Indigenous People: The Taíno

About 4000-6000 years ago, people called the Taíno came to Puerto Rico. They were a group of the American Indian people of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands). The Taíno people stayed on these islands for thousands of years. They were very skilled in farming, fishing, hunting, sailing, and making things like boats.

 

 

A Taino canoe. I got this picture from another website.

 

 

They played games with balls and had dances. They had interesting beliefs including their Creation Story. They believed that all people came from two caves: the Taíno people came out of one cave and everyone else came out of another cave.

 

This is a cave drawing, also called a petroglyph. I got this picture from another website.

  

In 1492 Christopher Columbus came from Spain looking for gold. The Taíno didn’t know anything about the Spanish and the Spanish didn’t know anything about the Taíno. Both sides felt curious, confused, and scared. The Spanish wanted the Taíno to do work for them. They also wanted them to become Christian. The Taíno didn’t want to do those things. That caused a problem. One day the Spanish blamed the Taíno for stealing clothes. This started a war that went on for 10 years. 

During this war, two main things helped the Spanish win. These were that the Spanish had weapons the Taíno didn’t have, like cannons, and the Spanish brought different germs that gave the Taíno diseases they never had before, like smallpox. A lot of Taíno got sick and died. Most of the Taíno people died. Before the Spanish came, there were between 20,000 and 50,000 Taínos. By 1544, there were only 60 left.

Today we know the Taíno lived here because we can find evidence of some of their ball fields and villages. Many names we use today for places, plants, and animals (like iguana) came from the Taíno.