What Became of the Taíno?

The Indians who greeted Columbus were long believed to have died out. But a journalist's search for their descendants turned up surprising results

By Robert M. Poole
Photographs by Maggie Steber
Smithsonian magazine, October 2011, Subscribe

Taíno leader Francisco "Panchito" Ramírez Rojas offers a prayer to the sea near Baracoa on Cuba's eastern coast. (Maggie Steber)

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“Just look around!” said Hartmann, spreading his arms wide. In a week of exploring Baracoa and its environs, we had encountered many Cubans with the high cheekbones, coppery skin and other features that suggest Amerindian ancestry. And while it was clear that indigenous families have intermarried with Africans and Europeans, we met villagers in Baracoa and the nearby settlements of Playa Duaba and Guirito who proudly identified themselves as Indian. They kept the old traditions, planting their dense gardens, praying to the moon and sun for strength, gathering wild plants for healing and marking the passage of time without clocks or watches.

“When I see the vivijagua ant come out of his nest and crawl across the rafters in the morning, I know it’s time to go to the fields,” 75-year old Francisco “Panchito” Ramírez Rojas told us. “When the chipojo lizard comes down from the palm tree to get a drink of water, I know it’s noon. I also know it’s noon when my shadow disappears and I’m standing on my own head,” he said, getting up from our lunch table to illustrate his point.

A lean man bronzed by years in the sun, Panchito radiated a natural authority, which had earned him the title of cacique in the community of La Ranchería, not far from the U.S. naval station and prison at Guantánamo Bay.

Ramirez took the opportunity to search for useful plants in the woods along the Toa River. Striding up to a cedar, he patted the rough trunk as if it were an old amigo. “This tree is a relative,” he said. “It has feelings like we do, so it should be treated with respect. If you make tea from the bark of this tree, it has a lot of power. It’s good for colds and respiratory problems. But if you don’t ask permission before you cut the bark, it may not work. So I always say a little prayer so the tree knows I’m serious and I want to share its power. ‘Give me your strength for healing.’ That’s what I ask.”

Hearing Ramirez, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristling: His method of conversing with plants was almost identical to one described by 15th-century Spanish chroniclers. Although those accounts have been widely published, it is doubtful that Ramirez ever read them: He is illiterate. He learned his craft from a great-uncle and other elders who were natural healers in his mountain community.

“If we expect to get food from the earth,” he says, “we have to give something back. So at planting time we always say a prayer and bury a little stone or a coin in the field, just a little message to the earth, so that she will help with production.”

Like those who taught him, Ramirez is passing his knowledge on, to a son, Vladimir Lenin Ramírez Ramírez, and to other family members, so they will keep the traditions going. “The young ones will carry on for us,” Panchito Ramirez said. But he admitted concern over the dwindling of Indian communities, which have been reduced by marriage to outsiders. “I’d like for my children to marry Indians, but there just aren’t enough of us. So our people are leaving the mountain to find new families. They’re scattered all over.”

Robert M. Poole is a contributing editor for Smithsonian. Photographer Maggie Steber is based in Miami.

If you have ever paddled a canoe, napped in a hammock, savored a barbecue, smoked tobacco or tracked a hurricane across Cuba, you have paid tribute to the Taíno, the Indians who invented those words long before they welcomed Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492.

Their world, which had its origins among the Arawak tribes of the Orinoco Delta, gradually spread from Venezuela across the Antilles in waves of voyaging and settlement begun around 400 B.C. Mingling with people already established in the Caribbean, they developed self-sufficient communities on the island of Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic; in Jamaica and eastern Cuba; in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. They cultivated yuca, sweet potatoes, maize, beans and other crops as their culture flourished, reaching its peak by the time of European contact.

Some scholars estimate the Taíno population may have reached more than three million on Hispaniola alone as the 15th century drew to a close, with smaller settlements elsewhere in the Caribbean. Whatever the number, the Taíno towns described by Spanish chroniclers were densely settled, well organized and widely dispersed. The Indians were inventive people who learned to strain cyanide from life-giving yuca, developed pepper gas for warfare, devised an extensive pharmacopeia from nature, built oceangoing canoes large enough for more than 100 paddlers and played games with a ball made of rubber, which fascinated Europeans seeing the material for the first time. Although the Taíno never developed a written language, they made exquisite pottery, wove intricate belts from dyed cotton and carved enigmatic images from wood, stone, shell and bone.

The Taíno impressed Columbus with their generosity, which may have contributed to their undoing. “They will give all that they do possess for anything that is given to them, exchanging things even for bits of broken crockery,” he noted upon meeting them in the Bahamas in 1492. “They were very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces....They do not carry arms or know them....They should be good servants.”

In short order, Columbus established the first American colony at La Isabela, on the north coast of Hispaniola, in 1494. After a brief period of coexistence, relations between the newcomers and natives deteriorated. Spaniards removed men from villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations. This kept the Taíno from planting the crops that had fed them for centuries. They began to starve; many thousands fell prey to smallpox, measles and other European diseases for which they had no immunity; some committed suicide to avoid subjugation; hundreds fell in fighting with the Spaniards, while untold numbers fled to remote regions beyond colonial control. In time, many Taíno women married conquistadors, combining the genes of the New World and Old World to create a new mestizo population, which took on Creole characteristics with the arrival of African slaves in the 16th century. By 1514, barely two decades after first contact, an official survey showed that 40 percent of Spanish men had taken Indian wives. The unofficial number is undoubtedly higher.

“Very few Indians were left after 50 years,” said Ricardo Alegría, a Puerto Rican historian and anthropologist I interviewed before his death this past July. He had combed through Spanish archives to track the eclipse of the Taíno. “Their culture was interrupted by disease, marriage with Spanish and Africans, and so forth, but the main reason the Indians were exterminated as a group was sickness,” he told me. He ran through the figures from his native island: “By 1519, a third of the aboriginal population had died because of smallpox. You find documents very soon after that, in the 1530s, in which the question came from Spain to the governor. ‘How many Indians are there? Who are the chiefs?’ The answer was none. They are gone.” Alegría paused before adding: “Some remained probably...but it was not that many.”

Possibly as many as three million souls—some 85 percent of the Taíno population—had vanished by the early 1500s, according to a controversial extrapolation from Spanish records. As the Indian population faded, so did Taíno as a living language. The Indians’ reliance on beneficent icons known as cemís gave way to Christianity, as did their hallucinogen-induced cohoba ceremonies, which were thought to put shamans in touch with the spirit world. Their regional chieftaincies, each headed by a leader known as a cacique, crumbled away. Their well-maintained ball courts reverted to bush.

Given the dramatic collapse of the indigenous society, and the emergence of a population blending Spanish, Indian and African attributes, one might be tempted to declare the Taíno extinct. Yet five centuries after the Indians’ fateful meeting with Columbus, elements of their culture endure—in the genetic heritage of modern Antilleans, in the persistence of Taíno words and in isolated communities where people carry on traditional methods of architecture, farming, fishing and healing.

For more than a year, I searched for these glimpses of Taíno survival, among living descendants in New York City and dusty Caribbean villages, in museums displaying fantastic religious objects created by long-dead artists, in interviews with researchers who still debate the fate of the Taíno.

My search began in the nooks and crannies of limestone caves underlying the Dominican Republic, where the Taíno believed their world began. “Hispaniola is the heart of Taíno culture and the caves are the heart of the Taíno,” said Domingo Abréu Collado, chief of the speleology division in the Dominican Ministry on Environmental and Natural Resources. He clapped on a hard hat at the entrance to the Pomier Caves, a complex of 55 caverns less than an hour’s drive from the gridlock of Santo Domingo. He led me from the eye-numbing brilliance of tropical noon into a shadowy tunnel, where our headlamps picked out the image of a face carved into stone, its eyes wide in surprise.

“That’s Mácocael,” said Abréu. “This guy was supposed to guard the entrance of the cave at night, but he got curious and left his post for a look around outside. The sun caught him there and turned him to stone.” The sentinel, whose Taíno name means “No Eyelids,” now stands guard for eternity.

More than 1,000 years before the Spaniards arrived, local shamans and other pilgrims visited such caves to glimpse the future, to pray for rain and to draw surreal images on the walls with charcoal: mating dogs, giant birds swooping down on human prey, a bird-headed man copulating with a human, and a pantheon of naturalistically rendered owls, turtles, frogs, fish and other creatures important to the Taíno, who associated particular animals with specific powers of fecundity, healing, magic and death.

Abréu, a lean man with sharp features, paused before a sweaty wall crowded with images. “So many paintings! I think they are concentrated where the points of energy converge,” he said. Abréu’s headlamp fell upon images of stick figures who seemed to be smoking pipes; others bent over bowls to inhale snuff through long tubes. These were the tribal leaders who fasted until their ribs showed, cleansed themselves with vomiting sticks and snorted cohoba powder, a hallucinogen ground from the seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina, a tree native to the Caribbean.

The cohoba ritual was first described by Friar Ramón Pané, a Hieronymite brother who, on the orders of Columbus himself, lived among the Taíno and chronicled their rich belief system. Pané’s writings—the most direct source we have on ancient Taíno culture—was the basis for Peter Martyr’s 1516 account of cohoba rites: “The intoxicating herb,” Martyr wrote, “is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action begins to wane, the arms and legs become loose and the head droops.” Under its influence, users “suddenly begin to rave, and at once they say . . . that the house is moving, turning things upside down, and that men are walking backwards.” Such visions guided leaders in planning war, judging tribal disputes, predicting the agricultural yield and other matters of importance. And the drug seems to have influenced the otherworldly art in Pomier and other caves.

“Country people are still afraid of caves—the ghosts, you see,” said Abréu. His voice was accompanied by the sound of dripping water and the fluttering of bats, which swirled around the ceiling and clicked in the dark.

The bats scattered before us; we trudged up into the daylight and by early the next morning we were rattling through the rain-washed streets of Santo Domingo bound for the northeast in search of living Taíno, in Abréu’s opinion a dubious objective. Formerly an archaeologist for the Museum of the Dominican Man, he was skeptical of finding real Indians but was happy enough to help scout for remnants of their influence. The first signs began to appear around the town of Bayaguana, where the road narrowed and we jounced past plots of yuca, plantains and maize, some of which were planted in the heaped-earth pattern favored by Taíno farmers of old. New fields, cleared by the slash-and-burn methods Indians brought here from South America, smoldered along the way. On the fringes of Los Haitises National Park, we met a woman who had set up shop beside the road to sell casabe, the coarse, flat Taíno bread made from yuca. “None left,” she said. “I sold the last of it yesterday.” We began to see simple, sensibly designed houses with thin walls of palm planks and airy roofs of thatch, like those depicted in Spanish woodcuts from Columbus’ day.

The road ended at Sabana de los Javieles, a village known as a pocket of Taíno settlement since the 1530s, when Enrique, one of the last Taíno caciques of the colonial period, made peace with Spain and led some 600 followers to northeastern Hispaniola. They stayed, married Spaniards and Africans, and left descendants who still retain indigenous traits. In the 1950s, researchers found high percentages of the blood types that are predominant in Indians in blood samples they took here. In the 1970s, dental surveys established that 33 out of 74 villagers retained shovel-shaped incisors, the teeth characteristic of American Indians and Asians. And a recent nationwide genetic study established that 15 percent to 18 percent of Dominicans had Amerindian markers in their mitochondrial DNA, testifying to the continued presence of Taíno genes.

None of this would surprise Ramona Primitiva, a villager whose family has long embraced its indigenous antecedents. “My father used to tell us we came from the Indio,” she said, using another name for the Taíno. “My family has always been here. We didn’t come from somewhere else.” We sat in white plastic chairs at the local store, grateful for the shade of an overhanging roof and happy to have neighbors join the conversation.

“My father used to tell us we were descendants of the Indians,” said Meregilda Tholia Johelin.

“My ancestors were Indio,” said Rosa Arredondo Vasquez.

“My grandmother said we came from the Indians,” said Gabriela Javier Alvarez, who appeared with an aluminum guayo, Taíno for the grating boards once fashioned from rough stone and used for shredding yuca roots.

Jurda Arcacio Peguero wandered by, eavesdropped for a moment, then dashed next door to fetch a batea, Taíno for a long wooden tray for fruits or vegetables. “It’s an old one,” she said, handing over an object fragrant of garlic and worn buttery smooth from use.

The villagers did not call themselves Indian or Taíno, but they knew how Indian traditions had shaped life in the community. Most had kept a long silence about their indigenous heritage for fear of being ridiculed: Indians were country people—uneducated campesinos stereotyped as gullible or backward. The bigotry has softened somewhat, but nobody wants to be considered a rube.

It was late in the day when we said our farewells and turned for the capital, back down a rutted road through lumpy green hills. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find an Indian for you,” Abréu said, sensing my disappointment. Brooding in the passenger seat, I wondered if the prevailing academic wisdom might be true—that the Taíno had been extinct as a distinct people for half a millennium, existing at best as hybrids in fragments of their old homeland. Did any pure Taíno survive?

That question was the wrong one to ask. It took a nudge from Jorge Estevez, a self-described Taíno from New York City, to remind me that notions of racial purity went out the window with Adolf Hitler and the eugenics movement. “These concepts are really outdated,” said Estevez, who coordinates educational workshops at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. “There’s no such thing as a pure Taíno,” he continued, “just like there are no pure Spaniards. It’s not even clear about the ethnicity of Christopher Columbus! The guys who came with him were mixed with Moors, with Sephardic Jews, with Basques—a great mixture that was going on. That story continues.”

Even the Taíno evolved as a distinct people only after centuries of traveling and merging with other populations in the Antilles. “So when people ask if I am pure Taíno, I say ‘yes,’” said Estevez, who traces his roots to the Dominican Republic and has the shovel incisors to prove it. “My ancestors were from a plethora of different tribes. They mixed with a lot of others to become Taíno. What you have to look at is how the culture persists and how it is being transmitted.”

Estevez, a former pugilist who retains a boxer’s brawn and grace, unzipped a black suitcase and began unpacking objects to bolster his argument for the survival of a Taíno culture: a feather-light makuto, a basket woven from palm fronds; ladles, cups, plates and a musical instrument known as a guiro, all made from gourds; a wooden batea for carrying produce, like the one I had seen in the Dominican Republic a few days before. These were not dusty artifacts from a museum but utensils made recently by Antillean villagers who still use them and call them by their Taíno names. “My mother knew how to weave these things,” he said, holding up the makuto. “We also made casabe.” As he got older, Estevez steadily collected Indian lore and objects from a network of uncles and aunts in the islands, adding new evidence to his suitcase every year. “All my life I’ve been on this journey looking for all these Taíno things to see how much survival is there,” he said.

Relegated to a footnote of history for 500 years, the Taíno came roaring back as front-page news in 2003, when Juan C. Martínez Cruzado, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico, announced the results of an island-wide genetic study. Taking samples from 800 randomly selected subjects, Martínez reported that 61.1 percent of those surveyed had mitochondrial DNA of indigenous origin, indicating a persistence in the maternal line that surprised him and his fellow scientists. The same study revealed African markers in 26.4 percent of the population and 12.5 percent for those of European descent. The results encouraged a Taíno resurgence, with native groups urging Puerto Rican schools to take note of the indigenous contribution to Caribbean history, opposing construction on tribal sites and seeking federal recognition for the Taíno, with attendant benefits.

Though the question of Indian identity is often fraught with political implications, it is especially pronounced in Puerto Rico, which still struggles with its status as a territory of the United States. The island enjoys neither the benefits of statehood nor the independence of a nation, with deep divisions between proponents for each. Ardent nationalists view the recent surge in Taíno activism as a threat to political unity. Activists say their adversaries are promoting Eurocentric history and a colonial class system. Even Taíno leaders occasionally view one another with hostility.

“Here in Puerto Rico, power plays are rampant,” said Carlalynne Melendez Martínez, an anthropologist who has launched the nonprofit group Guakia Taina-Ke, Our Taíno Land, to promote native studies. Her goal is to boost Taíno culture by reviving the Arawak language, preserving cultural sites and establishing preserves for indigenous people. “We’re teaching the language to children and teaching people how to farm. We don’t do songs and dances for the tourists,” she said, referring to a competing group.

In Puerto Rico’s central mountains, I came upon a woman who called herself Kukuya, Taíno for firefly, who was getting ready for a gathering of Indians in Jayuya, a town associated with both revolution and indigenous festivals. She had grown up in New York City but had lived in Puerto Rico for 35 years, having been guided to this remote community, she said, by a vision. Green-eyed and rosy-cheeked, she said her forebears were Spanish, African, Mexican and Maya as well as Taíno.

“My great-grandmother was pure-blooded Taíno, my mother of mixed blood,” she said. “When I told people I was Taíno, they said, ‘What, are you crazy? There aren’t any left!’ But I don’t believe you have to look a certain way. I have all of my ancestors within me.”

Like Kukuya, thousands of Puerto Ricans have been discovering their inner Taíno in recent years. In the 2010 census, for example, 19,839 Puerto Ricans checked the identity box marked “American Indian or Alaskan Native,” an increase of almost 49 percent over the 2000 count, when 13,336 checked it. Neither canvass provided a Taíno option.The native population represents less than 1 percent of Puerto Rico’s 3.7 million people, but indigenous leaders consider the latest head count a milestone—further proof that some Indians live on long after they were thought to be annihilated.

“What I’m really excited about is that there’s a lot of youth coming into this and challenging the status quo,” said Roberto Mukaro Borrero, president of the United Confederation of Taíno People. Borrero, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican parentage, has tried to soothe fears about a Taíno land grab based on Indian identity.

“I want to make it clear that we’re not here to take back Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic,” he said. “Or to establish a casino. If you just look at the statements we’ve made over the last ten years, there’s not one mention of casinos, kicking anybody out of the country or being divisive in any way. We just want a seat at the table.”

Still, some scholars remain skeptical. “You have to be aware of people running around saying they’re Taíno, because they are after a federal subsidy,” said Bernardo Vega, a former director of the Museum of the Dominican Man and the Dominican Republic’s former ambassador to the United States. Yvonne M. Narganes Storde, an archaeologist at the University of Puerto Rico agreed. She gives the activists credit for preserving important sites on the island, but she sounded wary of their emphasis on establishing a separate Taíno identity. “All the cultures are blended here,” she said. “I probably have Taíno genes. We all do. We have incorporated all these cultures—African, Spanish and Indian. We have to live with it.”

A few pockets of Taíno culture remain in eastern Cuba, an area shaped by rugged mountains and years of isolation. “Anybody who talks about the extinction of the Taíno has not really looked at the record,” said Alejandro Hartmann Matos, the city historian of Baracoa, Cuba’s oldest city, and an authority on the island’s earliest inhabitants. Hartmann, a Cuban of German ancestry, had invited me to meet Indian descendants from the island’s Oriente region, as well as to mark the 500th anniversary of Baracoa, founded in 1511. Joining us was José Barreiro, assistant director of research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. With Hartmann, Barreiro has been tracking descendants of the Indians since 1989. Based on their research, the pair estimate that at least 5,000 Indians survive in Cuba, while hundreds of thousands likely have indigenous roots.

Late one night, after a day of quincentennial celebrations with live music, dancing, poetry recitations and occasional tots of rum, Barreiro and I sat bleary-eyed around a kitchen table as the indefatigable Hartmann raced through a list of historical references to Indians of the Oriente, beginning in 1492, when Columbus sailed into Baracoa harbor, planted a wooden cross on the shore and praised the place for its “good water, good land, good surroundings, and much wood.”

“Indians have appeared in the record ever since,” said Hartmann. Indigenous people established the city of Jiguaní in 1701 and formed the all-native Hatuey Regiment in the Cuban war against Spain in 1895. José Martí, founding father of Cuba’s independence movement, frequently mentioned Indians in his war diary. Mark Harrington, an American archaeologist conducting fieldwork in 1915 and 1919, found natives still hanging on in eastern Cuba. He was followed—in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s—by anthropologists who scoured the region recording the skeletal structure, blood type and other physical attributes of Cuban villagers with indigenous ancestry. “So if you look to the past,” said Hartmann, “you see this long record of Indians living here. Anyone who says otherwise is speaking from ignorance.”

And today?

Robert M. Poole is a contributing editor for Smithsonian. Photographer Maggie Steber is based in Miami.

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Comments (54)

Good article, but why are you still calling them Indians? They aren't from India as Columbus thought. Since we know this, why use the term "Indians"? Thanks.

Posted by Yogy on May 1,2013 | 02:39 PM

We are still here. In my family my grate gran mother was a full blood tiana would stay away from white people for fear of being harmed she married my great grand father who was mixed Origen she would look for her people and be very happy when she could ID or feel the blood line , end result she told her children never to forget who they were or there ancistors .

Posted by Felix on April 29,2013 | 12:52 PM

According to recent DNA studies only 5% of the total population of Puerto Rico is Taino and European. But out of four million thats still about 200,000. Most people on the island are tri-racial with the African percentage only differnt from the Taino percentage in the average individual by 5 to 6 points. That is considered a very small difference. On top of this , the studies show that the majority of us are Taino on the mother;s side and it is the mother who passes on the culture in most cases. If we look at Native Americans on the mainland where there has also been mixing you can have White and Black looking indians because it is not just about blood but about culture and how your mothers and grandmothers raised you.

Posted by Domingo Hernandez on February 26,2013 | 03:05 PM

These we're my people now they live threw me shame on all my history teachers I never would of known Christopher Columbia day should be abolished

Posted by on February 18,2013 | 12:10 AM

Please do not disregard the Tainos/Arawaks of Jamaica. My 2xgreat grandmother was full-blood Indigenous Arawak, and always acknowledged as such.They were called the "Tree People". I know they love to say we all died out, but considering the English were unable to go up to the hills&mountains without difficulty and threat of raids, I think its erroneous to believe that no one survived. Also I am a mixture of Arawak/Taino, Maroon, and European ancestry. A lot of the tribes ran off to the mountains to escape the slavers and as the African slaves ran off, they integrated with together and intermarried. My Maroon families vocabulary (patois) has both African and Taino words. Many Jamaicans are also aware of their indigenous heritage and honour it. I would also like to see investigation into medical anomalies or differences in reaction to pain medication/threshold, susceptibility to back problems, and food intolerance, that anecdotaly I have noticed in my research of my heritage. But my , and others physical features cannot be disputed as evidence and proof that "some Taino/Arawak" survived.

Posted by lisa on February 10,2013 | 12:18 AM

Yes the DNA of Taino does survive in many puerto ricans but Taino as a tribe or culture is definitely extinct but many do have some small degree of taino Dna as they also have african in much greater degrees so they are more african than indian for sure vastly overwhelmingly due to disease and extinction but it is interesting to know how long the taino lasted after columbus came but anyone claiming to be an actual half or pure Taino is not possible on such a small island no matter how remote at best we can say fractionally small Dna remains and with most puerto ricans moving out to new york or florida it will diminsh even more.

Posted by Johnson smith on February 9,2013 | 12:32 AM

PS....There is NOTHING WRONG with being called an Indian.....that is so ignorant of you Mariangeles!!!

Posted by Rosa Gonzalez on February 7,2013 | 03:29 AM

The Domenicans do not have anything to do with Taino indians!! They have their history with the Haitans!!

Posted by Rosa Gonzalez on February 7,2013 | 03:26 AM

I like to present my project to the Smithsonian curators in charge of the indigenous people department or exhibitions. I have been working on a Taino series for that last year in oils. Almost a few months away from completion, I wanted to receive contact info of parties involved to present the project.visit the site: www.tainospiritgallery.com Thank you, Meri

Posted by Meri Ramos on January 29,2013 | 06:21 PM

While looking at the photos accompanying the article, I was wondering why the legs of the figures were oddly big. An explanation might be that if the shamans kept themselves in a constant state of near-starvation, they would suffer from edema of the lower limbs. Having just finished reading about the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), I had been made aware of the terrible signs of severe starvation.

Posted by Jennifer Hardacre on January 29,2013 | 02:23 PM

The History of the Arawak/Taino Indians in the Bahamas is not know by many. Arriving in the Islands of the Bahamas in approximately 500 AD, the Arawaks developed a System of Commerce,Travel, and Trade that can rival these Modern Times. Fleeing from the Wrath of the fierce Caribs, these Peaceful Indians were expert Canoeists and traveled with great speed as they maneuvered among the rocky shoals around the Bahamian Islands. I am an Historian of the Early Bahamas. (500 AD - 19TH Century)

Posted by Vera Chase on January 7,2013 | 08:30 PM

Tau (hello) I have been working on a book that I started 20 years ago and hope to finish before my passing, simply because there is so much information that I have attained through my own research of my true identity that the deaper I go into my research the more I find; finding it hard to to just make a close statement. I truely am loving it though. love

Posted by Anna Maria Cruz Ruiz on November 29,2012 | 02:38 PM

Well, I believe my family is Taino from Aguadilla, PR. They grew up there, but moved to NY; then, various places in the states. The characteristics tells the story.

Posted by Robert Montoya on October 25,2012 | 01:11 AM

My GreatGrandmother was fullblooded Lakota and I dont even know her name but I was told she spoke no english I like reading about the Taino culture. I am from Pennslyvania

Posted by Heather on October 8,2012 | 03:57 PM

My great-great grandmother was from "Las Indieras, Maricao, Puerto Rico. She was captured by a "criollo" with the help of two dogs. She was a native Taino girl.

Posted by Carlos Santiago on September 1,2012 | 03:14 PM

Thanks for your insight and reporting with photographs. I assisted in the Boriken Peace and Dignity run and we all had a pleasurable experience with Maggie (SI photographer) and all the folks roadside who applauded the resurgence of Taino blood line affirmation. Dakar Taino!

Posted by Roger Guayakan Hernandez on August 20,2012 | 10:01 PM

Im 1 300 and direct inheritor of my grandparents and GREAT grandparents cave and land in Puerto Rico. And yes. We are Tainos. Most of us marry within the taino descendence. So we live throughout the United States. It does not change our BLOOD LINE, or DNA. Remeber BLOOD is always thicker then water. La sangre llama. ;)

Posted by Sylvia Velez Rivera Toledo Roman on July 21,2012 | 06:15 PM

I was so glad to find and read this article to find, to my surprise and delight, that there are still Tainos in my native Cuba. Growing up there, we were always told in school that our aborigenes (there were another 2 tribes in Cuba in addition to the Tainos) had been exterminated by the Spaniards. As a child, I heard rumors of just one family escaping to the mountains where they had managed to survive but I am so glad to hear that it was many more. As a descendant of Spaniards and natives of the Canary Islands, I have a great deal of respect for our aborigines and their way of life. They truly were the greatest cultures ever and their way of life is to be envied - and perhaps to be imitated - in today's tumultuous times.

Posted by Lola Flores on May 28,2012 | 05:55 PM

My grandfather is from the central part of the island.(Jayuya) He is no longer living but he used to tell me stories of his people. The central part of the island was very secluded. Natives that were able to escape earlier invasions from the coast would flee to the mountains. This basically cut the natives off from the shore line for fear of being captured. My grandfather appeared with typical Taino features. Copper skin. Black straight hair. Prominent Taino nose and mouth. The stories he passed down was talk of dislike for the Spaniards. My grandfather lived a lot like the Taino. He didnt own a pair of shoes until he came to NY at 17 years old. Farming and living off the land was all there was. It is important for all Puerto Ricans today to learn about their culture. So much has been lost already. Let us preserve what we can. Tainos trace their lineage from Veneuela through the Orinicco River. It was typical for native peoples of south america and the caribbean to inter marry with each other. Ultimately, when you trace the Taino lineage even further, it can be traced back to the Inca! We are powerful people and far from extinct!

Posted by nancy mejia on May 18,2012 | 08:25 PM

According to DNA information recently shared 3/1/12. Individuals have been identified in Puerto Rico with up to 39% Native American blood quantum. When questioned by the person conducting the interviews " where are your grandmothers from." They all answered that they're from the western part of the island.

Posted by Dhernandez on March 13,2012 | 02:54 PM

YES IT'S GREAT TO FIND OUT ABOUT OUR HERITAGE, NOW WHY INSIST ON CALLING US INDIANS??? DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THE ONLY INDIANS ARE THOSE FROM INDIA????
WE ARE NATIVES, ABORIGINALS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. PLEASE IF YOU WRITE PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, THEN DO IT PROFESSIONALY AND RESPONSIBLY. WE DON'T LIKE TO BE CALLED INDIANS AND THE REAL INDIANS DON'T WANT OTHERS TO BE CALLED INDIANS.
IT WAS CRISTOFERO COLOMBO'S MISTAKE WHY KEEP REPEATING THE MISTAKE. HE WAS LOST AND THOUGHT HE WAS IN INDIA, THAT WAS OVER 200 YRS AGO, GET REAL PLEASE.
IT IS JUST LIKE THE MISTAKE THAT ALL UNITEDSTATIANS COMMIT: YOU FORGOT THE NAME OF YOUR COUNTRY- UNITED STATES- NOT AMERICA, AND YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY AMERICANS, THERE ARE 35 COUNTRIES IN AMERICA, NOT ONE! ISUGGEST YOU GO BACK TO SCHOOL PLEASE. THANK YOU & GOD BLESS YOU

Posted by MARIANGELES on January 9,2012 | 02:35 PM

When I read the article "what became of the taino?" in October 2011,Smithsonian mag. I was so interested in learning more about the Taino Indians and how they lived. I wish there was more to read about the Taino indians You don't hear about them in American History Books, which I feel should be. Kids should be taught to learn about the history of the Taino.

Does anyone have any info, books, relatives, ancestry.com, storys about their ancestor's. If so, please share!

Thank you, Cheryl Kolander de Perez for the website you provided.

Posted by Ruby Nieves on December 21,2011 | 01:14 PM

When I was a child over 50 years ago, we would speak a spanish that was full of Taino words in it. We didn't know these words were not spanish until we started grade school. The town kids would make fun of us because we were speaking the Jibaro way. My grandparents were born and lived in Bohios (huts) and they slept in Hamaca (hammocks) or petate (straw mats) they sat on Butaca (benches)and ate from a dita(gourd dish)and drank from a jataka (gourd lattle)They planted flowers in the Batey (front yard) and vegetables in the conuco (garden). Extinct is defined as: having no living descendants. Those who still insists the Taino are extinct are racist eurocentric individuals who wouldn't know an Indian if he met one.

Posted by Domingo Hernandez on November 3,2011 | 01:32 PM

There is no evidence that the Caribes were cannibalistic. This was an excuse for the Tainos.Although the island of San Juan Bautista was discovered in 1493, It wasn't until 1508 that Ponce de Leon came to colonize it The Kasike Guaybana in Boriken instigated a rebellion against the colonizers in 1510 killing my ancestor's brother Cristobal de Sotomayor, Ponce's second in command and highest ranking noble to arrive in the New World. The tainos were subjugated by the Spaniards and we only have their DNA to thank for our taino heritage.

Posted by Jaime Sotomayor-Pabon on October 28,2011 | 11:06 AM

So after reading this, as a Puerto Rican with clearly defined phenotypical Taino roots, tell me again why it is that we celebrate Christopher Columbus' Day in the caribbean?

Posted by Daisy Martinez on October 20,2011 | 04:02 PM

Because I am Puerto Rican , I can proudly say that I have Taino blood in me, therefore I celebrate my indian, along with my Spanish and African heritage.

Posted by Hector Gerardo on October 17,2011 | 06:16 PM

I have taino family in N.J. from grandpa side of family.

Posted by marilyn on October 16,2011 | 08:27 PM

When I was a young kid I had heard the expresion "Indio Taino" in a song I liked so many times; which right now I don't remember the name; and I thought it was just part of the lyrics but now after read this article I realize that Tainos where a great culture as Mayas or Incas.

Posted by Luis Checa on October 16,2011 | 12:53 PM

So I went to the book store to pick up a book and came home with a Smithsonian Magazine and on the cover it advertizes that one of the articals is about the indians who greeted Columbus. When I opened up the magazine what do I find to my surprise but an artical intitled,"WHAT BECAME OF THE TAINO"! It was an interesting and enlightening artical since family history has it that my Great Grandmother on my mothers, father side of the family was a Taino Indian! What a lucky find!

Posted by Laura Maldonado on October 14,2011 | 11:40 PM

I am elated to see a Taino article at all on the Smithsonian Magazine. Although some of the facts we Puerto Ricans might not agree, I extend an invitation to Mr Poole to visit both Taino Ceremonial Parks in Puerto Rico, Caguana and Tibes to see first hand not only artifacts, but taino aborigines remains found since the 70s after hurricane, as well as a pristine and well kept batey where tainos used to play ball, duhos, cemis, bohios, canoas, etc. It would provide extra information and pictures for a great complementary article to this one.

The fact that mostly Dominican Republic artifacts and details were shared was a only part of the history as tainos were in existence through a much more vast area of the Caribbean.

We are raised and educated in PR with a high sense of pride on our race mix and history and are proud of being Boricuas.

Posted by Linda Santana on October 14,2011 | 09:48 PM

It is long past time to acknowledge that the "dramatic collapse" of the Taino society was due to the systematic enslavement, starvation, disease, and murder perpetrated by the conquerors -- a sorrowful first chapter in the colonization of the Americas.

The annual celebration of Columbus Day would be a good opportunity for us to openly admit that historical reality, to accept that our existence in these lands came at the expense of those who were here first, to humbly apologize, and to graciously say, "Thank you."

Posted by Sally B. Ruvelson on October 14,2011 | 05:33 PM

I am not an Original American, but when I was about 9, I began to read between the lines of our history books and realized that things had not been as we were supposed to believe. Treaties with the tribes, for example, rather than being broken by the tribes as was usually believed, were instead replaced by new treaties, less favorable to the tribes, when the previous ones no longer served the purposes of the White population. This article points out again the falsity of the invaders argument that the indigenous people were scarcely above the level of the animals. We need more eyes and minds open anthropological and historical work like this.

Posted by Marjory Munson on October 14,2011 | 08:49 AM

Thank goodness there was no gold discovered in these Caribbean Islands or the Taino would be long ago relocated. As a third generation German descendant on my mother's side and a cloudy history on my father's father's side I've always been curious about my "shovel teeth". Haven't been able to trace the Cherokee great-great grandmother from whom I inherited same but feel a connection to all native people and celebrate in my heart their small victories. Great article.

Posted by Jean Brockman on October 13,2011 | 05:21 PM

The Taino people traveled throughout the Carribean, it would serve the author of this article well to represent their journey accordingly.

Posted by Aida Del Valle on October 13,2011 | 04:21 PM

This such exciting history. I can relate to this History since I have such "diverse racial Heritage--at least six ethenicities-- with more added to a family which has traveled all over the World. But the main American Indian, the Cherokee Nation, is part of my heritage, based upon extensive research.

Posted by Dr. Russell L. Anderson,Jr., M.D. on October 13,2011 | 03:33 PM

There was a functioning Taino community on the North shore of the Dominican Republic until about 5 years ago. It was destroyed by the Dominican government. The story and many photos are at: http://www.mamadoc.org/photos.html

Also, on the knitting before Columbus? Please! Peru is full of pre-Columbian knits! In fact, there are textile arts tours that go to the high Andes so others can learn the special techniques of this tradition that is arguably older than the European. Any book on the ancient textiles of Peru will have examples.

Posted by Cheryl Kolander de Perez on October 13,2011 | 03:10 PM

As a proud boricua (the son of borikén), I always wonder which of us have the strongest prevalence of Taíno blood in our DNAs, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, etc.. The article said that in the 2003 study, 61.1% of us have Taíno blood in our vessels, I remember in the media when the results of the study were published, it reported that the figure was 68%. Reading this article made me feel even more proud of my Latin American heritage, especially my Taíno heritage. It proves that, along with our Dominican and Cuban brothers and sisters, we are a Caribbean and Latin American nation.

Posted by David Fontánez Meléndez on October 13,2011 | 01:07 PM

Americans are allowed to travel to Cuba if they are doing so for academic purposes. In eastern Cuba, in the Moa Valley, there are 100 percent Taino people. In Miami, you will find organizations of Taino and C(S)iboney people. The Taino organization has more than 500 families in their membership.
In the documents that I have read to date, there is no mention whatsoever, that slowly, the cannibalistic Carib (Caribes) people were slowly conquering most islands of the Caribbean basin. At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards Puerto Rico had been almost totally conquered by the Caribes, and in Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti) there was fighting taking place between the Tainos and the Caribes. The Caribes had not managed yet to conquer Cuba. Apparently, and rather recently, the Government of the Cuban Socialist Republic intended to build a large dam in the Moa Valley, in order to improve the mining that has been taking place in that area (mostly Nickel and Manganese, I believe), but the Taino people asked the Government to stop the project, for in the Moa Valley there were some native species of fauna and flora that did not exist in any other part of Cuba. The the best of my knowledge, the project was stopped. I simply recommend that tou contact the Taino and Ciboney organizations in the Miami area, and eventually tracel to Cuba. Something that I can't do, and would not be interested in doing either.

Oswaldo F. Hernandez-Campos
Asheville, North Carolina
History and Genealogy Research

Posted by Oswaldo F. Hernandez-Campos on October 11,2011 | 04:29 AM

"The results (DNA) encouraged a Taíno resurgence, with native groups urging Puerto Rican schools to take note of the indigenous contribution to Caribbean history, opposing construction on tribal sites and seeking federal recognition for the Taíno, with attendant benefits."

This is not totally true, i'm 26 years old and when i was in first or second grade in Isabela, Puerto Rico at the earlys 1990, i remember been teach at school that i was a mix of 3 races and i was told to be proud of it. They teached me about the taino religion (Example: cemi, yukiyu), about the social components (Example: cacique was the leader) that they have an agriculture system and so many other things. I remember a beautiful poster that my teacher made of a big tree and in the roots have 3 faces (one Taino, one African and one Spanish) that image make my feel exited and proud about my origins. YO SOY BORICUA :)

Posted by Yanitza on October 8,2011 | 09:24 AM

I have not checked my Taino DNA but, have no doubt that it is there. My fellow Boricuas are proud of their Taino heritage. There is and should be a great deal of pride in the richness of the Taino culture. The late Ricardo Alegria head of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, in addition to expounding about our Taino culture, nevertheless, also led us to revere our Spanish Heritage. When Columbus supposedly landed in Boriken, at Aguada in 1493, all he sought was water for his 17 vessels, and yet we hear the poets quoting him as saying that "This is the beautiful land that I have sought". Yet it wasn't until 1508 that Ponce de Leon came with Cristobal de Sotomayor,brother of my ancestor Diego, Ponce de Leon seeking to subjugate the Taino, as he had done in Jaiti, and Cristobal de Sotomayor, in order to comply with the Queen's wishes in evangelising the heathens. Ponce was removed by the Crown for being corrupt; Cristobal, by the Taino's, albeit reluctant warriors. He was killed and buried headfirst to prevent him from rising again. The Kasike, Guaybana, chose to kill Sotomayor, because he had made his sister Guanina his concubine, but most of all because he sought to change the Taino customs and beliefs, supplanting them with the Christian faith. Guaybana did not die in the illfated rebellion as supposed. He joined the Caribes in what is now Vieques, continuing to fight the Spaniards in a Trinidad based rebellion. Ponce de Leon was sent to quell. All this, is in the chronicals of the 1600s. I am proud of having Taino blood, but had Cristbal succeeded in his efforts, perhaps we would truly have my Taino ancestors represented by living proof as to their existence. Right now, those Boricuas in New York may continue to say that they are Tainos. For speculation much closer to the truth, they should read my historical novel, "Reluctant Warriors - Tainos, The Good People" available at the Eastern National Book Stores in Fort San Cristobal in Old San Juan or El Yunque.

Posted by Jaime Sotomayor-Pabon on October 7,2011 | 09:52 AM

I’d love to say that I couldn’t be more delighted with Robert M. Poole’s excellent article on the Taíno. It’s true that I’m even delighted in the accent mark, helping us to pronounce the name correctly. But it’s also true that the article left me with a small quibble and a large sigh.

First, I’m surprised that Poole didn’t cite an excellent source on the early Taíno: Bartolomeo de las Casas, in his Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies.

My sigh runs deeper: to a great sorrow that no one, not even the present Taíno descendants themselves, can resist describing these people by using Columbus’ confusion as to his location. He was not in India after all, so the people he met were certainly not Indians. Amerindians has never suited me any better. I can’t imagine why anyone thought it clarified anything to combine Columbus’ error with the name of an Italian navigator!

In referring to the first groups of people on this hemisphere, I prefer to use specific terms like Olmec, Maya, Taíno, Carib, and Karankawa. But Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and Comanche and so many others—not to mention break-downs into Lipan-Apache, Ogallala-Sioux, and such—become unwieldy in casual conversation. It seems to me that Original People is about the best that we can do, and I just wish we would do it!

Posted by Sue Hastings on October 6,2011 | 03:28 PM

So glad attention is given to First People, especially in time for October celebrations!

Posted by Ro Braine on October 4,2011 | 06:17 PM

Hats off to Robert Poole and the magazine for producing an engaging story about the Tainos, those intelligent, egalitarian, foreward-looking people history heretofore has neglected. If possible, the Tainos in Haiti, which borders the Dominican Republic on Hispaniola, are even more elusive. Tainos hid in the mountains in the late 1700's to avoid the African slaves' protracted, bloody war of independence from France. Necessarily reluctant to join the first Black Republic at war's end (1804), they stayed , forming tight, secretive communities, seldom venturing--or marrying--beyond. When Francois Duvalier (Poppa Doc) was swept to power on the waves of the Negritude Movement in the 1950's, it became even more dangerously politically incorrect to have Indian features. Today descendants of the Indians who greeted Columbus still live in mountain enclaves, aloof from Haiti's urban explosion. They wear hats and headscarves to hide their straight hair, but observe the old rituals, keeping the Taino culture alive.

Posted by Frances Maclean on October 4,2011 | 04:13 PM

It is true that Tainos stopped to exist due to the political expediency of the Spanish Overlords, their refusal to account to the Spanish crown. When the U.S. acquired Boriken, it continued with their falsehoods and chose to "civilize" native Tainos and sent them to Carlisle Indian School all the while denying the existence of Tainos in Boriken.
I am glad for this expose, it's about time. Though, I have known all my life that we weren't extinct. We shall continue to make known to the world that the Tainos aren't gone, though, books may try to erase us from existence. I am the Ohio Liason of the United Confederation of Taino People(UCTP).

Posted by Dr.Rose Xochitl AnaO Quinones on October 3,2011 | 10:34 PM

The Taino resurgence movement started long before Cruzado's DNA study came out in 2003. I am happy to say that I found out about it in 1996. Cruzado only confirmed for the scientific community what we have known in our spirits for a long time.

Posted by Gina Robles-Villalba on October 3,2011 | 04:19 PM

Hi. I read the article by Robert M. Poole: What Became of the Taíno? On page 3 he explained his interview with Dr. Ricardo Alegría, historian and anthropologist about the declined and then dissappearence of our indians. In Puerto Rico we have arquelogists who has scientific evidence, proved by C14 test, that indicate the presence of indians in 1820. Dr.Robeto Martinez has this evidence, like crystal arrows, indicating transculturation, recycling. It will be very interesting if you have the opportunity to do an interview or see them. He made his studies in an area of our town Morovis, specifically Las cabachuelas: a caves system.

Posted by Myriam Rivera on October 3,2011 | 12:07 PM

Robert Poole is just another example as to why we need to write our own story. He clearly is mistaken about the Taino Resurgence especially in Boriken like are so many others.Taino awareness in Boriken did not come from the result of Dr Cruzado's DNA studies this along with other misconceptions in the article are all them more reason we need to write our story.
Mr Poole never made it to the Peace and Dignity run Boriken 2010 nor did he speak with any of our young Boricua Tainos or elders…in Boriken. His limited view about the Taino people are his own summations based on very little interaction and or discussion with us. Follow up with letters to the editors of Smithsonian magazine will be forth coming as once again another article is written and published by a well known magazine filled with inaccuracies.

Posted by vanessa inaru on October 2,2011 | 12:26 AM

Culture is conservative and persistent, it's a survival value. This culture was not particularly competitive with the new arrivals, so it became minimized. What else is new lol.

Posted by john werneken on September 30,2011 | 10:38 AM

The cemi figurine on page 69 of the article on Taino -- the caption says the figure is knitted from cotton. Knitted? Really? The picture in the mag and online don't show enough detail to verify a knitted textile. Pre-Columbian knitting, if true, deserves a closer look.

Posted by Vicki A on September 27,2011 | 04:21 PM

People in the Taino movement do so to honor the ancestors and to ensure that our ancestor's contribution are not forgotten. In Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Domincan Republic the people in power speak of a triracial national identity, yet just a few years back the only enthic groups celebrated and identified were the European and to a lesser degree the African. To say you were of Taino descent was to open yourself to scorn and redicule. Now after the DNA studies comfirm our side of the story we are accused of wanting casinos or separation and or dismissed because we are not indian enough". To me these declarations show the ungoing persecution of indigenous people. We want recognition, respect for our spiritual traditions, the return to the earth of Taino remains, respect for our sacred ceremonial areas and the opportunity to celebrate our indigenous contributions, the correction of the extinction myth. We want the right to say "no" and express our discontent with the Statues of Colombus which are all over the place, in Puerto Rico, without being made fun of by the media. We want to see people use the name Jibaro and Guajiro with pride instead of having those names hurled at us as insults. People who accuse us of using Taino identity as a means to profit are projecting their own fears and issues on us. We were organizing Taino communities decades before the DNA studies confirmed our exsistence. So it is not true that this is a new thing. There are a few films showing Taino pride in the 1950's. So our story is still not being completely shown. These are the day to day issues of today's Taino descendants. Thank you.

Posted by Domingo Hernandez on September 27,2011 | 11:37 AM

Robert Poole's recent article about "What became of the Taino" sparked particular interest with me in one area. It mentioned the leaders of the Taino tribes as being called "Caciques." I have several gold coins, presumably minted in Venezuela and handed down to me, called by the same name and they have Indian Chieftans, or caciques, on the faces of the coins. No two are the same and I was wondering if there is a connection to the Tainos or if they are different. I have been unable to properly identify them through the internet. Your comments?

Posted by Thomas Marx on September 26,2011 | 01:14 PM

A question: on p. 69 there is a photograph accompanying this article which shows "A rare cemi from the Dominican Republic, knitted from cotton, with seashell eyes and a human skull" credited to the Museo di Antropologia e di Etnografia dell'Universita di Torino. This is quite interesting. I wasn't aware that there was any evidence of knitting in the western hemisphere predating Columbus. Does anyone know more about this? Other evidence? How it might have been crafted?

Posted by Dorothy DeCoster on September 24,2011 | 09:50 PM

MultiStages, a theatre company in NYC, is presenting the first musical drama written by a Puerto Rican about the Taino and Spanish conflict set in the 1500s: "TEMPLE OF THE SOULS." We will have talk backs and have been working with members of the Taino Nation in New York City and traveled to Puerto Rico to meet with Dr. Ricardo Alegria, founder of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, before he passed away this summer. We are so happy to read your article and explore more of this amazing culture and history. If any readers are in NYC and would like to attend the performances Dec. 8-23, 2011 at the West End Theatre, please visit: www.eljallartsannex.com/multistages.htm

Posted by lorca peress on September 24,2011 | 09:56 AM

The Taino ceased to be only because of political reasons. Today we know that 62% of the population in Puerto Rico have Taino dna sloely on the mother's side. When the autosomal test were done the persentage is even higher since over 80% of the population have Native American markers. According to Dr. Martinez Cruzado the average ammount is 15% of blood quantum. This means some have lower and others have higher. My own test results have me at 20%. Many Natives on the East coast who live in reservations have much less and yet they are recognized as Native people In most of the Spanish speaking countries one is not considered Indian unless one is a full blood and speaks the language. In any case it's always those in power who decide. It's about time we identify our selves for ourselves. Being Taino has no economic or political gain. Often what we do get is discrimination and mockery. Yet in spite of this over 20,000 individuals have identified as Native American Taino in the 2010 census. I'm proud of that.

Posted by Domingo Turey Hernandez on September 22,2011 | 02:28 PM

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What Became of the Taíno?

The Indians who greeted Columbus were long believed to have died out. But a journalist's search for their descendants turned up surprising results

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