The refugees who stayed added to the city's eclectic cultural mix, already rich with Spanish and African culture. Some French soldiers joined other refugees in Charleston, South Carolina, or New York City others went to New Orleans. Cuba initially allowed only white refugees, women of color, children, and loyal "domestics" to land French troops and all men of color over the age of thirteen were held off shore, to be rapidly deported to the mainland, as they were considered a revolutionary threat. The immigrants, who included freedmen as France had abolished slavery on Saint-Domingue, struggled to maintain their freedom in Cuba, which was still a slave society. The French were withdrawing surviving troops after suffering heavy losses from warfare and yellow fever. Haiti declared its independence as a republic in 1804. Other refugees had emigrated from Saint-Domingue earlier in the revolution. Some eighteen thousand Saint Dominican refugees, both ethnic French whites and free people of color, and African freedmen, came from Saint-Domingue in the summer of 1803 during the last days of the Haitian slave revolt, which had started in 1791. The city had a huge influx of French and British immigrants in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. More than 50 years later the English raided again in 1662 under Christopher Myngs. The city was plundered by French forces in 1553, and by English forces in 1603. From 1522 until 1589, Santiago was the capital of the Spanish colony of Cuba. The first cathedral was built in the city in 1528. This was the starting point of the expeditions led by Juan de Grijalba and Hernán Cortés to the coasts of Mexico in 1518, and in 1538 by Hernando de Soto's expedition to Florida. The settlement was destroyed by fire in 1516, and was immediately rebuilt. Santiago de Cuba was the fifth village founded by Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar on July 25, 1515. 1859 watercolor of Santiago de Cuba by British geologist James Gay Sawkins
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