The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

Figure 12.1 Map of St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica
A major part of the initial Spanish colonial enterprise was concerned with
the organization and exploitation of mineral and human resources of the
Greater Antilles. The strategies and policies that were developed to achieve
these objectives not only had a profound impact on the peoples of the
Caribbean but ultimately shaped Spanish attitudes and colonial institutions,
which were subsequently implemented throughout their empire (Deagan
1988, 188). No single institution was to have a more profound impact than
that of the encomienda, a policy of forced labour, in which the Crown granted
certain Spanish settlers a restricted set of property rights over a specified number
of local Indians for use as labourers for mining, construction, transportation
and, later, farming. The Spanish were entitled to extract tribute from their
Indian labourers in the form of goods, precious metals or direct labour services
in exchange for “protection” and instruction in the Catholic religion and
civilization (Yeager 1990, 843). These entitlements could not be sold or
rented, nor could they be inherited past a second generation or relocated from
the geographical area in which they were originally granted (ibid.). When and
wherever peaceful relations existed between the two groups, the organization
162 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS