Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Caribbean islands explored by Columbus, 1550s, reflecting the belief (or hope) that they were western outliers of the Indies of Asia. Related: West Indian, which is from 1580s in reference to the native inhabitants, 1650s in reference to European settlers there, and 1928 in reference to people of West Indian ancestry.
Wikipedia
The West Indies is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean that includes the island nations and surrounding waters of three major archipelagoes: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago. The term may also be synonymous with the term Caribbean Basin. The region is generally defined as the area running from Florida westward along the Gulf coast, then south along the Mexican coast through Central America and then eastward across the northern coast of South America. Bermuda is also included within the region even though it is in the west-central Atlantic, due to its common cultural history created by European colonization of the region, and in most of the region by the presence of a significant group of African descent.
After the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, Europeans began to use the term West Indies to distinguish the region from the East Indies of South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Usage examples of "west indies".
A preparation in use in the West Indies called Mandram, for weak digestion and loss of appetite, is made of thinly sliced and unskinned cucumbers, shallots, chives, or onions, lemon or lime juice, Madeira, and a few pods of bird pepper well mashed up in the liquids.
The Cabbage Palm, which grows profusely in the West Indies, derives its name from the bud topping the tall stem.
He had also served in the East Indies and the West, and it seemed that he had only just missed meeting Ramage in the West Indies on a dozen occasions.
Next morning he had to tell himself that the Commander-in-Chief in the West Indies, even if he were awaiting his relief, still had duties to do.
Aitken, who had just arrived in the West Indies for the first time, had not only noticed it but already had several theories and, he recently told Ramage, had drawn many sketches which he intended sending to an eminent naturalist he knew in Edinburgh.
Not just because he reached the West Indies, but because when he returned he was full of absolutely believable stories of things he had not seen.
In 1774, however, he killed a mutinous member of his crew in the West Indies, fled to America, and thereafter was wanted in England for murder.
On June 13, Rochambeau disclosed that the comte de Grasse, admiral of the French West Indies fleet, would arrive in American waters before summer’.
Simple, I'm an old stager in the West Indies, and I'll let you into a secret.
By the so-called Conventicle Act of 1664 he tried to prevent the Dissenters from attending religious meetings by a threat of deportation to the West Indies.
But he's probably a very good doctor when he's sober and we're going to faced one in the West Indies.
In the West Indies he always cruised with a miss aboard, and he allowed his officers and even mids so much liberty when he had the Semiramis that she was a floating bawdy-house - that the Admiral himself took notice of.
From Brazil, I was taken to the island in the West Indies called Montserrat by a man called a company holder.