Sued Badillo and the Theme of the Indigenous in the Hispanic Caribbean

Jalil Sued Badillo's essay, "The Theme of the Indigenous in the National Projects of the Hispanic Caribbean", published in Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings should be required reading for anyone and everyone interested in Taino revivalism, Puerto Rican cultural identity, the rise of the mixed-race Creole culture of the peasantry by the 17th century, and nationalism in the Spanish Caribbean setting. Sued Badillo makes a convincing case for the survival, persistence and cultural reproduction of indigenous Puerto Rican and Caribbean peoples well after the mid-1500s. But, over time, this social and cultural reproduction became something new that people of European and African origin also participated in, leading to the distinct Creole identities of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. This, in turn, became a central theme for the construction of national identities, as the peasantry best represented the continuity with the indigenous past and the ""national" character. As illustrated in Sued Badillo's article, 19th century Puerto Rican nationalists called the jibaros of Borinquen the children of Agueybana.

For our interests, Sued Badillo's documentation of "Indian" communities after the middle of the 16th century was most important. It was not solely in Cuba, where "Indian" pueblos and barrios existed long after 1600. For instance, on Hispaniola, he mentions the "Indian" pueblo of Boya, an attempt by Hispaniola encomienda "Indians" to form another town, and the prominence of "Indians" and "mestizos" in western Hispaniola, where smuggling and contraband with other Europeans was common, leading to some mestizos and "mulatos" becoming wealthy. Indeed, this probably explains why Samuel de Champlain, writing in 1599, mentions "Indians" in Hispaniola who trade with the French. These "Indians" and mestizos who continued to trade with Europeans and develop their own contraband economy were also part of the creation of a new creole identity on Hispaniola as "Indians" and mestizos were joined by people of African descent that resisted the colonial government in Santo Domingo. One can see the rustic "monteros" of the 19th and 20th century Dominican Republic emerging from these forebears.

Moreover, something similar occurred in colonial Puerto Rico just as colonial officials were proclaiming the disappearance of "Indians" and mestizos. Some did so, as pointed out by Sued Badillo, to mask the fact that they continued to purchase and exploit enslaved "Indians" from other lands long after the New Laws of 1542. Such an honor appears to apply to the governor of Puerto Rico in the 1560s. Sued Badillo points out the persistence of "Indian" and mestizo communities such as the Quebrada de Dona Catalina, near San Juan. Other "Indians" and mestizos were scattered and pushed onto marginal lands and shifted into the piedmont overlooking the coastal area. These communities, joined by people of European and African origin, gradually increased in population, engaged in subsistence agriculture and commercial exchange for local and foreign markets, and continued to influence colonial society. 

Sued Badillo's analysis of the "Indians" of Mona is likewise enlightening, for it points to indigenous survival on an island which engaged in smuggling, food production (cassava) for other Spanish colonies, and their eventual relocation to the hills of San German and nearby regions sometime before 1685. Unfortunately, Sued Badillo does not explain or speculate on what happened to the "Indian" pueblo of Cibuco, but we are of the opinion that Mona "Indians" and the former residents of the 16th century Cibuco settlement must have both ended up in the region that would eventually be named La Indiera. Perhaps the reappearance of "Indians" on censuses in the late 18th century in the San German area is related to descendants of Cibuco, Mona, and "Indian" or mestizo laborers and convicts transported to Puerto Rico from Venezuela and Mexico in the late 1600s and 1700s, but the censuses do not provide adequate information to ascertain this. An alternative and equally speculative theory could be related to land control and access, as mestizos" and people who may have had distant "Indian" ancestry in western Puerto Rico tried to defend their property or local autonomy in the late 18th century and early 19th century. 

Overall, Sued Badillo's persuasive article demonstrates not only "Indian" survival" in the Spanish Caribbean, but significant "Indian" contributions to the rise of the "mestizo" creole culture. He does not seek to romanticize it, as it was not egalitarian and suffered from some of the same racial hierarchies and problems inherent to its colonial setting. Nor does Sued Badillo seek to exaggerate the population of "Indians" or mistakenly equate jibaros with "Indians" as some Taino revivalists argue. But the indigenous population and its racially mixed-progeny provided much of the basic structure of the nascent creole identity, even as officials denied the existence of "Indians" and even "mestizos" disappear. This perspective was adopted by historians who failed to see how the social and economic conditions of the Spanish Caribbean in the late 1500s and early 1600s favored "Indians" and mestizos through contraband trade, migration away from colonial towns, and a degree of autonomy that allowed for population growth. As for the fate of "mestizos" in the region, Schwartz's article suggests it is very likely that many mestizos became whites (or perhaps even "blancos de la tierra), while others were lumped into the "pardo" category in a process seen for much of Puerto Rico by Abbad y Lasierra in the 18th century. More works remains to be done on this process, as well as the experiences of "Indians" in La Indiera during the late 18th century. 

Works Cited

Castanha, Tony. The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Schmidt, Peter R., and Thomas C. Patterson, eds. Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-western Settings. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2003.

Schwartz, Stuart B. “Spaniards, ‘Pardos’, and the Missing Mestizos: Identities and Racial Categories in the Early Hispanic Caribbean.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 71, no. 1/2 (1997): 5–19.