Glossary
| Caribbean | | Region just east of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the United States. Within the Caribbean Sea there are nearly two-dozen countries. The Caribbean was the first place visited by Christopher Columbus, who first landed on an island in the present-day Bahamas. In the following century, the Caribbean islands quickly became key sites of colonial conquest. European colonial powers enslaved local indigenous populations and also brought hundreds of thousands of African slaves to the region, forcing them to work on sugar and coffee plantations. While many Caribbean islands have since achieved independence, many remain colonial territories, governed from afar by the Americans, British, Dutch and French. |
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