Excerpt from The Early History of Cuba City: 1492-1586 This book is the history of Cuba from its discovery by Columbus in 1492, through the year 1586, when Sir Francis Drake, in sailing along the north shore of the island after his successful raid on other Spanish settlements of the West Indies, closed the first era of the colony's history. In that raid the great corsair demonstrated that Britannia ruled the waves of the Spanish main and that to hold possession of its shores and islets the Catholic King must enable his colonies there to defend themselves since his humbled navy was no longer equal to the task. Immediately Philip acted and there arose great forts, in Havana as else where, which are enduring monuments to Drague, hated by Spaniards to this day! In the safe Shadow of these forts, industry and agriculture began to de volop and, thanks especially to sugar and to copper, Cuba ceased to be a mere wayport of empire between the peninsula of Spain and the American continents: She came to be prized not only because of her geo graphical position (of great strategic importance) but also upon her own account for her own inherent worth. Although the writing of the consecutive history of a country is not usually so undertaken, I have compiled this book from the documents now (1915) available to investigators in the Archive of the Indies at Seville, Spain, with regard, however, to the few published works which are of value in a study of this portion ofments relating to the island in the years cited exist in other archives than Seville's; I have not attempted to see them for the Simple reason that the quantity of those at Seville is overwhelming. The character and the continuity of the documents I have seen persuades me that the account of Cuba's progress which I have been able to construct from them is too substantial to be entirely upset by any others elsewhere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.