Spanish Islands

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The Republic of the Spanish Islands (Spanish: República de las Islas españolas; Portuguese: República das Ilhas Espanhol) is a small island nation in the south Caribbean. It is primarily inhabited by Spanish and Portuguese speaking people. This republic is ruled by President Sarracino Estranda. The islands are located south-west of Cuba.

Cuban History
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the island was inhabited by Native American peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney whose ancestors migrated from the mainland of North, Central and South America several centuries earlier. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were farmers and hunter-gatherers; some have suggested that copper trade was significant and mainland artifacts have been found. On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed near what is now Baracoa, claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain, and named Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511 the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa; other towns soon followed including the future capital, San Cristobal de la Habana founded in 1515. The Spanish enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people who resisted conversion to Christianity, setting them primarily to the task of searching for gold, and within a century European infectious diseases had virtually wiped out the indigenous people.

Spanish Islands
Christoper Columbus, together with Cuba, found these small islands to the south-west on October 15, 1492, and claimed them for the Kingdom of Spain. The Taíno and Ciboney also inhabited most of these islands. He named them Islas españolas because of his personal interest in these islands. The first Spanish settlement was founded by Adulfo Raimondi in 1515 on the main island, other settlements also rose from the ground, including the coastal settlement (capital) of what is now Ciudad Costera, in 1516. The Spanish here did the same as in Cuba, enslaved indigenous people, and converted them to Christianity, but on Cuba it was Catholic. Here in the Spanish Islands, it was Protestantism. The infectious diseases thankfully "skipped" these islands.

The Spanish Islands remained a Spanish possession for almost 400 years (1511–1870), with an economy based on plantations agriculture, mining and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe and later to North America. The work was done primarily by African slaves brought to the island when the British owned it in 1762. The small land-owning elite of Spanish settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of Spaniards born on the islands, other Europeans, and African-descended slaves.

In the 1820s, when the rest of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba and the Spanish Islands remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This loyalty was due partly to Cuban and Spanile settlers' dependence on Spain for trade, protection from pirates, protection against a slave rebellion and partly because they feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish rule.

Later, independence became a motive for a Spaniler, Castañon Estrada. He led a rebellion 1868 (went parallel with the Cuban rebellion) and forced most of the Kingdom of Spain's occupants off the islands. For the next year a conflict was fought between the Spanilers and the Spanish Government. In 1870, however, interest in the islands was lost, and the Kingdom of Spain signed the islands away to the rising new government.

29 years later, the now-established government formed a republic, and renamed the islands (country), República de las Islas españolas. The family of Castañon Estranda, remained the the ruling power, until today. However a deputy-president was electable. The first president of the Spanish Islands, was Castañon's son, Ederoño Estrada.