. Advance in the Antilles; the new era in Cuba and Porto Rico . ars before. Havana Becomes the Capital. In 1551 the resi-dence of the governor was removed from Santiagoto Havana, which was thenceforth the capital andcommercial center. Thirty years later, in 1581,Spain changed the title of the ruler to captain-gen-eral, and this office continued until the extinction ofSpanish power in 1898. Cubas fortune and fatedepended largely upon the character and purposesof this official, who was appointed by the Spanishgovernment and commonly given absolute powerover the lives and property of the people.
. Advance in the Antilles; the new era in Cuba and Porto Rico . ars before. Havana Becomes the Capital. In 1551 the resi-dence of the governor was removed from Santiagoto Havana, which was thenceforth the capital andcommercial center. Thirty years later, in 1581,Spain changed the title of the ruler to captain-gen-eral, and this office continued until the extinction ofSpanish power in 1898. Cubas fortune and fatedepended largely upon the character and purposesof this official, who was appointed by the Spanishgovernment and commonly given absolute powerover the lives and property of the people. Cubabecame the rich graft land for Spanish nobles andothers who sought fortunes abroad to make up forthe loss or lack of them at home. Attacks on Cuba. When Spain was at war witiiother nations, Cuba occasionally became a French twice attacked Havana. The threat-ened attack by the English under Drake, in 1585,was the occasion of the building of the famousMorro Castle at the entrance of Havanas finelyprotected harbor, together with the battery of La. MORKO CASTLE AND LIGHTHOUSE, HAVANACOLUMBUS PARK^ HAVANA UNDER SPANISH RULE 13 Punta on the opposite shore. These forts longmade Havana impregnable. A Historical Hinge. But nearly two centurieslater it so happened that western Cuba was invadedand conquered by the British (1762). Twenty-three hundred American soldiers aided in that vic-tory. That was a crisis in Cuban history. Onwhat slight hinges a peoples destiny sometimesseems to swing. Had it not resulted, in the courseof treaty-making the following year, that Cuba wasrestored to Spain by England, how different thehistory of the island would have been! Under acolonial policy like that of the British in Jamaicaand the Bahamas, Cuba might easily have becomeone of the richest and most desirable garden spotson the globe; and the long period of revolution anddevastation might have been avoided. Then, too,the domination of the Roman Catholic hierarchywould have come to an en
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