What was the location of the Taino?

Answer 1

The Tainos inhabited the Antilles within the Caribbean which included the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica/ Dominican Republic, etc. All before the holocaust at the hands of the Spaniards. The population of Tainos are primarily centralized now within the Islands of Puerto Rico & Cuba, along with many of their lineal descendants who emigrated to the U.S. of whom have been termed Puerto Rican Americans and Cuban Americans. The Population of Tainos at its height was roughly 9 million at the arrival of Christopher Columbus, and afterwards the numbers were reduced to 80 to 90 thousand according to some statistics. The false belief that the Tainos were completely exterminated by Christopher Columbus is based on spurious speculations that have no foundation. The Tainos are still very much alive and well in P.R. and Cuba, the only difference is that today the culture has been impacted by European influences that they now speak Spanish and wear the same clothes worn in modernity. The Tribal people in the Dominican Republic are not Tainos, however, they do have familial ties branching from a different tribal ancestry. The Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Jamaica, and many other Antilles are primarily inhabited by the descendants of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and is why Tainos are no longer inhabitants of those particular land masses due to the gross atrocities that reduced the population down to the single digits, thus causing the re-population of the work force needed to continue the farming and agricultural sugar plantations that were being advanced.