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Caribbean Islands HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SETTING
The Pre-European Population
Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, most of the
Caribbean was peopled by three types, or groups, of inhabitants:
the Ciboney or Guanahuatebey, the Taino or Arawak, and the Caribs.
The cultural distinctions among the three groups are not great; the
single greatest differentiating factor appears to be their
respective dates of arrival in the region. The Ciboney seem to have
arrived first and were found in parts of Cuba and the Bahamas. They
also seem to have had the most elementary forms of social
organization. The most numerous groups were the Arawaks, who
resided in most of the Greater Antilles--Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola
(presently, Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico. The
smaller eastern island chain was the home of the Caribs, a tropical
forest group related to most of the indigenous Indians found in
Central and South America. Barbados and a number of smaller islands
were not permanently inhabited.
Estimates of the size of the pre-Hispanic population of the
Americas vary considerably. Both Columbus and Father Bartolomé de
Las Casas (who wrote the first history of the Spanish conquest and
treatment of the Indians) produced estimates that appear to defy
credibility. Las Casas thought the population of the Caribbean
might have been in the vicinity of several million, and by virtue
of his having lived in both Hispaniola and Cuba where he held
encomiendas, or the right to tribute from Indians, he is as
close as we get to an eye-witness account. Las Casas had a penchant
for hyperbole, and it is doubtful that he could have produced
reliable estimates for areas where he did not travel. Nevertheless,
some more recent scholars have tended to agree with Las Casas,
estimating as many as 4 million inhabitants for the island of
Hispaniola in 1492. Although the dispute continues, a consensus
seems to be developing for far lower figures than previously
accepted.
An indigenous population of less than a million for all of the
Caribbean would still be a relatively dense population, given the
technology and resources of the region in the late fifteenth
century. Probably one-half of these inhabitants would have been on
the large island of Hispaniola, about 50,000 in Cuba, and far fewer
than that in Jamaica. Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Lucia, St.
Vincent, and Trinidad all had fairly concentrated, if not large,
populations.
The pre-European populations of the territories that later
formed the Commonwealth Caribbean belonged to the groups designated
as Caribs and Arawaks. Both were tropical forest people, who
probably originated in the vast expanse of forests of the northern
regions of South America and were related linguistically and
ethnically to such present-day tropical forest peoples as the
Chibcha, the Warao, the Yanomamo, the Caracas, the Caquetío, or the
Jirajara--in short, the peoples found anywhere from Panama to
Brazil.
The Arawaks lived in theocratic kingdoms, with a hierarchically
arranged pantheon of gods, called zemis, and village chiefs,
or caciques. The zemis were represented by icons of
wood, stone, bones, and human remains. Arawaks believed that being
in the good graces of their zemis protected them from
disease, hurricanes, or disaster in war. They therefore served
cassava (manioc) bread as well as beverages and tobacco to their
zemis as propitiatory offerings.
The size of the community and the number of zemis he
owned were directly related to the chief's importance. Chiefs lived
in rectangular huts, called bohios, while the regular
members of the community lived in round huts, called
caneyes. The construction of both types of building was the
same: wooden frames, topped by straw, with earthen floor, and scant
interior furnishing. But the buildings were strong enough to resist
hurricanes.
From the European perspective, the wealth of the indigenous
Indians was modest indeed. While Columbus and his successors sought
gold and other trading commodities of value on the European market,
the native Antilleans were not interested in trade and used gold
only ornamentally. Their personal possessions consisted of wooden
stools with four legs and carved backs, approximately two-meter-
long hammocks of cotton cloth or strings for sleeping, clay and
wooden bowls for mixing and serving food, calabashes or gourds for
drinking water and bailing out boats, and their most prized
possession, large dugout canoes for transportation, fishing, and
water sports. One such canoe found in Jamaica could transport about
seventy-five persons.
The Indians painted their bodies in bright colors, and some
wore small ornaments of gold and shells in their noses, around
their necks, or hanging from their ears. Body-painting was also
employed to intimidate opponents in warfare.
Arawak villagers produced about two crops per year of manioc,
maize, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, beans, and arrowroot.
Cultivation was by the slash-and-burn method common throughout the
Middle Americas, with the cultivated area's being abandoned after
the harvest. The Indians worked the soil with sticks, called
coas, and built earthen mounds in which they planted their
crops. They might also have used fertilizers of ash, composted
material, and feces to boost productivity. There is even evidence
of simple irrigation in parts of southwestern Hispaniola.
Hunting and fishing were major activities. Arawaks hunted
ducks, geese, parrots, iguanas, small rodents, and giant tree
sloths. Parrots and a species of mute dog were domesticated. Most
fishing, done by hand along the coast and in rivers, was for
molluscs, lobsters, and turtles. Bigger fish were caught with
baskets, spears, hooks, and nets. In some cases, fish were caught
by attaching the hooks of sharpened sticks to a small sucking fish,
called a remora, which fastened itself to larger fish such
as sharks and turtles.
Food was prepared by baking on stones or barbecuing over an
open fire, using peppers, herbs, and spices lavishly for both
flavor and preservation. In some places, beer was brewed from
maize. The descriptions of the first Europeans indicated that the
food supply was sufficient and in general the inhabitants were well
fed--until the increased demand of the new immigrants and the
dislocation created by their imported animals created famine.
The Caribs of the eastern islands were a highly mobile group;
they possessed canoes similar to those of the Arawaks, but they
employed them for more warlike pursuits. Their social organization
appeared to be simpler than that of the Arawaks. They had no
elaborate ceremonial ball courts like those found on the larger
islands, but their small, wooden, frame houses surrounded a central
fireplace that might have served as a ceremonial center. Many of
their cultural artifacts--especially those recovered in Trinidad--
resemble those of the Arawaks. This might be explained in part by
the Carib practice of capturing Arawak women as brides, who then
could have socialized the children along Arawak lines.
The social and political organization of Carib society
reflected both their military inclination and their mobile status.
Villages were small, often consisting of members of an extended
family. The leader of the village, most often the head of the
family, supervised the food-gathering activities, principally
fishing, done by the men, and cultivation, a task for the women. In
addition, the leader settled internal disputes and led raids
against neighboring groups. The purpose of these raids was to
obtain wives for the younger males of the village.
Warfare was an important activity for Carib males, and before
the arrival of the Spanish they had a justified reputation as the
most feared warriors of the Caribbean. Using bows, poisoned arrows,
javelins and clubs, the Caribs attacked in long canoes, capturing
Arawak women and, according to Arawak informants, ritualistically
cooking and eating some male captives. There are, however, no
records of Caribs eating humans after the advent of the Europeans,
thus casting doubts on the Arawak tales.
When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean at the end of the
fifteenth century, the Caribs and Arawaks, like all other frontier
peoples, were undergoing mutual adaptations. The generally more
peaceful Arawaks were becoming more adept at fighting; and, away
from the contested frontier, the Caribs, like those in Trinidad,
were spending more time on agriculture than warfare.
The Caribs and the Arawaks were progressively wiped out by the
after-effects of the conquest, with the peaceful Arawaks suffering
the greater catastrophe. The concentrated populations on
Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica declined rapidly,
victims of enslavement, social dislocation, and unfamiliar epidemic
diseases. The smaller, more scattered populations of the smaller
eastern Caribbean islands survived much better physically and
epidemiologically. In the seventeenth century, the Caribs resisted
European settlements on Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent,
destroying the first English colony on St. Lucia in 1641 and
delaying the effective occupation of Dominica and St. Vincent until
the middle of the eighteenth century. Some Caribs resisted
assimilation or acculturation by the Europeans, and a few of their
descendants still live on a reservation in Dominica. Both the
Caribs and Arawaks left indelible influences on the languages,
diet, and ways of life of the twentieth century people who live in
the region. Caribbean food crops, such as peanuts, cashew nuts,
potatoes, tomatoes, pineapples, pumpkins, manioc, and maize, have
spread around the world. The Indians' habit of smoking tobacco has
become widespread, and tobacco has become an important commercial
commodity. Arawakan and Cariban words have permeated the languages
of the region: words such as agouti, avocado, barbecue,
bohio (a peasant hut), buccaneer, calpulli (an urban
zone), caney (a thatched hut), canoe, cannibal, cassava,
cay, conuco (a cultivated area), quaqua (a bus or
truck), quajiro (a peasant), guava, hammock, hurricane,
iguana, maize, manatee, and zemi (an icon).
Data as of November 1987
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