Columbus had given the land which he discovered
on the 28th of October, 1492, the name Juana, but
when Ferdinand died it was called Fernandina.
When the English deprived Jamaica of the appellation
of the patron saint of Spain, the memory of the
king was displaced by that of the saint, and this
island was called Santiago for a time. Then the
name was left to the flourishing town on the south
coast, and the island as a whole was named successively
A v e Maria and A lfa y Omega; but in the end
the old native name for the central section got the
better of all Spanish designations, though mutilated
to less than half its legitimate length. That name
was Cubanacan, and the flippant F r e n c h buccaneers
began to call the whole place Coube; and the
Spaniards finally accepted Cuba.
Hernando de Soto was the first governor by royal
appointment, and in 1538, before he started on his
explorations of the Gulf coast, he began the orti -
cations of Havana in consequence of the attack of
French privateers which had just occurred. T he
peril from French, English, and Dutch marauders
of the sea long continued, and the defences were
strengthened from time to time. The Castillo del
Morro and the Castillo de la Punta on opposite
sides of the entrance to the Bay of Havana were
constructed before 1600, but were enlarged after-
wards.
T he colony did not advance much until the latter
part of the eighteenth century. Previous to 1580,
the scattered inhabitants were chiefly engaged in
raising cattle. Then tobacco and sugar began to