The inhabitants of the East Indies are never calledEast Indians, as they are not linguistically related to South Asia, most specifically theIndo-Aryan languages. It distinguishes them both from inhabitants of theCaribbean (which is also called theWest Indies) and from theindigenous peoples of the Americas who are often calledAmerican Indians. However, in colonial times, the non-Indian Southeast Asians were also called "Indians".
Peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a singleethnic group. The region is mostly populated by theAustronesians, who first expanded from the island ofTaiwan, and later on during theearly modern period, when East Asians such as theHan Chinese started to migrate south and became known as thePeranakans or Straits Chinese.
Regions of the East Indies are sometimes known by the colonial empire they once belonged to, hence,Spanish East Indies means thePhilippines,Dutch East Indies meansIndonesia, andBritish East Indies refers toMalaysia.
Historically, the king ofAbyssinia (modernEthiopia) was identified with "Prester John of the Indies", since that part of the world was imagined to be one of "Three Indias".
Exploration of theEast Indies byEuropean powers began in the last three years of the 15th century and continued into the 16th century, led by thePortugueseexplorers.[4] The Portuguese described the entire region they discovered as theIndies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series ofIndies: The East Indies, which was also called "Old Indies" or "Great Indies", consisting ofIndia, and the West Indies, also called "New Indies" or "Little Indies", consisting of theAmericas.[5]
TheNew World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of theIndies by explorerChristopher Columbus, who had grossly underestimated the westerly distance from Europe to Asia. Later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the "West Indies", while the original Indies came to be called the "East Indies".
The designationEast Indian was once primarily used to describe people of all of the East Indies, in order to avoid the potential confusion from the termAmerican Indian who were once simply referred to asIndians (see theNative American name controversy for more information).
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