The island of Hispaniola was the setting for the first European expansion into the New World, beginning with the “discovery” of new lands and peoples in the late fifteenth century by Spanish interests. It is unknown how many discrete cultures there were in the Caribbean at the time of contact. Even some terms in use today (Taíno for the Greater Antilles; Carib for the Lesser Antilles) are controversial and probably simplistic references for a much more complex cultural situation. Taíno began to be used in the late nineteenth century and was not used by Spaniards. Carib indicated people of the Lesser Antilles who fiercely resisted Spanish rule and raids and were said to be cannibals. The level of cultural development is also debated: for some, the indigenous groups were transitional, between tribal and chiefly societies; for others, they were hierarchical chiefdoms. The contested precontact population of Hispaniola has been estimated at various levels, from hundreds of thousands to several million. What is clear, however, is that a precipitous decline in indigenous populations began in the late fifteenth century, accelerating in the early sixteenth century.
Surviving Spanish Conquest is principally an ethnohistorical work that details the beginnings of Spanish hegemony, focusing on the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico during the period between 1492 and 1550. It fills an important niche, providing a rare look into the treatment of native peoples during the earliest period of settlement and establishment of mercantile enterprises. Karen Anderson-Córdova begins with a discussion of the ways anthropologists have studied culture contact situations: acculturation, transculturation, ethnogenesis, creolization, and cultural transformation. She reviews acculturation most extensively, given the lengthy history of its use in anthropology, but chooses cultural transformation as the approach with which she is most comfortable. She provides a history of the islands, from discovery through exploration, to the establishment of settlements. She details the early forced movement of native peoples as well as rebellions that sought to drive out the Spaniards.
The wealth and prosperity of Spanish colonists was dependent on native labor. Mining was the initial focus, an enterprise that required substantial native labor to conduct. When there were no more Indians to exploit, enslaved Africans took their place. Slavery became the dominant form of labor in the latter half of the sixteenth century. At the outset, several approaches to managing the conquered native population were institutionalized: encomienda, repartimiento, and congregación. An encomienda was a grant of land to a Spaniard, which included the resident native people. Ideally, the encomendero was obligated to provide for the welfare of the indigenous population on his grant, assuring a civilizing process in exchange for their labor. The repartimiento was a labor levy, usually managed through the native chiefs, which required a set period of service. The demora, or period of required labor, might be fulfilled locally or at a distance from the individual's home settlement. Congregación involved movement of indigenous people to areas nearer Spanish interests, both residential and commercial. Congregación often resulted in the destruction of native settlements and the creation of “vacant lands” thereafter granted to Spaniards.
And what of the civilizing process? Native peoples tended to fulfill their demoras, return to their villages, and resume indigenous lifeways and ceremonials. The resumption of practices, which to Spaniards were idolatrous, indicated that Christianizing efforts made no lasting impression on the natives of Hispaniola. This observation convinced Spaniards that natives were not capable of achieving civilized life and justified their exploitation in commercial enterprises as conquered peoples. Population decline from maltreatment began soon after contact in the late fifteenth century. Spaniards were aware of the declining population on Hispaniola, and a vigorous slave trade for replacements was underway. In 1511, the Dominican Antonio de Montesinos preached a sermon that castigated Spaniards as sinners for the deaths of native peoples. The Laws of Burgos were promulgated a year later as a result of Crown concerns with these accusations. These laws were intended to alleviate maltreatment of native peoples, but they legalized many of the practices responsible for native deaths. Other such laws would follow, but they were generally ignored by colonial government functionaries. For native peoples, there was no effective relief from maltreatment.
Two primary sources, the Repartimiento of 1514 and the Hieronymite Interrogatory of 1517, are used to gain insights relevant to the treatment of indigenous peoples. By the time these documents were written, however, commercial exploitation of Hispaniola was well underway, and local populations were already severely diminished. It is clear that these documents were written to justify the status quo: encomienda grants, forced labor of native peoples, movement to work sites from their settlements, and intra-island and extra-island relocation of native peoples.
Anderson-Córdova stresses the implications of her findings for archaeologists. The movement of people within the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico and inter-island slave raiding in the islands of the Lesser Antilles are significant matters for archaeologists. Postcontact-period archaeology in the Caribbean is not yet well developed, but there are insights of significance. It is clear that native lifeways persisted in some areas, but examples are few. More important is the probability of cultural mixing; that material remains in archaeological sites represent blended or new cultures arising from postconquest conditions.
The term holocaust was appropriated in the mid-twentieth century to encompass the depredations against the Jews of Europe and other people who did not conform to measures of racial purity required by the German National Socialist state. Anderson-Córdova shows us that holocaust is a term that also should be applied to the depredations that ended the lives and cultures of native peoples of the New World. For Native Americans, this holocaust began in the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola. The social, commercial, religious, and governmental policies developed so early in the contact period on Hispaniola and Puerto Rico would be imported and applied widely in many other colonial areas of the Americas. For native peoples, the result would be the same.
