File:The storied West Indies (1900) (14751019896).jpg

Identifier: storiedwestindie00ober (find matches)
Title: The storied West Indies
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Ober, Frederick A. (Frederick Albion), 1849-1913
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Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d in Havana alone. A vast territory wasravaged, more than one hundred coasting vessels werewrecked, and hundreds of people were killed. Again,about twenty years later, the island and city werestorm swept, with great loss of life and shipping; yetHavana has survived all the attacks of buccaneers,pirates, filibusters, fire, and hurricane, and when itpassed from Spanish to American hands, in 1898,was one of the finest cities in tropical America. In a review of the many great events that havetaken place here, we should not lose sight of two ex-peditions made to Florida—by Pamphilo de Narvaezin 1528, and by Ferdinand de Soto in 1539. De Sotowas, as is well known, governor general of Cuba atthe time he fitted out his ill-starred expedition toFlorida, and it was from the harbor of Havana thathe sailed forth on the voyage that ended in the dis-covery of the Mississippi and his burial beneath itswaters. Hither, it is thought, was brought Ponce deLeon in 1521, wounded by an arrow from the bow
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Havana in the seventeenth century. 198 THE STORIED WEST INDIES of a Floridian, and here he died. Though politicallyseparated for years, yet many traditions of Cuba andFlorida have been common to both, through the ad-ventures of Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Though many times menaced, Havana had re-mained essentially a Spanish possession until the clos-ing years of the present century. In 1534, and againin 1554, it was taken by the French; in 1624 by theDutch; but each time was restored to Spain. Its mostcritical period was in the last quarter of the eight-eenth century, when the English assailed Spainsholdings in the West Indies with the intention ofpermanent occupancy. Had Great Britain carriedout her diplomatic schemes of that time, doubtlessthe history of the Western Hemisphere would havebeen radically different from that which we know;but she has always acted in a half-hearted mannerwith respect to the West Indies, and though she hasexpended vast treasure and shed British bl

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