Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Taínos
Hispaniola had been inhabited for three millennia before Christopher Columbus sailed into
view, colonized by a successive wave of island-hopping incomers from South America.
Most notable were the Arawaks, and then the Taínos ('the friendly people'), who prospered
on the island for around 700 years until the clash of civilizations with Europe brought their
ultimate downfall. The Taínos were both farmers and seafarers, living in chiefdoms called
caciques
, with a total population of around 500,000 at the time of Columbus' arrival. Each
chiefdom comprised several districts with villages of 1000 to 2000 people.
Comparatively little of Taíno culture has survived to the modern age. Pottery and stone
tools form the most common artifacts, along with jewelry of bone, shell and gold that was
panned from rivers. Clothing was made of cotton or pounded bark fibers. While Taíno arti-
facts are relatively few, the crops they bequeathed to the world were revolutionary, from to-
bacco to yams, cassava and pineapples. Hispaniola's inhabitants, however, were barely to
survive their first encounter with Europe.
'I cannot believe that any man has ever met a people so good-hearted and generous, so gentle
that they did their utmost to give us everything they had' - Christopher Columbus on meeting
the Taínos.
