While perusing Repartimientos y encomiendas en la Isla Española: El repartimiento de Albuquerque de 1514 by Luis Arranz Márquez, we decided to speculate on what the population of areas associated with the former cacicazgo of Xaragua may have been before 1514. Obviously, there are severe problems and limitations with the data. For instance, Anderson-Cordova's totals for the 3 areas we are considering here as part of the former Xaragua was only 3554. However, the data as presented by Arranz Márquez gives a somewhat higher total for Yaquimo, La Sabana (perhaps more autonomous due to its distance) and La Vera Paz, 3625. One must also remember that some of the indigenous population in this part of Hispaniola may have been relocated to areas closer to mining operations. While the 1517 Interrogatory found forced relocation to be something severely resisted by the Indians, causing them to rebel, flee to the mountains or threaten to commit suicide, some indigenous peoples were probably forcibly relocate during the initial phases of conquest. Of course, the brutal Spanish conquest of Xaragua under Ovando must have similarly lowered the area's population through slaughter and fleeing populations. That raises another issue, too, since some of the population may have fled to other islands or other inaccessible areas and were not formally enumerated in repartimiento statistics.
That said, looking at population data for 3 areas associated with the former cacicazgo of Xaragua in 1514 might offer suggestions for its population before 1492. We know from Spanish sources that it was considered the most powerful chiefdom on the island before the Spanish conquest. Xaragua would have been able to support a relatively large population through its use of irrigation canals, too. That would have been necessary to support Xaragua's unusually large nitaino population. Indeed, the very name Xaragua, according to Granberry and Vescelius, means Lake Country. The "Taino" are known to have relied heavily on seafood as well as some of the fauna that would have also lived in the lakes and rivers. Furthermore, according to Oviedo, Xaragua still had large villages in the 1510s. When he first visited the area in 1515, Oviedo reported large villages near Lake Azuei. While Oviedo may have exaggerated the population capacity of Taino villages or aldeas in the precolonial period, there was undoubtedly a large concentration of people in the area of Xaragua. The combination of lakes, rivers, access to the sea, irrigation, large cotton production, and larger than average "elite" population make this seem likely.
So, how does one interpret that demographic past with the sad statistics of 1514? If 3554-3625 is a rough estimate of what the Indian population of that part of Hispaniola was in 1514, then what would the population in precolonial times have been? Surely, it must have been orders of magnitude greater. While the aDNA evidence of precontact remains by David Reich et al suggest a population of the island in the tens of thousands, we find it likely that Xaragua could have supported at least two or three times more (probably even more) people before the Spanish conquest. Indeed, using the number of caciques (plus 1 nitaino) reported in the 1514 Repartimiento, one finds 85 for the region of what once comprised Xaragua. According to Las Casas, writing from memory as an elderly man, Xaragua before Spanish rule had 100-200 nitainos. Supposedly the Spaniards under Ovando's leadership also massacred around 80 nitaino when they killed Anacaona. If that is accurate, assuming Las Casas remembered correctly, but 60-70 Spaniards married women from among the elite of Xaragua in Vera Paz. Yet, in 1514, Vera Paz only had 24 caciques (25 if you count the nitaino). Yaquimo had 40 caciques while Sabana had 21. If these numbers are added up, you have a total of 86 "caciques (including 1 nitaino who functioned as a cacique). Due to the unspecified breakdown of Xaragua's caciques and the caciques to their south and southwest, we can only guess that the core of Xaragua may have had 100+ caciques. The lesser caciques may have been counted as nitainos by Las Casas, though we have no evidence for that.
Moreover, in 1514, there was an average of about 43 people per cacique in the three areas considered here as part of the chiefdom. In preconquest times, when Xaragua had more caciques and a higher population, each cacique ruling over an aldea or yucayeque probably included at least 100-150 in his community. Francisco Moscoso, in his detailed study of "Taino" demographics in Puerto Rico, reached some conclusions which may be worth applying to the Haitian case, too. For example, assuming the figure of Las Casas for an average yucayeque being around 2500 (unlikely to be true in all parts of the Greater Antilles), and each cacique ruled over an aldea, Puerto Rico's population may have reached as high as 110,000 (assuming the number of 44 caciques is accurate). If we assume that each cacique ruled an aldea of around 2500 for Xaragua in precolonial times, then we can easily reach figures of 60,000 for the "core" part of the chiefdom. For the other two sections, again assuming each cacique had a community of 2500, we would quickly reach numbers that are contradicted by the genetic data for population estimates (over 200,000 people living in western Hispaniola, or Haiti's Ouest and Sud departments).
However, applying the lower range of estimates used by Moscoso might bring us closer to the demographic realities of Xaragua. If the paramount chiefs ruled aldeas of 2500 or more but the regional caciques headed communities of 500-1000, Puerto Rico's "Taino" population may have been around 44,000. Applying those same figures to Xaragua's "core" area with 24 "caciques" (23 times 500, plus 2500 for the paramount cacique's community) gives a figure of 14,000. Of course, one must remember that the Spaniards had killed Anacaona and a large segment of Xaragua's nitaino. Perhaps the center of the chiefdom had a population greater than this. Nonetheless, a figure of 14,000 for the "core" province of Xaragua with about 24 caciques would mean each cacique ruled an average of 583 people. That is probably still too high. Including Yaquimo's 40 caciques, associating each with a community of about 500 people, leads to an estimate of 20,000, which is also likely far too high. Instead, we must apply different formulas to arrive at a possible estimate. If our 43 people per cacique in 1514 is any reliable estimate, we may be safer tripling that number in precolonial times to reach more accurate estimates. If, say, there were around 129 people per cacique before the Spanish conquest, then perhaps the total population of Xaragua would have been around 18, 207, including about 7500 people living in larger settlements associated with the most powerful caciques in Xaragua (Behechio's settlement), Yaquimo, and the area of La Sabana.
Overall, we are still not sure what the population of Xaragua may have been before its fall. We believe the "core" could have possibly supported a large, extensive population. That area, which presumably lost quite a few of its caciques during the violent conquest, may have had several thousands of people living there. The whole chiefdom, extending it to the southeast and southwest (Haiti's Sud) may have had over 18,000 people although that is a very rough estimate. We are assuming that the average population in an area per cacique in 1514 can be tripled to reach very tentative figures. If we went with a less conservative approach that assumed a population of 5 times as many people per cacique in the precolonial era, Xaragua may have had over 20,000 people, which is not unlikely given its influence and wealth. Unfortunately, the lack of a more detailed breakdown or reliable accounts of Xaragua make all this guesswork. It is also possible that the system of repartimientos elevated the number of caciques in some areas (Yaquimo) or lowered it in others, or perhaps some nitainos became caciques in the Spanish system.
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