EncomiendaThe encomienda (eŋkoˈmjenda) was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military protection and education. The encomienda was first established in Spain following the Christian reconquest of Moorish territories (known to Christians as the Reconquista), and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Spanish East Indies.
Catholic Monarchs of SpainThe Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; to remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger.
Spanish treasure fleetThe Spanish treasure fleet, or West Indies Fleet (Flota de Indias, also called silver fleet or plate fleet; from the plata meaning "silver"), was a convoy system of sea routes organized by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to 1790, which linked Spain with its territories in the Americas across the Atlantic. The convoys were general purpose cargo fleets used for transporting a wide variety of items, including agricultural goods, lumber, various metal resources such as silver and gold, gems, pearls, spices, sugar, tobacco, silk, and other exotic goods from the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire to the Spanish mainland.
Alonso de OjedaAlonso de Ojeda (aˈlonso ðe oˈxeða; c. 1466 – c. 1515) was a Spanish explorer, governor and conquistador. He travelled through modern-day Guyana, Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, Curaçao, Aruba and Colombia. He navigated with Amerigo Vespucci who is famous for having named Venezuela, which he explored during his first two expeditions, for having been the first European to visit Guyana, Curaçao, Colombia, and Lake Maracaibo, and later for founding Santa Cruz (La Guairita). Alonso de Ojeda was born in Torrejoncillo del Rey, New Castile around 1466.
KalinagoThe Kalinago, formerly known as Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Mainland Caribs. At the time of Spanish contact, the Kalinago were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean (the name of which is derived from "Carib", as the Kalinago were once called).
GuacanagaríxGuacanagarix (alternate transcriptions: Guacanacaríc, Guacanagarí) was one of five Taíno caciques of the Caribbean island henceforth known as Hispaniola at the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. This was contemporaneous with the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus. He was the chief of the cacicazgo of Marién, which occupied the northwest of the island. Guacanagarix received Christopher Columbus after the Santa María was wrecked during his first voyage to the New World.
SaladoidThe Saladoid culture is a pre-Columbian indigenous culture of territory in present-day Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE. The Saladoid were an Arawak people. Concentrated along the lowlands of the Orinoco River, the people migrated by sea to the Lesser Antilles, and then to Puerto Rico. This cultural classification comes from adding the suffix "oid" to the sites where these unique pottery styles were first recognised; thus the name Saladoid, from name of the modern settlement of Saladero, is used by archaeologists to identify the peoples of the early ceramic age.
HaitiansHaitians (French: Haïtiens, Ayisyen) are the citizens of Haiti and the descendants in the diaspora through direct parentage. An ethnonational group, Haitians generally comprise the modern descendants of self-liberated Africans in the Caribbean territory historically referred to as Saint-Domingue. This includes the mulatto minority who denote corresponding European ancestry, notably from French settlers.
CaciqueA cacique, sometime spelled as cazique ( kaˈsike; kɐˈsikɨ, kaˈsiki; feminine form: cacica) was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, who were the indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles at the time of European contact with those places. The term is a Spanish transliteration of the Taíno word kasike. Cacique was initially translated as "king" or "prince" for the Spanish.
