Return to Hispaniola: Reassessing a Demographic Catastrophe
2003; Duke University Press; Volume: 83; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/00182168-83-1-3
ISSN1527-1900
Autores Tópico(s)Forensic and Genetic Research
ResumoThere is a dead body on the sidewalk in front of a skyscraper. Whether it fell from the fourth or the fortieth floor is irrelevant for the coroner who has to determine the direct cause of death. It was, beyond a doubt, the impact with the pavement. On the other hand, the police investigating the death are interested in determining from which floor the body fell: was he pushed, and by whom, or did he commit suicide? Hispaniola’s Tainos, a few decades after Columbus’ landfall, completed their course to extinction. This is a relatively well-established fact. But what were their numbers in 1492: one hundred thousand, one million, or ten million? The answer to this question is important, since it may shed light into the mechanisms of the following decline.This article has two aims. The first is to narrow the irreconcilable estimates made by modern authors as to the contact population of Hispaniola, using a variety of methods. The second is to discuss the relative weight of the various determinants of the extinction: disease and mortality, impaired reproductive mechanisms, or mixing with other groups. These two tasks are closely interrelated, because a better estimate of the contact population helps in understanding the mechanisms of extinction, and vice versa.Columbus’ first expedition set foot on the northwestern shore of Hispaniola in December of 1492 and departed in early January of 1493, leaving behind a small settlement of 38 people (Navidad). He returned with 17 ships and 1,200 men at the end of the same year, only to find that the first colonists had been killed.1 A new settlement (Isabela) was founded on the northern coast, and from this point various expeditions went southeast, exploring the fertile valley of Vega Real and the mountainous region of Cibao, where gold was to be found. The period from 1494 to 1496 saw the attempt to subjugate the unwilling Tainos, who abandoned their cultivation and fled to the mountains, causing widespread famine and high mortality. A tribute in gold and kind was imposed on them, but it failed, and rebellions were easily crushed by the Spaniards. Columbus departed in 1496, leaving the colonists under the command of his brother Bartolomé, who founded the new “capital” of Santo Domingo, on the southern coast. The incessant search for gold led to the allotment of native labor to colonists. Discontent raged among the Spaniards— many resented the rule of Columbus’ family—leading to unrest and open rebellion. On the other hand, the crown wanted to extract the maximum profit from the island but the rule of Columbus’ clan became an obstacle and was therefore terminated in 1500.In 1502, Nicolás de Ovando was sent to the island with full powers of command and a fleet of 32 ships and 2,500 persons. He ruled until 1508, subduing the natives in the peripheral areas of the island, founding new strategic settlements, establishing taxation, setting up the administrative and judicial system, organizing the first repartimiento, and distributing natives among the Spaniards as indentured labor. The production of gold reached its maximum during this period, but the native population was visibly declining. The Spaniards, who numbered only a few hundred when Ovando arrived, had swollen to several thousand upon his departure. Columbus’ son Diego was sent to the island as viceroy in 1509, but much of the power was given to administrators faithful to the king and directly responsible to him. Diego ordered the second repartimiento in 1510; it was practically disavowed, and a new one executed by administrators loyal to the crown was taken in 1514. By that time only 26,000 natives were left. The rapid decline of the native population led to serious economic problems: a shortage of manpower caused gold production to decline. Many Spaniards fled the island, first to Cuba, then to the more promising des tinations of Tierra Firme (mainland). The crisis was fiercely denounced by the Dominicans and by Las Casas, a colonist converted to the cause of the natives.Much debate took place concerning the impact of the repartimiento system and of forced work in the mines on the survival of the natives. Three religious men of the Hyeronimite order were sent to the island at the end of 1516 as a governing body; among other things they planned to regroup the dispersed natives into thirty villages, but a smallpox epidemic erupted at the end of 1518, wiping out many of the surviving Indians. When the Hyeronimites went back to Spain in 1519, many Spanish settlements had been abandoned and very little gold was mined, but plantations of sugarcane were initiated with the support of a growing manpower of African slaves. At the beginning of the 1520s, the native population, reduced to a few thousand, was heading to extinction.Table 1 reports estimates of contact population made by various authors in the last half-century; these ranged from a low of 60,000 to a high of almost 8 million (which, itself, is the intermediate point of a wider range suggested by the author).2The high-to-low ratio is an astounding 133; one may also note that non-Hispanic authors give figures on average much higher than Hispanic ones. Such a diversity of estimates is surprising in light of the general agreement that around 1508 Hispaniola’s population was reduced to about 60,000, so that any discrepancies refer to the first 16 years of Spanish presence in the island. For some (at one extreme), this was a period of semistationary demographic trend. For others (at the opposite extreme), during this period a quarter of the native population was lost each passing year. A large contact population—in the millions—is posited by authors impressed by repeated mention of this order of magnitude by historians and chroniclers, thus lending it the weight of authority.3 But others discredit those numbers on the grounds that those authors wrote twenty or more years after contact, on the basis of hearsay (a presumed count carried out by Columbus’ brother Bartolomé in 1495 or 1496, a time of upheaval when only a small part of the island was under Spanish control).4 No record of this count survives in the documents of the times; the indi cation of one million was first given by the Dominicans (vigorous defenders of the indios), who first arrived in the island in 1510. This figure was then passed from one author to another—assuming, through repetition, the status of unchallenged objectivity. We do not have the necessary expertise to take part in this philological debate, although the arguments given by Arranz and others who do not accept the estimate in the millions seem to carry a lot of weight.5 Although the first known count of natives was not taken until 1514, many factors allow us to narrow the range of uncertainty in our estimates of the contact population. First, we know about the agricultural techniques employed by the Tainos, their main cultivars, and their diet. This information, when coupled with indicators of productivity and knowledge of the island’s physical features, may be used in order to estimate the island’s carrying capacity. This is then used in order to determine the upper bounds of the contact population; extravagantly high figures that exceed this maximum can be dismissed.A second line of reasoning looks at the issue of gold—both the amount of tribute imposed and the productivity of the later gold mines. The quantity of gold obtained and the amount of the tribute imposed help in the evaluation of the number of tributaries, while the quantity of gold produced in combination with the productivity of labor allows an estimate of the labor force employed in the mines. Third, looking at the social organization of the Tainos—the size of the communities and the number of caciques—permits us, through different but converging approaches, to formulate further estimates of contact population. Fourth, certain demographic characteristics of the population surviving in 1514 offer some clues as to the pattern of ongoing decline, which, projected backward, adds another dimension to our estimates. This eclecticism of methods, drawing on what is known about Taino agriculture, economy, society, and demography, helps to narrow considerably the range of uncertainty about contact population size. We will come to the conclusion that this range goes from 100,000 to 400,000, in concordance with half a dozen of the estimates summarized in table 1.Population figures are important in history, and particularly in the history of Hispaniola. The juridical, political, economic, and social patterns of Spanish rule in the Americas were shaped and tested in the island during the first two or three decades of contact. Proponents of a very high native population have supported two different causes: on one hand, estimating a very high initial population and its ensuing precipitous decline has reinforced the “black legend” of extraordinary cruelty and inhumanity of conquerors proposed by Las Casas.6 On the other hand, the same high numbers have supported modern revisionist claims that the decline and extinction of the Tainos was the work of new diseases that destroyed a nonimmune population. But neither of the two theories gains a grain of credibility through the use of inflated population estimates.Authors familiar with the early years of Hispaniola, such as Las Casas and Oviedo, have left interesting accounts of native agriculture, food preparation, and the like.7 For centuries, main crops and techniques of cultivation have remained unchanged, so that later observations can also be used to infer the characteristics of Taino agriculture at the times of contact. However, many questions remain unanswered. How much of the island was under cultivation? How much of consumption derived from agriculture and how much from hunting, fishing, and gathering? What was the yield for different crops? The answers to these questions will enable us to estimate the carrying capacity of the island, and thus determine the plausibility of the large population estimates made by early chroniclers and some modern analysts.Taino agriculture was reasonably developed, in spite of the use of rudimentary tools and a general absence of irrigation or manure for fertilizer. Early writers point out the predominance of cassava and sweet potato in the Taino diet. However, maize, other root crops, pumpkins, beans, pineapple, and other fruits complemented the diet. The Taino also fished and hunted small game. Cassava and sweet potato were cultivated in fields called conucos, organized in regular rows of mounds or hills (montones) about 2–3 feet high, with a circumference of 9–12 feet, spaced 2–3 feet apart.8 On the flat top of each mound several cuttings of cassava or sweet potato were planted, and six months later harvesting could begin. The cassava was grated into a pulp to provide a nutritious and durable sort of bread.How productive were the montones? Las Casas states that the mean requirement per month was 2 arrobas of cassava bread (about 25 kg, or 300 kg per year). He further reports that 1,000 montones would provide about 200 arrobas of cassava bread per year—that is, 2.5 kg per monton. According to these observations, basic subsistence would have required 120 montones per person. The approximate measures of Las Casas imply that each monton occupied 4 square meters; the average person would thus require about 480 square meters (0.048 hectares) to provide subsistence for a year. Before proceeding further, let us say that Las Casas’ numbers are confirmed by other indications: the Laws of Burgos of 1512 required that for every 50 indios 5,000 montones of cassava and sweet potato had to be available; that is, 100 montones per person.9 The Hyeronimites, before returning to Spain, wrote to the king that in the process of reducing the surviving Indians into new villages they had prepared fields with 800,000 montones, sufficient to feed 7,000 Indians for a year (114 montones per person).10 The requirement of 0.048 hectares per person appears very low for the agriculture of the times; however, Las Casas may have referred to a conuco in “full” production—one to two and a half years after planting—since the gradual exhaustion of the nutrients reduces productivity.11 The Tainos practiced shifting cultivation.12 Conucos were prepared after cutting down and burning forested land; after a certain number of years of production they were abandoned for 20 or 30 years to permit the regrowth of primitive vegetation. Although some writers say that conucos could be left in production up to 15 or even 20 years, the measured decline of productivity suggests an active production phase of 5 or at the most 10 years.These data allow us to calculate the number of persons (p) supported by one hectare of conuco planted in cassava and sweet potato. The area needed to support one person for a year (A) is 0.048 ha, the period of crop production (Y) is 5 years (or, at the maximum, 10), and the length of fallow (R) is 20 years. The following formula can be used for the calculation of p, T being the unit of land (in the case of the formula is equal to 1 ha):p=[T/(R+Y)]×YAWith a productive phase of 5 years, the formula yields about 4 persons per hectare; a productive phase of 10 years yields about 7. The surface of the island is 76,500 km2; however, not all the island was suitable for the conucos. Excluding unsuitable areas, it would be surprising if more than one-third or one-half of the island could ever come under cultivation. Assuming one-third of the island under cultivation (and with p = 4.17, since a 10 years production period is very unlikely), the total carrying capacity (P) would have been 10.6 million; allowing for half the surface under cultivation, it would be 15.8 million.Are the above figures realistic? A mean requirement of 0.048 hectares per person is, by all standards, extremely low, even for the favorable climatic conditions of Hispaniola. Watts—who accepts a contact population of 4 million and underlines the high level of productivity of the island—estimates a perperson requirement of 0.2–0.5 hectares under cultivation for the Caribbean region and its adjacent areas.13 Nietschmann, in his study of the Nicaraguan Miskito Coast—with similar climate, cultivation techniques and same crops— indicates about 0.2 hectares.14 Using these higher per-person estimates gives a carrying capacity of between 1 and 2.5 million (with one-third of the island under cultivation) and 1.5 to 3.8 million (if one-half the island was cultivated). Even if the entire surface of the island were under cultivation, the total carrying capacity would still only be between 3 and 7.6 million. Some of the modern estimates of the contact population of the island are higher still.Gold was the main objective of the Spaniards: the principal preoccupation of the money-hungry crown, an apparently easy way to enrich themselves and the pay off for hardships and dangers, and the most convincing evidence that the crown had made the right decisions in supporting the costly explorations leading to discovery. But gold was also, in the mind of contemporaries, the main reason for the irreversible decline of the indigenous population—more than cruelty and repression, more than wars against the rebels, more than disease and epidemics. And since the search for gold was labor-intensive, the decline of the Taino labor force meant a steep decline of gold production and a deep crisis of the island’s economy.Gold is also central to our concerns for two reasons. The first is that gold is one of the few clues for estimating the island’s native population prior to the first numerical counts. The second is that gold mining produced a deep economic and social dislocation of Taino society that affected survival and reproduction in unknown but undoubtedly significant ways. The Spaniards were aware that gold could be found on Hispaniola: on December 12, 1492, three sailors went ashore and captured a woman with a gold nose plug;15 five days later a relative abundance of gold ornaments was encountered in a village near the shore.16 In the second voyage, the explorations of Hojeda and Columbus to the Vega Real and the mountains of Cibao lead the Spaniards to the sources of the island’s gold: rivers, streams, and alluvial placers. A year later, the Rio Hayna’s gold-rich banks were reached. By 1496, at Columbus’ departure, the main gold-yielding region was explored and “pacified.”Gold mining was labor-intensive; gold was found in the sand along the rivers, in alluvial placers, and, more rarely, in veins. Oviedo has left a precise account of early mining techniques.17 A square trench eight by eight or ten by ten feet and one or two palms deep was dug in a convenient place and the earth then carried to a nearby stream, where it was washed and sifted in bateas (wooden pans) by laborers (men but also women). Whatever gold sands and pellets the earth contained would deposit on the batea’s bottom. “When one is asked how many bateas he has washing at the mine and he replies that there are ten, it should ordinarily be understood that one who achieves work on such a scale has 50 workers, due to their being five persons to each batea.”18 If the first excavation was successful, the trench was enlarged and more gold collected; otherwise another attempt would be made elsewhere. Indians were sent to the mines in cuadrillas (teams), often tens of miles away from their villages, for demoras (periods) of up to a total of ten months, working under the super vision of Spanish overseers. They had to be supplied with food prepared in and carried from villages or nearby fields. This required a considerable surplus in order to feed the manpower at the mines. The crown and its officers in Hispaniola were anxious to increase production, and once the practice of the encomienda was generalized, colonists were obliged to send one-third of the male labor force to the mines.19A first attempt to infer the population of the Vega Real and Cibao areas— probably the most densely populated area of the island, and about one-fourth of its surface—was undertaken by Arranz on the basis of the tribute imposed on the caciques of the “pacified” Tainos at the end of 1495: every native of 14 years or more was required to pay one Flanders hawk’s bell full of gold every three months, each bell containing about 3– 4 pesos worth (12.5–16.7 g).20 An anonymous informant wrote in 1496 that the tribute had yielded only 200 of the 60,000 pesos anticipated after three tribute deadlines had passed. So, according to Arranz, each payment would consist of 20,000 pesos, and since each bell contained 3– 4 pesos, the estimated number of tributaries would be roughly 6,000. Who were the tributaries? Arranz makes the hypothesis that they were families or households sharing a bohio (native home), rather than male adult heads, and that the informant’s estimate of 60,000 pesos came from a rough count made by Columbus when the area was explored and occupied in 1494–95. But in those years, many Tainos had abandoned their fields and fled to the mountains for fear of the Spaniards. Hunger and sickness plagued both the indigenous and the invaders; Las Casas says that only one-third of the population survived.21 Taking all this into account, Arranz estimates the population of the region at 90,000 (about 15 persons per bohio) in 1494 and perhaps 60,000 in 1496. The total population of the island would have been roughly three times that size.22A second attempt to infer the total population concerns a period, about a decade later, when the search for gold was in full development, the encomienda had been generalized, and the entire island subjected. Again, we are not looking for precise figures but rather plausible orders of magnitude. How much gold was extracted from the island, and how big was the labor force of the mines? We can derive some estimate of gold production from the official doc umentation as well as from accounts and chronicles of the time. The size of the labor force can then be inferred through estimates of the productivity of gold miners working in roughly the same conditions as the Tainos. Assuming that one-third of the male labor force was in the mines, the size of the island’s population can therefore be inferred.Gold production in the boom years must not have exceeded 2,000 kg per year (all references to sources cited are given in table 3). After 1503, miners had to pay the quinto, or fifth part, of their production to the crown. Twice a year, miners were required to take the gold to the two official foundries in Concepción (in the Cibao area) or Buenaventura (Hayna River), where the gold was assayed, cast in bullion, and the royal fifth subtracted. Las Casas puts the yield of the two foundries at some 460,000 pesos (1,923 kg) per year. Pedro Martyr relates that 1,200 pounds of 8 ounces (286 kg) were produced in two months in 1501; some residents of Hispaniola, writing in 1517, say that a few years before the foundries yielded 150,000 pesos (627 kg). Pedro de Mexía, writing in the same year, mentions 120,000 pesos (502 kg). Hamilton constructs different statistics based on a careful analysis of the documentation of the Casa de Contratación in Seville that controlled all trade with the Indies. Gold bullion imported into Spain averaged 621 kg between 1503 and 1510, when the sole source was Hispaniola, and 915 kg between 1511 and 1520 (when Puerto Rico and Cuba are thought to have produced quantities equivalent to Hispaniola). The various estimates of gold production are summarized in table 3. Production must have reached a maximum in the first decade of the century, declining in the second and falling to a trivial quantity in the first years of the third decade. A working assumption of peak annual production for the period 1503–10 is 1,000 kg.The productivity of labor is more difficult to estimate, although we can use several clues to come up with a reasonable approximation based on reports from Hispaniola and other gold-yielding regions of the New World. Mining techniques, tools, and labor practices were similar in all regions, but smuggling, evasion of the royal tax, and corruption must have varied across space and time. Table 4 presents a few estimates of average annual productivity of labor. Some of these estimates are “micro” and others “macro” in nature. Micro estimates are based on accounts of the normal gold “take” of an individual; their reliability varies considerably. Little credence must be given to Columbus, who wrote to the queen after he was forcibly repatriated in 1500, that every Castilian, “no matter how dull, would pan not less than one or two castellanos of gold per day” (1–2 kg per year), while a “normal pan would be from 6 to 12 castellanos” (5–10 kg per year). These are clearly propagandistic exaggerations.23 More credible is Francisco del Castillo, a miner employed by Captain Antonio Redondo, who testified in 1591 before the Visiting Judge Diego de Bocanegra in the province of Chocó (Columbia) that the Indians working with him would take on average “some half a peso and some 6 tomines per day [2.4–3.6 g] when they work in teams.” For micro estimates, I have allowed 200 working days per year (the demoras would vary between eight and ten months per year, but festivities, sickness, weather, and other vagaries must have greatly reduced the number of days effectively worked). Macro estimates are based on ratios between aggregate production and aggregate number of workers for a given period of time, region, or place. For instance, in Minas Gerais (Brazil), at the peak of the gold rush in the mid–eighteeenth century, some 46,000 slaves were employed in the production of 7,500 kg of gold, with an average individual productivity of about 160 g per year.Estimates of gross individual productivity reported in table 4 are only guidelines for Hispaniola. We can set the minimum productivity at 100 g, since there is only one estimate that falls below that (59 g for Minas Gerais in 1814, when mining was on the wane). The other low estimate (79 g for the same area in the eighteenth century) refers to the tax due to the crown for every slave owned, and not to the slave’s productivity, which must have been substantially higher than the per capita tax levy. It is difficult to admit a maximum productivity higher than that of Morro Velho mine (in Congonhas, Minas Gerais), which with modern machinery and techniques yielded 766 g per worker in 1986! The peak production (1,000 kg) factored by the minimum productivity (100 g) yields an estimated labor force of 10,000. However, this must be considered a maximum, since productivity in the early times of Ovando, when gold placers were not yet depleted, could easily have been higher. A productivity of 200 grams per year would imply a labor force of 5,000; one of 800 g per year (the 1986 Morro Velho productivity) imputes a labor force of 1,250. A labor force of 10,000 is quite large, since each cuadrilla of Taino workers had to be supervised by a Spanish overseer. Some official documents indicate a one-to-ten ratio of overseers to workers.24 But even with a much higher ratio, the small population of colonists (a few hundred at the beginning of the decade, a few thousand at its close) would have hardly been able to supply enough overseers for a labor force of 10,000 or so.25Having estimated the mine labor force, the next step is to infer the total population. If one-third of the adult male population worked in the mines (except for geographically remote populations),26 and we assume that males of working age were one-fourth of the total population, this would imply that 8.3 percent of the Hispaniola’s population was in the mines. So an “upper” limit for the total population would be 120,000, if 10,000 laborers were employed in the mines. A population figure of this order at middecade would be consistent with later head counts, as well as with Arranz’s estimate of 200–300,000 in 1494–96 in a situation of demographic collapse.On Monday, December 17, 1492, near the mouth of the Trois Rivières (present-day northern Haiti), sailors sent ashore by Columbus “saw an Indian, that Columbus judged to be the governor of that province” who traded a leaf of gold for the usual trinkets.27 But it is on December 18 that a real dignitary boarded the Santa Maria with his followers and “a squire brought a belt which is like those of Castile in shape but of different workmanship, which he took and gave me, and two pieces of worked gold which were very thin.”28 It is on this occasion that “Columbus learned or understood that the king is called cacique in the language of this island.”29 And Las Casas, following Columbus’ journal, comments that “up to now (December 23) the Admiral had not quite understood if cacique meant king or governor, if another name called nitayno meant grande, or hidalgo or governor; the truth is that cacique was the name of king, and nitayno meant squire or señor principal, as we shall see later.”30 The cacique was normally the village chief, but some sort of informal hierarchical structure did exist. Las Casas talks of the five main caciques (reyes) of the island but also describes the subdivision of the island into 30 districts.31 Hernán Colón reduces the number of the main caciques to four, but adds that each one had 70 or 80 other caciques at his orders.32 Columbus talks of the cacique Guacanagarí and his five subject caciques, and also of Guarionex, who was the main authority in the Vega Real and in 1496 organized the rebellion against the Spaniards.33 In this uprising he was defeated, and 14 caciques, his associates, were taken prisoner.34Caciques presided over daily life, including religious events and relations with other communities. They organized communal work, were responsible for distribution and storage of surplus production, and served judicial functions. Caciques lived in the largest bohio of the village, which served as a meeting and ceremonial center and housed zemis (idols). This house faced the central square, where games, festivities, and religious ceremonies were held.35 Caciques had several wives and wore the exterior signs of their office. The cacique’s function were transmitted to his son; if he had no son, the function was transmitted to his sister’s son; if she had no son, to the sister herself.36 About 10 percent of the caciques listed in Alburquerque’s 1514 repartimento were women.Thus the cacique was the recognized chief of a group, loosely settled around a village, that had some degree of social, economic, and demographic autonomy.37 The demographic size of these groups is unknown, although some indication is given of the largest ones (a few thousands, as will be discussed later). However, given the skewed distribution of human settlement size, it is likely that the largest groups would exceed the modal size by an order of magnitude or so. A normal population of a few hundred makes sense in the light of the social and agricultural organization prevailing in circum-Caribbean populations: fields devoted to local subsistence located in the proximity of each village, a lack of significant accumulation, only a rudimentary division of labor, and no permanent military or priestly caste.38 Because the office of cacique was hereditary, it is likely that even in the midst of a demographic catastrophe the office would survive unless the entire community had been wiped out. The 1514 repartimiento indicates that a majority of caciques had only a few tens of subjects: they had lost their people, but not their title. It is therefore likely that the 362 caciques listed in Alburquerque’s repartimento were the same caciques that existed 20 years before, or their heirs, and represented an equal number of communities. To these 362 one should add an unknown, but presumably not very large, number of communities that
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