The New World before Columbus

Previous encounters:

• Polynesians (400-800 AD)
• Vikings (1000 AD)

Hunter Gatherers
Some Agrarians
Some Empires (Aztecs in the 1500s)

Who was Doña Marina

• Aztec
• Provided intelligence and linguistic services to cortéz

Tainos (aka Arawok) People

• First American-European interaction
• Most prominent people in the Carribean when the Spanish first arrived
• Cultivated manioc
• Lived in small villages under authority of cheifs
• Encomienda - Spanish settlers would compel Tainos to work in mines/fields or punish them severly
  • Would lead to occaisional rebellions & population decline

Smallpox

• Native population dropped drastically, from about 4 million (1492) to a few thousand (1540s

By 1550s, mining dried up, so they shifted to agriculture