The Spanish Conquest of the Tainos

"I found very many islands filled with people without number, and all of them I have taken possession for their Highnesses...

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might

learn and might give me information on whatever there is in these parts"   Christopher Columbus

On December 5 or 6 1492 a fateful wind led Christopher Columbus to the island of Haiti that he renamed Española

thinking that it looked like Spain. Guacanagaric, the cacique of the Marien in the northern part of the island, warmly welcomed

Columbus. He thought the Taino looked coward and could easily be defeated and enslaved:

"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things... They would make fine servants... With fifty

men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

On Christmas night, his biggest ship, the Santa Maria sank on a harbor of the island. With its remnants, Columbus built the fortress

of the Navidad. He left thirty-nine men at the fortress and sailed to Spain on January 16, 1493 taking with him six Taino captives

and a cargo of parrots, plants and gold. The purpose of Columbus’s second voyage was to colonize, control and exploit the island. His

goal was to bring to the Spaniards "as much gold as they need...and as many slaves as they ask." His fleet thus comprised 17 ships

and 1,300 men as well as 20 horsemen to terrorize the native people.

When Columbus returned to Española, he found that the thirty men he had left on the Navidad were all dead, killed by the Indians

after they had invaded the kingdom of the Maguana governed by the intrepid Caonabo. Guillermo Coma who had accompanied

Columbus wrote that "bad feeling had arisen and had broken out in warfare because of the licentious conduct of our men towards

the Indian women, for each Spaniard had five women to minister to his pleasure." Columbus then built a new town, Isabella, forty

leagues east of Navidad, near the river where Pinzon had found gold in the Cibao. After Isabella was built, Columbus set out for

the gold mines of Cibao with his horsemen and infantry. Several forts were built on the way, especially in the plains of the Yaque

River, which he named Vega Real. During their invasion of the interior of the island, thousands of Indians were killed. By the end

of 1494 the Taino were in open revolt. Columbus had hoped to put down the resistance by kidnapping Caonabo the chief of the

Cibao region and making an exemplary spectacle of him.

Columbus sent troops to occupy the north east of the island and had more forts built in the Cibao region. He immediately instituted

a system requiring a quarterly tribute in gold from the Taino, which was calculated according to the number of people over the age

of fourteen. He introduced Indian slavery suggesting that it would be lucrative enough to compensate for the meager supply of gold

found. In 1495, he and his men went on a raid in the interior of Española capturing as many as fifteen hundred Taino, men, women

and children. Columbus picked the 500 best specimens and sent them to Spain. Two hundred of these five hundreds Taino died en

route to Spain. Columbus’s reaction was to exclaim: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

Columbus and his brother Bartholomew as well as Alonso de Hojeda undertook a series of military expeditions all over the island.

Villages that could not pay the tribute imposed on the Taino were brutally repressed. Las Casas charged that two thirds of the

population was thus wiped out. On July 22, 1497 the Crown authorized the distribution of lands to the Spanish colonists (Repartimiento)

to sow grain and plant gardens. This land was designed to encourage permanent Spanish settlers in Espanola who were expected to

establish small farms with Spanish labor. Columbus on the contrary instituted a Repartimiento where native communities were allocated

to Spaniards for their own use. This system was the first concrete measure to colonize and annihilate the Taino population of Española.

The colonization of Haiti

The arrival of Nicholas Ovando in 1502 with some 2500 Spaniards infused a new dynamism to Española. No sooner had they arrived

that they rushed to the gold mines. There, the close contact between large number of Europeans and native workers provided a propitious

environment for diseases to set in. Both groups died in large numbers. Ovando set out to pacify the island more completely than Columbus

had. He instituted more efficient and coercive systems to control the Taino. He brought his cruelty to highest levels in dealing with the

caciquat of the Xaragua and their lovely queen Anacaona. Anacaona was the sister of Behecchio, and widow of Caonabo whom had fallen to

Columbus in an earlier campaign. He requested a meeting with Anacaona. In 1503 Ovando marched into the Western part of Xaragua where

he and Anacaona met. Queen Anacaona and chieftains of the province entertained him and his men. She and her brother Behecchio had earlier

offered to Bartholomew Columbus and Roldan friendship and tribute. In the midst of festivities in the royal house, Ovando gave the signal to

massacre the Indians; he brought his hand to his Alcantara cross on his chest. Immediately, the Spanish soldiers seized the Xaraguayans,

attached them to poles and put fire on them. Men, women and children were cut to pieces. Queen Anacaona herself was taken to Santo

Domingo where she was hanged. Thus perished the Xaraguayans.

In 1504 Juan de Esquivel and Ponce de Leon committed a similar deed on the Higuey, governed by Cotubanama. By 1508 there were as

many as fifteen towns in Española. Ovando organized a system where a council (Cabildo) consisting of those who held encomiendas and

repartimientos governed each Spanish town.

The boom in the mining of gold in Espanola was short-lived. The decline in the supply of gold paralleled the decline in population. The Spaniards

soon left the island for the richer lands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba. Upon Ovando’s retirement in 1509, Columbus’s son Diego Columbus

became governor of Española.

Resistance and Revolts of the Taino