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How Did The Conquistadors Affect The Cubans

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Christopher Columbus reached Cuba on October twenty-eighth, 1492 (García, The Colonial Era). Twenty years later in 1510, the conquest of Cuba began (García, The Colonial Era). Then after one year of the Spanish exploring Cuba, Diego Velázquez was appointed as the governor of Cuba (García, The Colonial Era). He then crushed all indigenous resistances easily (García, The Colonial Era). The had much better weapons than the Cubans, like metal weapons and guns (García, The Colonial Era). The Spanish brutally killed thousands of native Cubans without hesitation. When the Spanish arrived, they made immediate impacts on the natives’ ways of life. hey brought new economic activities, such as ship making and farming. Spain nearly ruined the …show more content…

Instead of hunter-gatherers who weren’t very productive, people became farmers (García, The Colonial Era). The development of agriculture was very important to the development of Cubans because before the Cubans did not have enough food to support people working in other professions like metalworkers (García, The Colonial Era). Not being able to have many other professions in a tribe was the reason why many of the tribes did not have complex cities or towns. The conquistadors discovered tobacco, a cash crop, which started a new trend in Europe and created a high demand for Cuban tobacco, which helped the Cuban and Spanish economy (García, The Colonial Era). Another cash crop that was harvested in Cuba because of the Spanish was sugar. As soon as sugar arrived in Europe, it was in high demand for Cuban farmers (García, The Colonial Era). Cuba was also used as a rest stop to house passengers and crews of ships while their ships would be repaired by the townspeople (García, The Colonial Era). It was very helpful for Spain as it allowed them to get to Mexico safer and easier (García, The Colonial Era). It also created jobs for Cubans (García, The Colonial Era). Slavery was also introduced to Cuba (García, The Colonial Era). It added all of the economic activities and created a more prosperous economy (García, The Colonial

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