The Coming of the White Man (And the Subsequent Death of the Taino)

    
     These two pictures pretty much tell the story. This week we return to Estevanico for his tale of how the first meeting between the White Man and the Native American happened, and the results of that fateful meeting.

     My ancestors were doomed from the first day. They knew it, too. The Spanish colonists actually didn't at first, but after a while things really started to go South for the Taino natives. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.
     The day was December 25, 1492. My ancestors would call it "Armageddon", since it marked the beginning of the near extermination of their entire race. To give you an idea of what this day meant to them, I'll tell you some numbers. When the White men first came to Haiti on that day, nobody knows how many Taino people were on the island, but some say there were millions, even 8 million, Taino people living on Haiti. By 1508, most scholars agree that there were only about 60,000 Taino left (and many of them were miserable; they were either in hiding, in flight, or being otherwise screwed by the Spanish invaders).
     Spanish-Taino relations were bad from the beginning. If some foreign country's representatives came to the U.S., renamed the country and claimed it as theirs, and enslaved, killed, and exploited 90 percent of all Americans (due to disease, direct slavery, or indirectly causing mass suicides ), I am sure that Americans would not be in love with that country or its representatives. Long story short, that is what happened between a country's ambassadors (Columbus and crew, Spain's ambassadors) and an island's population (Haiti and the Taino people).
     The two groups never really understood one another. The Spanish camp had big misconceptions about the natives. They thought that the natives were welcoming them as gods and rulers over them. The truth was that the Taino had a prophecy that a foreign group would come over the ocean and wipe them out, and they realized that these white men were the ones the prophecy was talking about. Possibly, the Taino were trying to appease the Spanish men so they would leave. Another misconception of Columbus and his crew, and subsequently the Spanish colonists, was that the Taino had lots of gold. In reality, the Taino and the island itself had very little gold. This did not stop the Spanish from forcing the Taino to give them gold at the cost of death and torture, however. These are just a few examples of Taino-Spanish misconceptions.
     Furthermore, the Spanish were never really interested in anything besides exploiting the resources of the island. They were basically interested in gold. Cultural interpretation meant nothing to them. This is one reason why they could so heartlessly enslave, kill, torture, and rape the Taino so easily; they didn't care.
     So you see, the beginnings of Spanish rule meant the end of the Taino; very few Taino survived the mass death of their people (some did survive, though). The Spanish and the Taino never really understood or tried to communicate with each other; the Spaniards just eradicated most of the Taino in their search for gold. So to us Taino descendants, Columbus is a vile demon since his coming marked the beginning of great pain for us. He is no hero.

     Thank you once again, Estevanico. Later next week we will hear tale of some of the great conflicts on this island.

                                                                     Sources List

Livi-Bacci, Massimo. "Return to Hispaniola: Reassessing a Demographic Catastrophe." HAHR (2011): 4-16. PDF File.

Deagan, Kathleen. "Colonial Transformation: Euro-American Cultural Genesis in the Early Spanish-American Colonies." Journal of Anthropological Research 52.2 (1996): 135-138. JSTOR. PDF file.

Symcox, Geoffrey, and Blair Sullivan. Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A         Brief History with Documents. New York: St. Martins/Boston: Bedford. 2005. Print.

The People Who Were "Discovered"

     Columbus Day is coming up soon (October 12), and that day will be remembered as the day when the European Columbus discovered America. The question of how can you discover a country which already has people on it should be raised here, as well as a host of other arguments for why this day should be a day of mourning instead of a holiday, should be addressed. However, instead of a justified rant against this so-called "hero", this writing will instead be another narrative about the people who were "discovered" by Columbus on Haiti: the Taino. Here now is Estevanico's older brother, Esteban, to tell us more about the real settlers of Haiti.

     My brother told you some things about our ancestors, and I will tell you some more.
     I must first say that that murderer Columbus (for he caused the murder, torture, rape, and deaths of many of our ancestors) discovered nothing. My ancestors lived on Haiti (the true name for the island he called "Hispaniola") long before a white man ever knew of its shores. Our ancestors had a well established way of life on the island long before Columbus, and we were not "savages" by any stretch of the imagination.
     The real people who first peopled the North and South American continents came from the continent of Asia around 13000 B.C. They made their way to Haiti by about 4000 B.C. They were members of a people called the "Saladoid" people. From them the Taino descend. There is not as much known about my ancestors because they had no written language, and thus most of what we know about them may be slanted toward a European viewpoint, since Europeans recorded their views on my ancestors' way of life.
     There are many things I could say about our ancestors, but I will simply speak on two: Their generosity, and their complex society. First, their complex society. The Taino had well established cultural and religious systems in place. The cacique was the chief, and religious leaders were political ones as well. They had their own religion; their gods were called zemis. They were well established.
     The next and final thing I will say is that there is a common thread in all of what Europeans who went to Haiti wrote on my ancestors: the Taino were a gentle people. On reason, besides disease, why the Europeans were able to take advantage of the Taino was because the Taino were very generous. They had little concept of private property. They shared, and were a peaceful people who did not believe in fighting. Columbus looked at this and saw how easily they could be extorted and taken advantage of, and that is what he did: he and his men took advantage of a peaceful, generous people. And we celebrate that. How sad...but I digress.
     The Taino, my ancestors, were a very advanced people; hardly "savages", and unfortunately were nearly wiped out (there are still people alive today who descend from the Taino). It seems by my historical estimation that it was the Europeans, the Christ-bearing missionaries, who were the real savages.

     Thank you, Esteban. Next week we will hear more about the conflict between the Taino and the Europeans who came to Haiti. Stay tuned!

                                                                   Sources

Symcox, Geoffrey, and Blair Sullivan. Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents. New York: St. Martins/Boston: Bedford. 2005. Print.

Geggus, David. "The Naming of Haiti."  KITLV  71.1&71.2 (1997): 43-44. www.kitlv-journals.nl. PDF file.

Keegan, William F. "Archaic Influences in the Origins and Development of Taino Societies." Caribbean Journal of Science 42.1 (2006): 1-5. University of Puerto Rico. PDF File.

McCann, Joseph M. "Before 1492: The Making of the Pre-Columbian Landscape. Part I: The Environment." Ecological Restoration 17.1&2 (1999): 17-19. PDF File.

The Other Side of Columbus Day

A few different perspectives of this overrated holiday.

 

The Real Beginnings of Hispaniola

This is a brief story of the early days of “pre-Hispaniola”. Before Haiti, the country, was founded. Before the island was called “Hispaniola”. Before Columbus and Europe. I, Estevanico, am a descendant of a group of Indian tribes in North America. We are distantly related to the ancient Taino people. I am one of few descendants of a people who were wiped out thanks to the diseases of the Europeans. This is my people’s story. 

Before I begin, I must tell you that 1492 was not the beginning. We need to understand that there were a people with their own culture and way of living on the island before 1492. We in the Americas have gotten used to the European view of our “American” history. They tell us that Columbus discovered America in 1492, and we listen. We forget that most of the names we use to even describe the Caribbean are European names. One reason I stay away from calling the island “Hispaniola” in this story is because that name was given to the island by Columbus when he went there. Even the name “Indian” is a European mistake; Columbus used this word to describe the people in the my homelands, thinking he was in India. I tell this story from my viewpoint, not just the European one. 

Long Ago, in ancient days, my people, the Taino, came to what would be Hispaniola. They began to show up on the island over thousands of years, similar to how the first Native Americans showed up on the Americas over 12 to 13 thousand years or so, but somewhat more recently. I cannot really say just when the first of them came onto the island, but they came from the northern parts South America and began to gradually settle it. My ancestors had the most complex culture in what would be named the Caribbean Sea when the Europeans came. They had their own customs, religion, and even their own drugs. They also had their own story of how they began. 

A good bit of their culture came from our story of how we began. The short version of it is this: There was a god named Deminan. He is our father. There was a turtle, we call her Turtle Woman, and she is our mother. From them we descend. My ancestors paid homage to that in many ways. For example, we trace our family lines though our mother to honor Turtle Woman.

Why do more people not know more of my ancestors’ story? The European and his diseases wiped out all of my ancestors on their island, and many of their kin on the mainland. Now I will retell the story which more people have heard; the one about the European and his so-called “discovery” of my Taino ancestors’ island.

In December of 1492, the White man first set foot on my ancestors’ island. A group of Spaniards, led by the one they call Columbus, landed on the Northwest shore of the island. Columbus called the island Hispaniola, and that is what it has been called since. These invaders came and then left in 1493, but left some 38 of their group on the island. They set up a camp which they called “Navidad”. My ancestors killed those invaders, but that cursed invader Columbus came back that same year with about 1200 people and 17 ships. 

From the first “settlement” of their island by the White man on, my ancestors began to decline. More Europeans came onto their island, and began to take their gold and their provisions. These invaders tried to enslave my ancestors and force them to pay tribute to them, but my ancestors were too strong for those thieves! They fought back, but their fate was sealed. How many of my ancestors were there on that island when Columbus came? That may never be known; some say millions, and some say tens to hundreds of thousands. One thind is sure, though. By 1514, my ancestors numbered only about 26,000. By the 1520s, some 30 years after the Spaniards began exploiting my ancestors, my Taino descendants were headed toward extinction. 

The cruelty, greed, and diseases of those “settlers” killed my ancestors. They then began to take slaves from Africa to replace the muscle they needed to strip the valuable resources from “Hispaniola”. This is how Hispaniola began.

-Estevanico.

Thank you, Estevanico, for your story. Next week, we will hear from another guest about more of the history and the people of Hispaniola.

                                                           Sources list

"The Taino World." Ethneology.org. Ethneology, n.d., Web. 5 Aug. 2011.

McCann, Joseph M. "Before 1492: The Making of the Pre-Columbian Landscape. Part I: The Environment." Ecological Restoration 17.1&2 (1999): 17-19. PDF File.

Livi-Bacci, Massimo. "Return to Hispaniola: Reassessing a Demographic Catastrophe." HAHR (2011): 4-8. PDF File.