Bradley Perez, age 16, of Galveston, Tex., for her question:
WHO OWNS THE WEST INDIES?
A long chain of islands that separates the Caribbean Sea from the rest of the Atlantic Ocean is called the West Indies. A number of independent countries are located in the West Indies while other islands are territorial possessions of the United States and several European countries.
The Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are independent countries in the West Indies.
The United States governs some of the Virgin Islands as a territory. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States.
British possessions include the rest of the Virgin Islands; the Caicos Islands; the Cayman Islands; the Turks Islands; and Montserrat. Antigua, Dominica, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) Nevis Anguilla, St. Lucia and St. Vincent are states in association with Great Britain.
The Netherlands controls two groups of islands called the Netherlands Antilles.
Martinique and Guadeloupe are overseas departments of France.
The West Indies consist of three major groups of islands: (1) the Bahamas in the north, (2) the Greater Antilles near the center and (3) the Lesser Antilles in the southeast. The Lesser Antilles are divided into the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands.
Sometimes the term "Antilles" is used for all of the West Indies islands except the Bahamas.
The West Indies cover a land area of 92,052 square miles and have a population of about 29 million. Cuba is the largest island. The islands stretch in a 2,000 mile curve from an area near the southern tip of Florida and the eastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to the coast of Venezuela.
Christopher Columbus arrived in the West Indies in 1492 and claimed them for Spain. He called them "Indies" because he thought they were part of the Indies islands of Asia.
Arawak and Carib Indians lived in the West Indies when Columbus arrived. The Spanish established colonies in the islands in the 1500s and most of the Indians died from disease and overwork under Spanish rule.
The Spaniards gained great wealth from sugar and tobacco grown in the West Indies. They imported large numbers of black slaves from West Africa to the islands to work on their sugar and tobacco plantations.
During the 1600s, the English, French and Dutch established colonies in the West Indies. During the 1600s and 1700s, Spain began to lose its power as the English and French expanded their control.
During the 1800s, revolutions weakened colonial control in some of the larger islands. In the late 1800s, a revolution in Cuba helped to bring the United States into the Spanish American War. Cuba became independent after that war and the United States won possession of Puerto Rico.
In 1917, the United States bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark.