When Columbus "discovered" the West Indies in 1492, a peaceful, agrarian, and matrilineal people who called themselves "Taino" populated the region. Within 50 years, almost all of the Taino tribes were decimated by the Spanish. Today, descendants of the Taino are calling for recognition of their tribe.

Date:   3/12/2009 2:36:32 PM ( 15 y ago)

Finished reading an excellent children's book called "Anacaona-Golden Flower" by Edwidge Danticat about a woman leader of the Taino tribe who is a well-known historical figure in Haiti but little known in the United States. This story of Anacaona is a fictionalized history of the culture, spirituality, and daily lives of the Taino peoples as told from the perspective of a young woman who matures into becoming a leader of her people during the times of the Spanish invasion following
Columbus's "discovery" of the West Indies (Caribbean) in 1492.

Curious to find out more about the Taino peoples, whose tribal name means "good and noble", I did an internet search and found:

In October of 1492, Columbus wrote of the Taino people:

"They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will..they took great delight in pleasing us..They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal..Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ..They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C3%ADno


Before Columbus returned to Spain, the Tainos helped him to build a settlement for the Spanish sailors who would remain behind. After Columbus's departure, these sailors raped, killed, and stole from the Tainos until Caonabo, a Taino leader and husband of Anacaono, along with other Taino leaders, took matters into their own hands and killed the sailors and razed the settlement to the ground.

Columbus, upon his return to the settlement, "vowed to find Caonabo and retaliate. From that point on, life as the Taino knew it ended. Columbus forced all of them over the age of 14 to work in the gold mines searching for gold for the Spaniards. Those who refused were killed. Those who did not make their quota of gold had their hands cut off and were left to bleed to death. Taino women were given to Spaniards to do with whatever they wished. The fields, unattended, failed to yield enough food for the Taino (and the Spaniards whose supplies had run out). All were hungry. Many Taino starved to death, others were worked to death. They were beaten, tortured, raped, enslaved and murdered." http://www.healing-arts.org/spider/tainoindians.htm


Caonabo and his brother Manicaotex were captured by Columbus's men and put on a ship bound for Europe. "The ship capsized at sea, during what is believed to have been Caonabo and Manicaotex's last valiant battle. Eveyone on board, including the brothers, perished." After her husband Caonabo's death, and the death of her own brother, also a tribal leader, Anacaona became one of the last and most powerful Taino leaders. In 1503, at a greeting ceremony Anacaona was conducting for the new Spanish governor of the region, the Spaniards killed 80 of Anacoana's subjects by shooting, clubbing, or burning them to death before hanging Anacaona at age 29. ("Anacaona-Golden Flower", pages 157-159)

Before Columbus's arrival, it is estimated there were 200,000 Tainos on Quisqueya, now known as the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic share this island today). Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus, only a few hundred Tainos survived the European diseases, war, and slavery enforced upon them by the Spanish.

The story of the Taino people does not end here. Today, "many people still identify themselves as descendants of the Taínos, and most notably among some Dominicans & Puerto Ricans, both on the island and on the United States mainland. People claiming to be Taíno descendants have been active in trying to assert a call for recognition of their tribe. A recent study conducted in Puerto Rico suggests that over 61% of the population possess Taíno mtDNA. Recently, a few Taíno organizations, such as the Jatibonicù Taíno Tribal Nation of Boriken (1970), the Taíno Nation of the Antilles (1993) and the United Confederation of Taíno People(1998), have been established to defend these claims. What some refer to as the Taíno revival movement can be seen as an integral part of the wider resurgence in Caribbean indigenous cultural restoration." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C3%ADno



More about the Tainos:


**Contemporary Music of the Taino people--go to the lower left side of this webpage-- United Confederation of Taino People http://www.uctp.org/


**Taino Spirituality as practiced today: http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1374120


**Video: Taino Prayer http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1376301



**Tracing Taino Ancestry in Puerto Rico http://www.uctp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=2


 

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