Myths of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction

Tony Castanha's The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico) is an infuriating and exciting read. For anyone interested in the neo-Taino movement and indigenous reclamation among Puerto Ricans, this book is full of rich details from oral history and everyday Jibaro culture. These do support the author's contention that the indigenous population of Puerto Rico is not extinct. This is now clear from the combination of genetic, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting a major indigenous component in the making of Puerto Rican culture. Indeed, even in the 1800s, foreign writers noted an "Amerindian" element in the Puerto Rican peasant population's culture and physical appearance. Furthermore, Castanha uses the word Jibaro (and imaginative etymology) to designate the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. They were Jibaros and part of the "Carib" culture of the Antilles. Instead of buying into theories of Taino-Carib dichotomies, Castanha appears to prefer a cultural unity of the two while rejecting the idea of Carib ritual cannibalism (one of the other myths, according to him). 

By drawing on non-mainstream research by Puerto Rican intellectuals like Lamourt-Valentin and numerous local informants, Castanha basically argues against most of the conclusions of mainstream academics in academic "Taino Studies." Instead of primarily South American origins, Castanha believes the indigenes of Puerto Rico were of Mesoamerican origin. Lamourt-Valentin, Fernandez Mendez, and some of his informants support this notion of a Mesoamerican, Mayan influence on the Jibaro. While there may indeed have been a Central American origin for some of the "Archaic" population of the Antilles, and perhaps a Mesoamerican influence on the batey ballgame, the academic mainstream researchers present far more convincing evidence of a South American origin. The Taino dependence on yuca, linguistic evidence, the corpus of myths and religious practices recorded in the Spanish chronicles, and archaeological evidence does seem to support a much stronger origin for the "Taino" along the Orinoco. For example, the numerous similarities between Taino myths as recorded by the Spanish and a number of Amazonian indigenous myths clearly supports a South American link. Unfortunately, until we can locate a copy of Lamourt-Valentin's Cannibal Recipies Fernandez Mendez's study of Taino art and its Mesoamerican affiliations, we have the unconvincing work of Castanha to evaluate. 

Since Castanha borrows heavily from Lamourt-Valentin's work and alternative, non-mainstream paradigms for the study of the indigenous Caribbean, it is no surprise that he also reaches questionable conclusions about the nature of indigenous survival in post-conquest Puerto Rico. While the indigenous population definitely survived, Castanha believes in an alternative on colonial demography for the island. According to him, the Jibaro fled to the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico relatively early in the 16th century. Other historians, such as Sued Badillo, suggest the population movement into the mountains during the colonial era occurred later. Castanha also asserts population numbers that are unbelievably high for the precolonial and colonial eras. Despite the careful estimates of scholars, Castanha accepts estimates that are unbelievably high for the Greater Antilles before conquest. More disturbing, however, is the analysis of late 18th century censuses. Based solely on local informants, the author somehow reaches the conclusion that the actual population Indian origin of La Indiera (which was supposedly much larger than the later Indieras of the 19th and 20th centuries) was in the hundreds of thousands. The colonial censuses were undoubtedly flawed and many regions, especially in the mountainous interior, were undercounted. However, Castanha's estimates appear to be significantly inflated and would suggest Puerto Rico's population in the late 18th century was several times larger than the recorded population of the island. Even if one accepts the idea that most of the pardos designated in the censuses were people of partial indigenous origin, in addition to the nearly 2,000 recorded for the San German area, Castanha's figures are implausibly high. 

Despite our problems with some of the conclusions of the author, this is still worth reading. By drawing on the family histories and traditions of his informants, one can see how family narratives of Indian origin and certain customs do reflect indigenous heritage. The oral histories also refer in surprising detail to 19th century events, an era in which the Spanish conquest of the interior was finally completed. For instance, family traditions of the tortures inflicted on the population during the compontes are a powerful demonstration of how descendants of 19th century Jibaros remember the Spanish colonial era. Traditions of Espiritismo, healing, and syncretic Catholic rituals likewise suggest the maintenance of some indigenous traditions in Puerto Rico. Just as interesting is the case of the Puerto Rican diaspora, which is largely left out of this study. However, Arroyo's research on Puerto Ricans in Hawaii refer to traditions of Indian descent or origin that would be fascinating to explore further. Are there Puerto Rican Diasporic communities in other states of the US with similar traditions of specific Indian ancestry and heritage? Oral history and folklore indicate the indigenous legacy was and is more significant than we initially thought. Perhaps that should be one of the areas of concentration for future researchers. A systematic collection and analysis of these traditions, one more meticulous than that offered here, could shed light on the ways the largely unlettered Jibaro defined themselves and related to the colonial state. 

Sued Badillo on the Theme of the Indigenous

Jalil Sued Badillo's essay, "The Theme of the Indigenous in the National Projects of the Hispanic Caribbean", published in Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings should be required reading for anyone and everyone interested in Taino revivalism, Puerto Rican cultural identity, the rise of the mixed-race Creole culture of the peasantry by the 17th century, and nationalism in the Spanish Caribbean setting. Sued Badillo makes a convincing case for the survival, persistence and cultural reproduction of indigenous Puerto Rican and Caribbean peoples well after the mid-1500s. But, over time, this social and cultural reproduction became something new that people of European and African origin also participated in, leading to the distinct Creole identities of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. This, in turn, became a central theme for the construction of national identities, as the peasantry best represented the continuity with the indigenous past and the ""national" character. As illustrated in Sued Badillo's article, 19th century Puerto Rican nationalists called the jibaros of Borinquen the children of Agueybana.

For our interests, Sued Badillo's documentation of "Indian" communities after the middle of the 16th century was most important. It was not solely in Cuba, where "Indian" pueblos and barrios existed long after 1600. For instance, on Hispaniola, he mentions the "Indian" pueblo of Boya, an attempt by Hispaniola encomienda "Indians" to form another town, and the prominence of "Indians" and "mestizos" in western Hispaniola, where smuggling and contraband with other Europeans was common, leading to some mestizos and "mulatos" becoming wealthy. Indeed, this probably explains why Samuel de Champlain, writing in 1599, mentions "Indians" in Hispaniola who trade with the French. These "Indians" and mestizos who continued to trade with Europeans and develop their own contraband economy were also part of the creation of a new creole identity on Hispaniola as "Indians" and mestizos were joined by people of African descent that resisted the colonial government in Santo Domingo. One can see the rustic "monteros" of the 19th and 20th century Dominican Republic emerging from these forebears.

Moreover, something similar occurred in colonial Puerto Rico just as colonial officials were proclaiming the disappearance of "Indians" and mestizos. Some did so, as pointed out by Sued Badillo, to mask the fact that they continued to purchase and exploit enslaved "Indians" from other lands long after the New Laws of 1542. Such an honor appears to apply to the governor of Puerto Rico in the 1560s. Sued Badillo points out the persistence of "Indian" and mestizo communities such as the Quebrada de Dona Catalina, near San Juan. Other "Indians" and mestizos were scattered and pushed onto marginal lands and shifted into the piedmont overlooking the coastal area. These communities, joined by people of European and African origin, gradually increased in population, engaged in subsistence agriculture and commercial exchange for local and foreign markets, and continued to influence colonial society. 

Sued Badillo's analysis of the "Indians" of Mona is likewise enlightening, for it points to indigenous survival on an island which engaged in smuggling, food production (cassava) for other Spanish colonies, and their eventual relocation to the hills of San German and nearby regions sometime before 1685. Unfortunately, Sued Badillo does not explain or speculate on what happened to the "Indian" pueblo of Cibuco, but we are of the opinion that Mona "Indians" and the former residents of the 16th century Cibuco settlement must have both ended up in the region that would eventually be named La Indiera. Perhaps the reappearance of "Indians" on censuses in the late 18th century in the San German area is related to descendants of Cibuco, Mona, and "Indian" or mestizo laborers and convicts transported to Puerto Rico from Venezuela and Mexico in the late 1600s and 1700s, but the censuses do not provide adequate information to ascertain this. An alternative and equally speculative theory could be related to land control and access, as mestizos" and people who may have had distant "Indian" ancestry in western Puerto Rico tried to defend their property or local autonomy in the late 18th century and early 19th century. 

Overall, Sued Badillo's persuasive article demonstrates not only "Indian" survival" in the Spanish Caribbean, but significant "Indian" contributions to the rise of the "mestizo" creole culture. He does not seek to romanticize it, as it was not egalitarian and suffered from some of the same racial hierarchies and problems inherent to its colonial setting. Nor does Sued Badillo seek to exaggerate the population of "Indians" or mistakenly equate jibaros with "Indians" as some Taino revivalists argue. But the indigenous population and its racially mixed-progeny provided much of the basic structure of the nascent creole identity, even as officials denied the existence of "Indians" and even "mestizos" disappear. This perspective was adopted by historians who failed to see how the social and economic conditions of the Spanish Caribbean in the late 1500s and early 1600s favored "Indians" and mestizos through contraband trade, migration away from colonial towns, and a degree of autonomy that allowed for population growth. As for the fate of "mestizos" in the region, Schwartz's article suggests it is very likely that many mestizos became whites (or perhaps even "blancos de la tierra), while others were lumped into the "pardo" category in a process seen for much of Puerto Rico by Abbad y Lasierra in the 18th century. More works remains to be done on this process, as well as the experiences of "Indians" in La Indiera during the late 18th century. 

Works Cited

Castanha, Tony. The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Peter R. Schmidt and Thomas C. Patterson --, et al. Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology in Non-Western Settings. Santa Fe, N.M. : Seattle: School of American Research Press ; Distributed by the University of Washington Press, 1995.

Schwartz, Stuart B. “Spaniards, ‘Pardos’, and the Missing Mestizos: Identities and Racial Categories in the Early Hispanic Caribbean.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 71, no. 1/2 (1997): 5–19.