<< Columbus’ Arrival || Expansion of Empire >>
The Tainos were no match for the Spaniards, who brought iron weapons, armor, horses, and dogs. Caonabo, the Taino chief who had led the attack on La Navidad, was captured and killed, as was his widow, Anacoana, and almost all other Taino chiefs. European diseases for which they had no immunity – especially smallpox, influenza and measles – took a huge toll on the Tainos, as did brutal forced labor on plantations, in mines, and in construction projects. The Tainos were forcibly removed from their villages, causing their social structure to collapse and their crops to go untended. Spanish-imported cattle and pigs also ravaged their fields, resulting in widespread famine. Mass extinction followed. (The Tainos “repaid” the Europeans in part by introducing them to syphilis, the first case of which appeared in Spain in 1493.)
Within 50 years, all but a few hundred Tainos had been wiped out. No full-blooded indigenous peoples remain in the Dominican Republic today, although intermarriage with Spaniards has produced a substantial number of Dominicans of mixed “Indio” race. The only remaining full-blooded Amer-Indians in the Caribbean are about 2,000 Caribs who have survived on the island of Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic. Their original culture, though, has disappeared.
Only one Taino cacique, Enriquillo, successfully resisted the Spanish. From 1820-33, Enriquillo led a revolt from his base in the mountains of the southwest, near present-day Lake Enriquillo, where he and his men conducted raids against the Spanish and managed to elude capture. Eventually, the Spanish negotiated a settlement, and Enriquillo and his followers were allowed to live peacefully on a reserve. The author Jesus Galvan told the story of Enriquillo in his 1882 novel of the same name.
<< Columbus’ Arrival || Expansion of Empire >>
