The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the Folks Who Greeted Columbus

From a famous archeologist/anthropologist, the story of the Tainos—the primary individuals Columbus encountered when he arrived within the Americas—from their earliest days to their fast decline after European contact

“A mannequin of readability and flippantly worn erudition, and it comprises the most effective and most easy description of the 4 Columbus voyages and their implications for the Amerindians I’ve seen.”—Kenneth Maxwell, New York Instances Ebook Assessment

 Drawing on archeological and ethno-historical proof, Irving Rouse sketches an image of the Tainos as they existed throughout the time of Columbus, contrasting their customs with these of their neighbors. He then strikes backward in time to the ancestors of the Tainos—two successive teams who settled the West Indies and who’re recognized to archeologists because the Saladoid peoples and the Ostionoid peoples. By reconstructing the event of those teams and finding out their interplay with different teams throughout the centuries earlier than Columbus, Rouse reveals exactly who the Tainos had been. He vividly recounts Columbus’s 4 voyages, the occasions of the European contact, and the early Spanish views of the Tainos, significantly their artwork and faith. The narration reveals that the Tainos didn’t lengthy survive the arrival of Columbus. Weakened by pressured labor, malnutrition, and ailments launched by the foreigners, and dispersed by migration and intermarriage, they ceased to exist as a separate inhabitants group.

As Rouse discusses the Tainos’ contributions to the Spaniards—from Indian corn, tobacco, and rubber balls to artwork, artifacts, and new phrases—we notice that their impact on Western civilization, transient by way of their contact, was an essential and lasting one.