Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus

5. Conclusions

5 Conclusions From 1492 into the 1520s, Hispaniola was the scene of one of the most dramatic encounters in human history. Two human groups that had been separated by tens of millennia-since Upper Palaeolithic people crossed the Bering land bridge and colonized the New World-rediscovered each other through the voyages of discovery of the newly formed nation-state of Spain. For the first few years, the Spanish venture was a small and rather tentative affair, beset with problems and unprofitable. In the course of those first years, however, the Spaniards adapted and refined many of the concepts and methods that they would use in the colonization of the rest of the New World-concepts for understanding New World peoples and their cultures, and methods for exploiting the new territories for European profit. In social and demographic terms the contact period on Hispaniola was a monumental catastrophe. When the Spanish forces moved westward onto the Mexican mainland, as conquistadores rather than discoverers, they left a Taino population on Hispaniola of a few hundred or thousand, where twenty years before the island 's inhabitants numbered more than a million (Cook and Borah 1971; cf. Rosenblat 1967). Those few remaining did not survive for long. Disease appears to have been the primary agent in the decimation of Hispaniola's population. Europe had for centuries been a center for trade with all parts of the Old World, and through a long series of epidemics and plagues, its people had acquired immunity to a multitude of diseases (LeRoy Ladurie 1981). They carried these diseases with them to the New World and exposed them to populations which had no immunity. 135 136 * Hispaniola This fundamental cause of the annihilation of Hispaniola's people was exacerbated by several other factors. The Spanish presence put additional stress on the Taino economic system; from the beginning the foreigners consumed a great deal of food (chapter 3). In a manioc-based horticultural economy, in which plants take up to a year to mature, very little surplus of harvested and prepared food was available (Sturdevant 1961; Roosevelt 1980). The manioc remained in the ground until it was needed. When an army of Spaniards and Indian camp followers descended upon a village, all of the manioc may have been harvested, even that which would not have been mature for six months to a year (Wilson 1985b). When the food resources were exhausted and the army moved on, the manioc cycle of the village was completely disrupted. The villagers had to harvest the remaining plants to survive, and by doing so, ensured a famine in the months to come. The horticultural system also suffered from the population displacement the foreigners brought about. The Spanish presence brought large groups of people together for a variety of reasons. During Colon's first voyage he was met at every anchorage by multitudes of people on shore who had come to trade or merely to see the strangers (chapter 2). Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Indians followed Colon's army as it marched into the Vega Real during the second voyage. The wars of rebellion in the Vega Real brought many thousands of people together, and more often, the threatening Spanish presence caused people to flee their homes and crops for the safety of other villages or the mountains (chapter 3). When a system of forced labor was instituted and people had to leavetheir villages for several months to work in the gold mines, additional problems were created in supplying food for the mining camps, as well as in the villages they had left (Arranz Marquez 1979; Sued Badillo 1983; Zabala 1949). All of these incidents of population displacement put stress on a horticultural system that was based on minimal surplus and continual maintenance. Just as they could not stand to be completely harvested at one time, the manioc gardens could not be left unattended indefinitely. While disease probably accounted for the majority of deaths, after 1495 starvation was constantly present as a contributing factor. In a way somewhat parallel to the delicately balanced horticultural system, the indigenous sociopolitical system was subject to intense disturbances brought about by the presence of the Spaniards . From the glimpses of the interactions among the elite stratum of Taino society presented in chapters 2-4, it appears that Conclusions * 137 the modes of interaction between elites were structured, as they are in all hierarchical societies, by a complex...