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Classes of society and rank. CHAPTER X. Social Conditions. The information from the historical sources about social conditions among the Tainos is limited and very fragmentary. Their veritable social structure remained concealed from the Spaniards. It is constantly characterized as aristocratic and the Literature points in that direction. The Spaniards judged it too much after Spanish conditions of that period. In Spaiu the nobility descended deeply into society through the numerous hidalgos, to which class the commanders of the conquerors and also their lieutenants belonged as a rule. "Vhen the Spaniards on the Antilles came into contact superficial with the Indians in the matter of treaty negotiations and many other things, they saw a nobleman in every Indian who commanded or superintended any communal function, even those of small importance. Besides, there is good reason for the hypothesis that the so-called "tainos" were a lower aristocratic hereditary class that served the caciques intimately and stood over the people in common, who had only to obey, even if in their own economic interest. Nowhere in the Literature do we find allY trace of totemic organization among the Tainos, such as existed among the True Arawaks. Since the conquerors came into contact above all with the caciques, it is principally only about the position of this class that the Literature informs us. Unfortunately after the conquest, the Tainos became rapidly exstinct. 'l'he later Spanish organization was attached in some measure to the old Indian structure. But the Spanish masters did not look after the interests of the people, as their old caciques had done. So severe and exacting was the Spanish rule, that everywhere the Tai110s name decimated rapidly. 499 LAS CASAS has discussed the reasons for the wholesale extinction of this race, and found the principal reason to be that the Indians did not have sufficient time to attend to their agriculture, because of the burdensome gold-washing for the Spaniards, and therefore simply starved to death in large numbers. In connection vvith this, we must take into consideration that the Tainan agriculture required incessant attention. I have already mentioned the inflnence of cultivation in earth-heaps on the stabilization of the national alimentation. Sufficient yuca could be be taken up for the daily need. In exceptional cases the 'l'ainos could have at their disposal at the most only provisions for a week. 'When now through the forcible encroachment, free circulation was made impossible , the entire existence of the Tainos was imperilled. Then too, a great small-pox epidemic on Espanola hastened the extinction of the Indians to fast degree. But even on the other islands where we do not hear of contemporaneous epidemics of small-pox the Indians died out rapidly, and here we must attribute it to starvation with still greater reason than on Espanola. To-day there are no pure 'l'ainos. Mestizos are found in the rural towns of the Oriente plateau in Cuba, also in the woods of the EI Yunque massif on Puerto Rico. Commencing with the lowest, we can count four different classes of society among the former Tainos. They were as follows: I) Naborias, 2) The cormnon people, 3) Tainos, 4) Caciques and their kindred. Nahorias. There were no genuine slaves among the Tainos. Therefore the fathers were constrained to bring up their sons to work.1) As a criterion that the naborias were not slaves, I~AS CASAS states that on Cuoa, where the former inhabitants were subservient to the Haitians that lately immigrated there, no difference was made behveen the sons of the invaders and those they had conquered.2) It is certain that the Spaniards called their Tainan repartimientos, naborias. But the word did not have the same meaning for the Tainos. "Comumnente llamaban ") Apol. His!., p. II{. 2) Ibid., p. I1j. ~oo ) los indios los criados y sirvientes ordinarios de casa - - naborias".l) Still it is difficult to understand why they needed any great number of servants within the houses or at any rate remaining for work in the tOWllS, while the rest of the people were occupied in the fields. I can not explain naborias in any other fashion than that they were assigned work within the limits of the towns, and that they did not own COl1tlCOS but received maintenance from their lords in return for this work. It is only in reference to Cuba that we learn how the naborias originated. Concerning this, I refer to the statements of LAS CASAS in my...

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