Ancient Borinquen: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico

9. The Aftermath of Conquest: The Indians of Puerto Rico during the Early Sixteenth Century

9 The Aftermath of Conquest The Indians of Puerto Rico during the Early Sixteenth Century Karen F. Anderson-Córdova In this chapter I will discuss what is known about the ¤rst decades of the sixteenth century at the onset of contact between Europeans and the Taínos of Puerto Rico. I will attempt to answer three basic questions: 1. Once the European conquest and colonization of Puerto Rico began, what happened to the Taínos? 2. How did contact between the Spanish and Taínos develop and what were the consequences? 3. Is there anything new and relevant to be gained by the study of this devastating period of New and Old World history? The short answers to these questions are simple enough: ¤rst, the Taínos quickly succumbed to European-introduced diseases and forced labor; second , the historical record provides only limited and European-biased information about the Taínos and their culture, largely extinct by the ¤rst half of the sixteenth century; and, third, their demise was so swift that the Contactperiod archaeological record is practically nonexistent. Although it is true that the Taínos have been extinct for at least ¤ve centuries , their society, culture, and response to the Spanish conquest and colonization continue to intrigue scholars of history, ethnohistory, anthropology, linguistics, religion, and archaeology. This interest goes hand in hand with the concomitant study of Spanish adaptation to the New World and the genesis of new cultures and societies that sprung from the amalgam of peoples in the Caribbean. Those tumultuous years of the early sixteenth century were the starting point of modern Caribbean society. They witnessed the encounter of peoples whose societies and cultures had developed independently of one another for hundreds of generations and whose mutual “discovery ” forever altered the history of humankind. Seen within this broader context , a more complicated story emerges. Approaches to the Study of Spanish-Indian Contact in the Sixteenth-Century Caribbean The term Caribbean in this context refers to the Antillean islands explored or settled by the Spanish, and the mainland areas forming an arc along the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to Venezuela, also known as the circum-Caribbean. Spanish exploration, conquest, trade, and colonization took place throughout this entire area, and the events in Puerto Rico should not be studied in a geographical vacuum. The literature on Spanish-Indian interactions during the early sixteenth century within the larger circum-Caribbean area is more considerable than that available for Puerto Rico, and is too voluminous to discuss here in detail. However, there are approaches and themes evident in the literature, which are important to discuss with respect to Contact-period Puerto Rico. Among these are studies that view ethnohistories as narratives, which can inform on the nature of Taíno culture and society during the late prehistoric period. The primary ethnohistoric sources have been used to support alternative conclusions about the level of sociopolitical organization displayed by the Taínos at the time of contact. Following a cultural-evolutionary perspective , José Alcina (1983) argued that the Taínos exhibited a tribal level of organization , in transition to chiefdoms. In contrast, Roberto Cassá (1979) and Samuel Wilson (1990) contend that the Taínos were organized into fully developed chiefdoms, and Francisco Moscoso (1983, 1986) purported that they were well on their way toward social strati¤cation. The primary sources have also been used to reconstruct many aspects of Taíno culture, from religious beliefs, rituals, political organization, agricultural and other subsistence practices , language, mythology, settlements, and so forth (e.g., Alegría 1978, 1979b, 1981, 1997b; Arrom 1975; Cassá 1979; Sued Badillo 1978; Veloz Maggiolo 1983). Ethnohistoric documents have also been analyzed by historians interested in studying how the Spanish-Taíno encounter was perceived and interpreted by Europeans and what new ways of looking at “the other” developed as a 338 / Karen F. Anderson-Córdova result of this encounter (Jara and Spadaccini 1992; Pastor 1983; Todorov 1984; Varela 1982; Varela and Gil 1984). Scholars have addressed the inherent biases and limitations of the European narratives and descriptions of the Caribbean Indians, both for the reconstruction of late prehistoric Taíno culture and society and for the study of Indian acculturation during the early colonization period (Bucher 1981). However, any discussion of the Contact period in the Caribbean generally and for the Taínos speci¤cally must begin with a consideration...