Puerto Rico and Hispaniola Before and After
Columbus: Indigenous and Afro-descendent
Peoples
Lynn Stephen
Professor of Anthropology
Director, Center for Latino/a and Latin American
Studies (CLLAS)
The Caribbean
Peopling of the Caribbean
Humans have lived in the Caribbean since about 4000
B.C., according to radio carbon dates.
Many, but not all archaeologists, believe that a wave of
hunter-gatherers migrated northward from South
America into the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico about
2000 B.C. Then, around 500 B.C. another migration took
place, marked by a distinctive pottery design named
Saladoid. The Saladoid peoples were horticulturalists
who relied on fishing and collecting plant and marine
animals.
Many archaeologists believe that for the next 300 years
or so the agrarian Saladoids and early hunger-gatherers
led to the complex society of the Tainos which by
Columbus’ arrival would have included several million
people living on the larger islands of the Greater Antilles,
now know as Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica.
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Possible migration route for Saladoid
peoples from Venezuela’s Orinoco basin.
 About 1200 A.D. Hispaniola and Puerto Rico were
repopulated by the Taino, Guanahatabey, Igneri,
and Island Carib peoples, on what is now the island
of Puerto Rico. They called themselves Borinquen.
Taino social and political
organization.
 When Columbus arrived, the Tainos were
organized into permanent villages in
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, each
governed by a chief of cacique. Each
contained 1,000 to 2,000 people. Villages
were organized into district chiefdoms,
each ruled by one of the village chiefs.
Both men and women were eligible to
serve as chiefs. They had special houses,
clothing, insignia for their rank.
 Matrilineal society--descent traced
through mother's side. Inheritance
passed through the female line.
 Hereditary chiefdoms controlled by
caciques could control up to 100 villages
and thousands of people.
Taino Political Economy
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The villagers were divided into two classes
(nitaino and naboria) Chroniclers equated
theses with nobility and commoners.
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Artisans produced decorated ceramics, cotton
products, ground and polished stone beads,
carved shell and bone ornaments, tools of
stone, and used exotic birds and feathers in
their crafts.
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The Classic Tainos had a sophisticated form of
agriculture. They created mounded fields called
conuco. In eastern Hispaniola there were also
extensive irrigation systems. Cassava was the
principle root crop followed by sweet potato
(batata). Experienced farmers grew yuca,
beans, squash, guava, pineapple, tobacco, and
other crops.
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Trade was facilitated by large ocean-going
canoes that could carry up to 100 people and
arrived at other islands in the Caribbean as well
as the mainland of Central America.
Taino Cosmology
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Tainos conceptualized of a multi-leveled
universe in which the airy heavens floated
above an earth, which itself floated on
primordial waters beneath.
At the center of the terrestrial disk of the
Antillean triple world was a mythic, axial tree
(Siegel in Bercht 97 108) uniting earth,
underworld and the heavens. The axial tree
could be imagined anywhere, each settlement,
chiefdom or island being the center of the
universe and the center of that being the
location of the symbolic axial trellis, rooted in
the Underworld, passing up through the
community’s central cemetery into the starry
vault (Siegel in Bercht 97 108).
For Tainos caves provided access between the
earth’s surface and the underworld. They have
proven to be a rich source of artifacts and
pictographs.
 Pictograph from Jose Maria Cave
in Dominican Republic
Zemis
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Worship centered on deities known as zemis. Two
supreme deities: Yucahu, lord of cassava and the sea,
when the Tainos obtained their sustenance, and Atabey,
his mother who was the goddess of fresh water and
human fertility. In conjunction with his mother, Attabeira
the earth goddess, Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti as he was
ceremoniously called, caused the crops to sprout, to
grow, to flower, and bear fruit.
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These trigonoliths (from the Spanish: trigonolitos), or
three-pointer stones, found throughout the Caribbean
islands are believed to be symbolic representations of
Yúcahu. They seem to be abstracted anthropomorphic
(and sometimes zoomorphic frog-like or crocodilian
creatures) representations of sprouting plant-life. In
incised and sculpted trigonoliths, their depiction of the
flexed legs of toads/frogs invokes a common fertility
symbol associated with the rainy season.
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Atabeyra (Attabeira/Atabey/Atabex): The
Earth Mother
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Atabeyra, the supreme Mother Goddess, was
commemorated in various art forms, most
notably the monumental petroglyph at
Caguana (Stevens-Arroyo 06 221-5). Atabeyra’s
squatting position in this famous monolith
imitates both the position women take in
childbirth and the flexed position of frogs. The
lesser zemis included spirits of the ancestors as
well as spirits believed to live in trees, rocks,
and other features of the landscapes. Pottery,
temples decorated with zemis.
Zemis
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Zemis were local deities or ancestral cult
figures, worshipped in the form of
sculptures or relief carvings by Caribbean
peoples of the Taino culture. The Zemi cult
was active at the end of the 15th century AD
when the Spanish arrived in the Bahamas,
Cuba, and other islands of the Antilles. They
are first described historically by Peter
Martyr, the Spanish court historian (whose
works are extant), and Fray Pane, who
compiled an ethography of the Taino culture
during the second voyage of Columbus, but
whose writings are lost, and preserved only
in an Italian .
Many images of zemis are preserved in
Puerto Rico and other regions of the
Antilles, both as figurines and as relief
carvings. They were often carved in ballcourt
settings in PreColumbian Puerto Rico sites
including Caguana and Tibes, where they
may be seen today in situ.
Taino ball courts
Archaeologist Peter Siegel has documented the
evolution of Taino ball courts and ceremonial plazas
which were build by prehispanic cultures throughout
Mesoamerica. Approximately 100 ball courts have
been found in Puerto Rico and more on other islands.
The game was a contest of between teams of 10 to 30
people, usually but not always men. A rubber-like ball
was used to score points. The outcome was used to
settle conflicts between communities without armed
conflict. Petroglyphs often surrounding ballcourts,
suggesting they are a sacred space.
 Caguana ballcourt complex
Healing and mediation
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Shamans, a cross between ritual practitioners and
curers, mediated between the different levels of the
universe with the aid of hallucinogenic snuff made from
cohoba, prepared from the beans of a species of
Piptadenia tree. Shamans were important parts of
community ceremonies as well as in curing individuals
with illnesses. They performed their rituals in presence
of zemis
.
Ritual practice
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Preserved Pre–Columbian duhos (ceremonial
wooden stools) from the Caribbean region are
exceedingly rare because they are usually found
only in dry highland caves. There are two basic
types: low horizontal forms with concave seats,
such as this one, and stools with long curved
backrests. Scholars differ as to the function of
the stools. Some believe they represented
seats of authority. Others think they served as
altars for votive offerings. Still others argue
that the Taíno peoples used them as ceremonial
trays for making cohoba, a hallucinogenic snuff
prepared for shamanistic rituals. (From Library
of congress,
Exploringhttp://www.loc.gov/exhibits/earlyamer
icas/online/precontact/ the Early Americas.
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Ceremonial Wooden Stool
Duho.
Haiti. Taíno, AD 1000–1500.
Carved lignum vitae.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (54)
Photo ©Justin Kerr, Kerr Associates
First Voyage of Columbus 1492-1493
 Columbus visited the
island in 1493. The Taino
called their Island
Boriquín, Land of the
Proud Lord. Columbus
renamed the island San
Juan de Bautista de
Puerto Rico.
Colonization of Puerto Rico
 a) In 1508, Juan Ponce de León and a
group of 50 men arrived from Santo
Domingo to colonize the land.
 b) The small amount of gold that
could be mined was depleted by
1530. Mines were worked with
native enslaved labor. Much, but not
all of the indigenous population was
gone within 80 years. Some
intermarried with Spanish, some fled
to other islands or to the interior.
 c) When gold deposits were used up,
interested faded in Puerto Rico. The
population of 1530 was 4,040. It
didn't increase until the 1700s. In
1776, population was 80,246.
Slave Trade Routes in Africa: 8th to
15th Century
Origins of Slavery in the Americas
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Before the arrival of Portuguese explorers and traders in
the Sub-Saharan African coast in the early 1400s the use
of slaves within many African societies was widespread.
Through the north and to the east slaves were being
shipped outside of Africa in steady numbers for at least
some six centuries prior to the arrival of the Portuguese.
There was also a widespread internal slave trade that
served the needs of local African states, primarily for
domestic and social purposes.
The Portuguese began shipping slaves in 1444, primarily
to Europe to serve as domestic servants.
Initially Portuguese integrated themselves into existing
networks of Muslin traders—primarily along Senegal and
Gambia Rivers.
The settlement of the island depot and plantation center
of São Tome in Gulf of Guinea and initiation of trade
relations with kingdom of Kongo after 1500 changed
nature of European slave trade. The Kongolese were
located along the Zaire River.
These changes occurred just as the Spanish conquest of
the Caribbean islands and the Portuguese settlement of
what is now Brazil opened up the American Continent
for African Slaves.
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The rapid decrease in population in the Caribbean of native
peoples in the first major zone of European settlement
encourages experimentation with African slave labor.
1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first merchant to
send an African slave to the New World. Córdoba, like other
merchants, is permitted by the Spanish to send only one slave.
Others send two or three.
1505: In Santo Domingo (modern Dominican Republic), the first
record of sugar cane appears.
1509: Columbus’s son, Diego Cólon, becomes governor of the
new Spanish empire in the Caribbean. He soon complains that
Native American slaves do not work hard enough.
1510: the systematic transportation of African slaves to the
New World begins when King Ferdinand of Spain authorizes a
shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo.
1513: Juan Ponce de Leon becomes the first European to reach
the coast of what is now the United States of America
(modern Florida).
1518: Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod
permission to import 4000 African slaves into New Spain. Slave
trade is formally escalated and thousands of slaves will be sent
into the New World.
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1518: Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo
de Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African
slaves into New Spain. Slave trade is formally
escalated and thousands of slaves will be sent into
the New World. After the 1530s, many slaves are
shipped directly to the American continent from Sao
Tome.
America became the market for an estimated 10
million African slaves in the course of five centuries.
Until the 1830s more Africans than Europeans
crossed the Atlantic annually. AS late as 1750 4.5
million of an estimated 6.6 people who had come to
the Americas since 1492 were African slaves.
Atlantic Slave
Trade
America became the market for an
estimated 10 million African slaves in
the course of five centuries. Until the
1830s more Africans than Europeans
crossed the Atlantic annually. AS late as
1750 4.5 million of an estimated 6.6
people who had come to the Americas
since 1492 were African slaves.
Plantations
 These were large farms geared to
exports, often using foreign capital and
slave labor (the first slaves were brought
from Africa in 1538). They were mainly in
areas where the indigenous population
was soon wiped out. The first great
plantation crop was sugar in northern
Brazil, coastal Peru, parts of Colombia
and the Caribbean. On the plantations,
African slaves worked in gangs, often in
the most brutal conditions , watched
over by armed guards. An average
plantation had between 80-100 slaves.
Plantation owners were business men
motivated by profit, and their farms
were usually both efficient and
inhumane.
) First Slaves brought to Cuba in 1512, later to rest of Caribbean. Because it was a economic backwater for
much of the colonial period, Puerto Rico did not have as high a population of slaves as elsewhere in the
Caribbean. Slaves didn't form a large part of the population in the 18th and 19th century.
In the mid-19th century sugar became a dominant crop in Puerto Rico. Large-scale
sugar production was heavily dependent upon slave labor, and Puerto Rico began
to import more African slaves. Slaves are depicted here carrying sugarcane for
processing in the rollers of a sugarcane mill.
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b) The peak of the slave population was 41,818
or 11.7 percent of the population in 1834. By
1872, the year before slavery was abolished,
there were 31,635 slaves or 5.1 percent of the
population, mostly working in sugar. Puerto
Rico always had a high percentage of "Free
Non-Whites." In 1802, for example, there were
71,578 "free non-whites" , 13,333 slaves and
78,281 whites. Thus more than half of the
population was categorized as "non-white.“
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c) In addition to slaves there were agregados,
sometimes called "arrimados" who lived as
squatters on someone else's land. Labor
relations varied. In 1824, restrictions were
placed on those who didn't have legal title to
their land, including free peasants cultivating
land that belonged to the crown. Many of these
people were forced to work on sugar
plantations. This population continued to grow.
Early Sugar Cane Plantation
 Slavery was abolished in Puerto
Rico in 1873, freeing 31,000
slaves, but even the freed slaves
were required to serve a three
year apprenticeship with their
former owners, another
landowner or the government.
On March 22, 1873, the Spanish
National Assembly finally
abolished slavery in Puerto Rico.
The owners were compensated
with 35 million pesetas per slave,
and slaves were required to
continue working for three more
years.
In the early 20th century investors from the United States began to play a dominant role in Puerto Rico’s
sugar industry, and large businesses squeezed out independent local farmers. Many Puerto Ricans
continued to work in the sugar industry as laborers but few actually owned their own sugar plantations.
Slavery in early Hispaniola
1505: first record of sugar cane being grown in the New World, in
Santo Domingo (modern Dominican Republic).
Between 1504 and 1518 fewer than 2000 African slaves shipped to
Hispaniola, most as personal servants, some working in gold mines.
By the 1530s Hispaniola’s shipments of sugar were up to two million
pounds per year. This production required a large labor force which
was initially composed of both Africans and indigenous peoples, as
indicated by analyses of three early census (1530-1545).
Papal bull in 1537 forbid indigenous slavery.
Spanish slave ordinances from 1528, 1535, 1542, 1544 were aimed at
controlling the growing slave population, keeping them from
walking about unsupervised and earning money for their skills.
By 1540 Africans were the majority of the population of Hispaniola.
1543 report to the crown suggested 25-30,000 Africans on the Island
and 1,200 Spaniards. The report complains of thousands of rebel
Africans living in the countryside, outside of Spanish control.
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African slaves processing sugar cane on Hispaniola.
1595 engraving by Theodor de Bry show harvesting
the cane, a slave powered grinding mill, and boiling
cane juice. Image Code: ERE-HISL011-EC234-H.
Photographer: Courtesy: Everett Col. Collection:
Everett Collection Inc.
Slavery and the First Black Revolution in the
Americas: Haiti
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By the late 17th century the Spanish settlement on
Hispaniola had become increasingly unprofitable,
unstable, and was consequently neglected by the
Spanish. Slave labor had become a central part of life, as
slaves easily outnumbered the Spanish, and sugar
production was the main export from Hispaniola, but it
wasn’t enough for the Spanish Crown to recoup on their
investment. By 1668, without much opposition from the
Spanish, the French began their occupation of the
western side of Hispaniola, or what is now Haiti, and in
1697 the Ryswick peace agreement legalized the French
occupation of western Hispaniola.
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It is estimated that by the late 19th Century, there were
about 400,000 slaves living in Saint Domingue. The
immense slave population greatly outnumbered the
estimated 32,000 whites and 28,000 free blacks and
mulattoes living in Saint Domingue at the time. Unlike in
the American colonies, free blacks and mulattoes were
given higher statuses in society and they even owned
about one-third of the slave population on the island.
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A slave revolt broke out in the French colony in 1791,
and was eventually led by a French Black man by the
name of Toussaint L'ouverture. Since Spain had
ceded the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo to
France in 1795, in the Treaty of Basilea, Toussaint
L'Ouverture and his followers claimed the entire
island. In 1804, Haitian independence was declared
making the first black revolution in Latin America.
:Général Toussaint
Louverture.
Adrian Castro
 I” would say that place (Miami,
Caribbean) and Yoruba myth
and spirituality is, certainly
nowadays, the cornerstone of
my work. “
 Cuban-Dominican poet born in
Miami in 1967