on the island and became its governor. The indigenous name for the place was Baracoa, which still exists. Velazquez went on to create a total of seven urban settlements that included Santiago de Cuba and Havana in the early sixteenth century
Cuba History Christopher Columbus Trade Embargo Spanish Conquest
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