The Slow Boil

When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, they encountered two major groups of indigenous peoples. The Carib were found throughout the islands, but specifically populated the Lesser Antilles, while the Arawak chiefly inhabited the Greater Antilles. When these indigenous peoples were first encountered, the Spanish simply called them indios or identified them according to the name of their respective chiefs, villages, or island location. The name Taino, which came into common use only in the early decades of the twentieth century and by which these tribal groups are generally known today was assigned to them by historians and anthropologists to refer to the entire indigenous population of the western Caribbean region. In 1498, in an attempt to placate discontented colonists on the island of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus distributed to each them a parcel of land and the preexisting Indian communities on each. Spanish colonists could then force the Indians on their land to work without the compensation of wages in a state of serfdom or slavery, known in Spanish as encomienda or repartimiento. Juan Ponce de Leon, appointed by Governor Nicholas de Orvando, arrived at Puerto Rico and began to colonize the island in 1508. With a portion of Ihe Spanish fleet and the authorization of the Crown, he began to exploit the island in the search for gold and captured native Taino to work as slaves on Hispaniola. Three years later, the Taino of Puerto Rico revolted against the rule of the Spanish with little success. Ponce de leon ordered that six thousand be shot, but many fled the island. The following year, forty slaves owned by Diego Colon, the son of Christopher Columbus, resisted for several months before finally being caught and executed. The Dominican friars on Hispanola, disheartened by the slow extermination of the Arawak, suggested that slaves, both white and black , should be imported to the islands. In 1512, in order to discourage Portuguese slave smuggling and in response to the writings of the Dominican friars, the Spanish government began to grant licenses to bring slaves directly from Africa to the Americas. In 1527, the first major slave rebellion occurred in Puerto Rico as dozens of slaves, likely of both African and indigenous origin, fought against the Spanish colonists in a brief and ultimately ill-fated revolt. The few slaves who escaped during this uprising relreated into the mountains where they resided as maroons wilh surviving Taino. Similar uprisings continued until the nineteenth century when slavery was finally abolished on Puerto Rico. As several areas of the island were only sparsely settled during these subsequent revolts, many slaves preferred flight into the countryside and life as maroons with the inidigenous people rather than open revolt.

(Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion)