The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

ebellious Taíno Indians resulted in the appointment of Francisco de Garay as
Esquivel’s replacement in 1513.
Garay did not arrive on the island from Spain until May 1515, bringing
with him skilled farmers and livestock for the two estates that he was to own
in partnership with King Ferdinand. The period of Garay’s governorship
appears to have been a relatively prosperous one for Jamaica. There was a
steady build-up of Spanish settlers, agricultural resources and livestock, the
establishment of a second town and the development of sugar estates and
two mills owned by the governor himself (Wright 1921, 76). Garay left the
island with a number of the island’s Spanish residents in June 1523 to lead an
expedition of conquest in Northern New Spain (Cundall and Pietersz 1919,
6). The subsequent discovery of the rich mineral resources of Central and
South America, given the depletion of human and mineral resources in the
Antilles, diverted the attention of the Spanish Crown away from the
Caribbean.
By 1524 the fortunes of Jamaica had entered a period of drastic decline,
and in 1528 the king’s estates were dissolved, with the livestock and land
divided among the remaining residents (Wright 1921). Sevilla la Nueva was
abandoned in 1534 when the island’s administrative centre moved to Ville de
la Vega, on the south coast, near the sugar estate of Pedro de Mazuelo, the
island’s treasurer.
The driving force behind the early colonial economy in the sixteenth-century
Caribbean was aboriginal labour; without it, the Spanish could not have
mined the alluvial gold beds, established agricultural estates or built towns.
Many contemporary historians believe that Jamaica, like many other islands
of the region, was exploited for its human resources, and this, combined with
disease, resulted in the virtual extinction of the indigenous Taíno Indians by
1520 (Sauer 1966, 181). A closer examination of archival records for Jamaica,
however, details Indian slaves at work on the abbey in Sevilla la Nueva in
1526. In 1533 there were two censuses of Indians, slaves and cattle, and as late
as 1597 authorities were discussing how to settle the remaining Indians
(Cundall and Pietersz 1919, 7–8, 20). The archaeological record from Sevilla
la Nueva supports these archival sources, in that it appears that the local Taíno
Indians were present at the site throughout its short occupation.
Archaeological Investigation of Sevilla la Nueva
The fortress at Sevilla la Nueva (Figure 12.2) was excavated by Charles Cotter
between 1953 and 1964. It yielded a large collection of carved limestone
blocks, Spanish bricks, tiles, ceramic vessels, beads, Taíno ceramics and mixed
faunal materials. The structure had substantial stone and brick foundations,
164 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS