4 - The Taíno

Summary

At the end of the Saladoid period, the Caribbean world was changing quickly. Populations were growing from one end of the archipelago to the other; people were moving into areas that had been uninhabited or sparsely populated. Between A.D. 600 and 1200, a process of elaboration of social and political organization was underway, ultimately resulting in the complex Taíno polities observed by European explorers. All of these things were happening unevenly, however, with rapid and dramatic change in some areas balanced by continuity and relatively slow change in others.

This chapter explores the processes of change that were taking place, with emphasis on several themes: the emergence of social and political complexity, the diversity of Caribbean societies as they developed in different contexts, and the importance of the interactions of people with different histories and cultures – on one hand, the descendants of the Archaic people, with over 4,000 years of history living in the Greater Antilles, and, on the other, the descendants of the Saladoid people, with relatively closer ties to the South American mainland. It also deals with the growing significance of interactions between the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the last few centuries before European contact. Exciting changes were taking places in both regions, and events in any part of the archipelago had a wider impact than had ever been seen before.

The timing of the transition that took place at the end of the Saladoid period was varied.