when Spanish explorerChristopher Columbus reached the islands, he mistakenly claimed he had reached the East Indies, soondubbing the islands the West Indies once the Spaniards realised their mistake. Meanwhile, ethnic studiesscholar Tony Castanha (2011, xvi) argues that the term Caribbean is derived from the name of one of theregion’s Indigenous populations, the Caribs
I had heard the term west indies before but never realized that it was used to refer to the Caribbean. This was interesting to learn.