The Antilles
The West Indies archipelago is known by a variety of names. The earliest name, and the one most frequently used, is West Indies. European explorer Christopher Columbus gave the region that name in error when he arrived in 1492. He assumed that the islands were near the coast of India.
With the passage of time, other names came into use. Spain and France called the islands the Antilles, named after the mythological Atlantic island of Antilia, or Antilla.


The Antilles are a group of islands comprising all of the West Indies except the Bahamas. They are divided into two major groups: the Greater Antilles, including Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Jamaica, and Puerto Rico and The Lesser Antilles that extend in an arc from Puerto Rico to the northeastern coast of South America. They include Windward Islands, Leeward Islands, southern group of the Netherlands Antilles, and, usually, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
The term Antilles dates traditionally from before Europeans discovered the New World, when Antilia referred to semimythical lands located somewhere west of Europe across the Atlantic. On medieval charts it was sometimes indicated as a continent or large island and sometimes as an archipelago. After discovery of the West Indies by Columbus, the Spanish term Antillas was commonly assigned to the new lands, and “Sea of the Antilles” in various European languages is used as an alternate designation for the Caribean. During the 19th century, the United States began to extend its influence into the West Indies, at first through business ventures on a number of the islands, but later through direct military intervention. As a result of the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States occupied Spain’s two remaining colonies in the region, Cuba and Puerto Rico. While Cuba became independent shortly afterward, Puerto Rico eventually became a U.S. commonwealth. The United States intervened militarily in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican