Native American villages and farms were scattered throughout the island before Europeans arrived in 1492. The first Spanish settlements, founded primarily to export gold and to organize expeditions to the mainland, were the ports of Baracoa, Havana, Puerto Pr ncipe, Santiago de Cuba, and Sancti Sp ritus. The ports grew slowly, however, because the island's few profitable mines were quickly exhausted. Within a few years the indigenous population was...
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