Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century

Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century PDF Author: Alejandro de la Fuente
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807878065
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Havana in the 1550s was a small coastal village with a very limited population that was vulnerable to attack. By 1610, however, under Spanish rule it had become one of the best-fortified port cities in the world and an Atlantic center of shipping, commerce, and shipbuilding. Using all available local Cuban sources, Alejandro de la Fuente provides the first examination of the transformation of Havana into a vibrant Atlantic port city and the fastest-growing urban center in the Americas in the late sixteenth century. He shows how local ambitions took advantage of the imperial design and situates Havana within the slavery and economic systems of the colonial Atlantic.