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(^6) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
The People Who Greeted Columbus=
The first people Columbus met in the Americas were Taino, one of a group of
Caribbean tribes linked by their common use of the Arawak language. Arawak
speakers lived throughout the Caribbean, from the southern tip of Florida to
islands off the northern coast of South America. Numerous words derived from
Arawak survive in usage today, including canoe, tobacco, hammock, iguana,
and Haiti.The Arawak-speaking tribes depended mainly on fishing and farming
for survival. Their peaceful society made them easily exploitable by Spanish
colonists, who replaced their previous major threat, the Carib, a people from
neighboring islands.
The Carib were a seagoing tribe from the Lesser Antilles island chain
(which includes the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and
islands off the northern coast
of Venezuela). A branch of
the tribe also lived on the
northeastern coastline of
South America. The words
cannibaland Caribbeanare
both derived from Arawak
words describing the Carib,
who raided Arawak communi-
ties. Scholars today debate
whether Taino accusations
that the Carib were cannibals
are historically accurate or
were invented by Columbus
in his journals.
Columbus’s men clashed
with the Carib while exploring
the waters surrounding St.
Croix. As a declaration of
friendship during his first voy-
age, Columbus promised the
Taino of Hispaniola that the
sovereigns of Spain would pro-
tect them by ordering the Carib
destroyed. Within 100 years,
however, both the Arawak and
Carib cultures had been anni-
hilated by European diseases,
forced labor, and wars lost to
Spanish colonists.
\
One of the Native peoples Columbus
encountered on his voyages were the Carib,
who lived on the islands of the Lesser Antilles.
This 1880s engraving depicts a Carib man
holding a bow and arrows.(Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-108521])
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