The Taino were indigenous people of the Caribbean who Christopher Columbus came across during his “explorations”. They treated him with nothing but kindness, unfortunately the same can’t be said about the way he treated them. The Taino people were actually very skilled and talented, for example in the article it states “Although the Taíno never developed a written language, they made exquisite pottery, wove intricate belts from dyed cotton and carved enigmatic images from wood, stone, shell and bone.” When Christopher Columbus arrived, things started to take a turn. When Spaniards removed men from villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations it kept the Taíno from planting the crops. In the article it states “They began to starve; many thousands fell prey to smallpox, measles and other European diseases for which they had no immunity; some committed suicide to avoid subjugation; hundreds fell in fighting with the Spaniards, while untold numbers fled to remote regions beyond colonial control.” This led to a great downfall in the Taino community, therefore their culture was gone as well. In this article, they proceed to interview people who have a Taino family background and how they still try to keep in touch with their roots.
The Taino are an indigenous people of the Caribbean. They also have their own culture and religious beliefs. Almost all of the Taino people became extinct because of Columbus’s occupation of their land and the disease he brought there. Many people today call Columbus a hero because he found The continent of North America, but because of his selfishness and greed he brutally murdered such a large number of native people that their culture and religion would have remain if there were any pure native Taino people left today.