January 1513

Following the Spanish settlement of Cuba, enslaved Africans were transported to the island beginning around 1513 to labor in gold mining and agricultural production. The Spanish government issued licenses (asientos) controlling the trade. Cuba's plantation economy would eventually make it one of the largest recipients of enslaved Africans in the entire Atlantic trade, with over 800,000 people imported over the following centuries.

Juan Garrido, a free Black man of West African origin, accompanied Juan Ponce de León on his expedition to Florida in 1513 and later joined Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico (1519–1521). He is documented as the first person of African descent to set foot on the North American mainland. His presence illustrates the complex status of some Africans in early Spanish expeditions — simultaneously participants in colonialism and racialized figures within a system that enslaved their kin.