Spanish Caribbean

The Spanish colonial enterprise in the Americas began in the Caribbean. Christopher Columbus’s renowned “discovery of America” in 1492 was, in fact, the discovery of the island of Hispaniola, which is now shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
In the 16th century, Spain and Portugal were at the forefront of European global exploration and colonial expansion. The two Iberian kingdoms fiercely competed to establish new trade routes across the world’s oceans.