I wouldn’t want to downplay the role of the Spanish in decimating native American populations. Their record is indeed pretty heinous, whether or not they intentionally set out on a course of genocide.
But in the case of the Arawaks, anyway, they weren’t the only problem. Another American people, the Caribs, played a large part in the near-extinction of the Arawaks, driving them out of South America and the Lesser Antilles in the late 15th century. (Of course, in what might be thought of as poetic justice, the Caribs were themselves driven out and nearly exterminated by Europeans in the 17th century.)
Europeans weren’t the only ones interested in expanding their territory, they were just the most successful at it.
Both the Taino(of the Greater Antilles) and Carib(of the Lesser Antilles) cultures are Arawak, and both are related. Some investigators question if they were really that different, and not a way for Spaniards to justify their killing.
There are still some Carib descendants in the Lesser Antilles, and of course the descendants of the ancestors of both Caribs and Tainos are still found in South America.
Yeah? Then the Encyclopedia I consulted has some ‘splainin’ to do. It seemed to make a distinction between Arawak and Carib. Although it did say that the Taino were a branch of the Arawak.
Thanks for the info. I’ll have to do some more reading on the subject.
That is what I remember from my history and Spanish courses…maybe JRD (jeje, since he has a better access to that info that I have) can confirm or deny it?
Oh, sure, Karl, I drop in at Ricardo Alegría’s place for coffee every day…
The latest speculations being put forth seem to be that
(a) the Taino spoke a language of the Arawakan family, related to the Arawak in South America – so they are ‘Arawak’ in the same sense that us Spanish-speakers are ‘Latin’. (After all, they mixed with even earlier Aboriginal peoples and developed separately for over a thousand years).
(b) the Caribs in South America are a distinct linguistic/cultural group, but likely share a common ancestor with the Arawak.
(c) Tau Guaitiau, Opal, however…
(d) The more people look into it, the more Island Caribs seem closer to the “Arawak” Taino than to the continental Carib. So the speculation is that there was a heap of miscegenation of both blood and culture and that in places like Eastern Puerto Rico, Vieques, and the VI, “Island Carib”/"Taino"were different communities of a mixed population – the Spanish just assuming that every “peaceful” subsistence farmer/gatherer was a Taino and every seafaring raider was a Carib.
(e) However, this may be a post hoc situation, in that the Spanish conquest itself may have caused such great displacements of Arawak/Taino populations into Carib lands as to change their demographics.
