2 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



centers. The conuco, or small cleared space in the forest, still forms 

 the mainstay of native Dominican agriculture except on the sugar 

 estates of the south coast. 



During the interval of his second voyage Columbus began the 

 practice of sending natives of Santo Domingo to Spain to be sold 

 into slaA^'ery. Tribute was exacted from the remainder. The tribute 

 levied was to be in gold, but an arroba of cotton was later substituted 

 as the quarterly tribute levied upon all adults over 14 years of age. 

 As cotton was not grown throughout the island, and as it was prac- 

 tically impossible to obtain gold elsewhere except in the central 

 mountains of Cibao, service was accepted instead of gold or cotton. 

 This was in the year 1496 and was the beginning of the repartimiento, 

 later to be expanded into the encomienda system, under which 

 natives of the conquered island were divided among the Spanish 

 soldiery for administrative purposes, principally for the collecting 

 of tribute. Under this arrangement the Indian population of the 

 island rapidly decreased. Thus, of the several Indian "caciques" 

 governing native provinces or geographical districts at the time of 

 the conquest practically all met with a premature death because of 

 their European conquerors. Caonabo died a captive on shipboard; 

 Guarionex died likewise a captive on a Spanish vessel ; the " queen " 

 Anacaona was hanged, as was also Cotabanama. Goacanagaric 

 died, like his friend Columbus, of a broken heart. 



Within historic times the aboriginal population of the West Indies 

 has included two great linguistic stocks — the Carib and the Arawak. 

 The Arawak population of the Greater Antilles and of the Bahamas 

 was known to the Spanish explorers as a peaceful agricultural people 

 rapidly giving way before aggressive bands of Caribs from the Lesser 

 Antilles. In St. Vincent, Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and 

 elsewhere Cokimbus encountered the Carib, but heard from widely 

 separated groups of Arawak about the raids and depredations of 

 roving Carib bands. 



The material culture of the Arawak Indians of Santo Domingo 

 is South American in origin, and in a general way, in content. Rela- 

 tionship is with the agricultural peoples of the tropical lowlands 

 of the Guiana and Venezuelan coasts. It is in agriculture that 

 the essential South American culture elements reappear throughout 

 the native provinces of Santo Domingo. The Samana aborigines 

 maintained that the}^ had originally occupied caves in the island but 

 that some of their number had come from another island, supposedly 

 Martinique, in canoes. This bit of Arawak folklore must be taken 

 for what it is worth in connection with corroborative evidence of 

 archeology. No Arawak group was found living in caves in the 

 island of Santo Domingo at the time of the conquest, neither were 

 there Arawak settlements in any of the Lesser Antilles at that time. 



