The Crown wanted to encourage population of underdeveloped zones in the Americas to pre-empt the occupation by foreign forces, as had happened with the English in Jamaica and the French within the Guianas and western Hispaniola (which the French renamed as Saint-Domingue). Between 1777 and 1783, extra islanders emigrated from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to settle in what became St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, in the course of the period when Spain dominated this former French territory west of the Mis...