The Europeans who invade and conquer the…
1492 CE to 1503 CE
The Europeans who invade and conquer the Caribbean destroy the internally cohesive world of the native peoples and subordinate the region and the peoples to the events of a wider world in which their fortunes are linked with those of Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
The Caribbean peoples are devastated by new epidemic diseases, such as measles, smallpox, malaria, and dysentery, introduced by the Europeans and the Africans imported as slaves.
Their social and political organizations are restructured in the name of Christianity.
Their simple lives are regimented by slavery and the demands of profit-oriented, commerce-minded Europeans.
Above all, they are slowly inundated culturally and demographically by the stream of new immigrants in the years immediately after the conquest.