

































Investigating Discourses of Indigeneity and Taino Survival in Jamaica

Shenhat Haile 2T1
University of Toronto
FAS History, Political Science & African Studies

In Jamaica, the longstanding 
notion of indigenous extinction 
through colonial violence and 
subsequent intermixing with 
enslaved Africans has led to 
widespread debate on the island 
regarding the legitimacy of Taíno 
survival. Colonial narratives 
attesting to the absolute decima-
tion of original inhabitants 
throughout the Caribbean region 
have arguably created stagnant 
understandings of indigeneity in 
Jamaica into the 21st century. This 
paper seeks to investigate complex 
conceptualizations of indigeneity 
on the island and explore the ways 
in which the myth of extinction 
has persisted into the post-colonial 
period, along with the challenges 
related to the reconstruction of 
Taíno histories in Jamaica.

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Indigeneity, Jamaican 
history, Taíno revival, Maroons, 

Caribbean indigeneity

B I O

Shenhat has a BA from the University of Toronto with a double major in History and 
Political Science and a minor in African Studies. Her academic interests include history 
and politics of the Horn of African, anti-/alternative development theory, and intellectual 
histories of Caribbean decolonization and transnational Black radical feminism.  

© 2021 Shenhat Haile
Caribbean Studies Students’ Union, Canada - https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/

                       This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 
                       To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Taino Village Tapestry by Jamaican artist 
Merck Bowden (2009)

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   Jada Benn Torres, and Harcourt Fuller, “Investigating the ‘Taíno’ Ancestry of the Jamaican Maroons: A New Genetic 
(DNA), Historical and Multidisciplinary Analysis and Case Study of the Accompong Town Marroons.” Canadian Journal 
of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 43, no.1 (2018): 48.
   Erica Neegangagwedgin. “Rooted in the Land: Taíno identity, oral history and stories of reclamation in contemporary 
contexts.” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 11, no. 4 (2015): 377.
   Jorge Duany. “Making Indians out of Blacks: The Revitalization of Taíno Identity in Contemporary Puerto Rico,” in 
Gabriel Haslip-Vera, Taíno Revival: Critical Perspective on Puerto Rican Identity and Cultural Politics (2008): 57.

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This paper seeks to investigate ongo-
ing discourses of indigenous survival 
in Jamaica and efforts to contest 
enduring myths of Taíno extinction on 
the island. Colonial narratives attest-
ing to the absolute decimation of 
original inhabitants throughout the 
Caribbean region have arguably 
created stagnant understandings 
of indigeneity in Jamaica into the 21st 
century. As a result, entrenched 
misconceptions about the disappear-
ance of Jamaica’s native Taíno popula-
tion have continuously been repro-
duced in academic literature. Despite 
current efforts to revive 
indigenous histories, many factors 
contribute to the challenges faced by 
scholars and community leaders in 
reconstructing Taíno histories on the 
island. 
I will first briefly explore the ways in 
which the myth of extinction has 
persisted into the post-colonial period 
through exclusionary 
knowledge production rooted in 
colonial accounts. Ongoing interdisci-
plinary work has emerged in recent 
years to halt reproductions of this 
narrative, thus 
allowing national discourses on Taíno

survival to shift accordingly and 
suggest a hopeful future for indige-
nous cultural revival in Jamaica.

Complex conceptualizations of indige-
neity vary across the Caribbean 
region. In Jamaica, the longstanding 
notion of indigenous disappearance 
through colonial violence and subse-
quent intermixing with enslaved 
Africans has led to widespread debate 
on the island regarding the legitimacy 
of Taíno survival. In order to identify 
the challenges that exist for communi-
ties to assert their indigenous ancestry 
in Jamaica, there must first be an 
understanding of the ways in which 
formal institutions continue to uphold 
historical myths of an alleged extinc-
tion.

Modern-day Jamaica is a nation 
predominantly composed of an Afri-
can-descendant population.  Neverthe-
less, depictions of the indigenous 
Taíno on the Jamaican Coat of Arms 
(1962) gives recognition to the vary-
ing cultures that have once populated 
the land.   Unlike the complex public 
discourses of cultural 

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nationalism and politicized Taíno 
revitalization in nearby Puerto Rico, the 
Taíno of Jamaica have been historically 
regarded as simply a relic of the past, non-
existent in contemporary Jamaica.   In 
scholarly publications as recent as 2018, 
the notion of Taíno extinction endures as a 
supposed historical truth. Taíno 
disappearance has been concretized 
throughout decades of academic literature 
and has only more recently been 
approached as a matter of debate. 
Discussions surrounding indigenous 
survival have largely centred around 
varying historical accounts on the origins 
of Maroon communities and their 
intermingling with native Taínos. As a 
result, it is important to consider the 
ways in which Maroon communities 
have come to stand in for the perished 
indigenous population and how theories 
of intermixing have denied the possibility 
of prolonged survival.  

In escaping enslavement and forming new 
communities in the Jamaican hinterlands, 
the existence and survival of Maroon 
societies are recognized as one of the most 
notable early instances of successful 
resistance to colonial rule in the Caribbean. 
The myth of extinction can be traced back 
to 1520, where Spanish documentation 

estimates the swift and total decimation of 
indigenous populations resulting from 
violent enslavement, disease, and genocide.  
Elimination of the native population 
ultimately deemed the land terra nullius  – 
unoccupied and subject to justifiable 
land expropriation from colonial powers. 
This effectively allowed for a separation of 
Taíno and African histories on the island, in 
which it is argued that slaves assumed the 
labour needs of the Spanish left vacant by 
indigenous erasure.   Therefore, many 
scholars of Maroon communities have left 
little room for the possibility of Taíno 
survival based on these colonial historical 
accounts. Barbara Kopytoff’s (1976) 
analysis on Maroon ethnicities claims 
that various elements of different West 
African cultures may have come together to 
create unique Maroon societies. She argues 
the likelihood that indigenous inhabitants 
survived in small numbers on the interiors 
of the island, yet their entire “contribution 
to the Maroon stock was doubtless very 
small, and their cultural contribution 
appears at present to have been negligible.”   
While other Caribbean historians such as 
Sylvia Wynter suggest that a process of 
acculturation may have taken place, in 
which remnants of indigenous groups and 
Maroons “mingled in a common resistance,”   
on the island’s peripheries, she ultimately 
credits Maroons with “humanizing” the 
land left by Taíno disappearance. 

    Gaama Gloria Simms. “Maroon Indigenous Women Circle, Jamaica: Historical Recurrences from Indigenous Women's 
Perspectives.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 19, no. 2 (2018).
    Kathleen Wilson. "The Performance of Freedom: Maroons and the Colonial Order in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica and 
the Atlantic Sound." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 66, no. 1 (2009): 61. 
    Torres and Fuller, “Investigating the ‘Taíno’ Ancestry of the Jamaican Maroons.”
    Atkinson, Lesley-Gail, ed. The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaica Taíno. Jamaica: 
University of the West Indies Press (2006): 164.
    Kopytoff, 46.
    Ibid., 38.
    Sylvia Wynter. “Jonkonnu in Jamaica.” Jamaica Journal4, no. 2 (1970): 36.

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In its place, Wynter offers an argument she 
believes to be more fitting for the process 
in which Africans come to claim a 
connection to this land – that is, a process 
of “indigenization.”   From this framework, 
it is evident how Maroon communities 
begin to be characterized as the sole 
resistors to colonial violence on the island. 
The British invasion of Jamaica in 1655 
thus “solidified the Maroon reality as the 
indigenous people” according to Wynter.   
Unlike their  Taíno counterparts, Maroon 
survival complicates national 
conceptualizations of indigeneity in 
Jamaica. In a 2018 article published for 
the Journal of International Women’s 
Studies, Simms refers to the Maroons, 
Rastafari, and Revivalist as the three 
indigenous groups of Jamaica, in which 
the Maroon are the “Godmother of all 
indigenous cultures in Jamaica.”   These 
historical narratives – while on the 
surface, appear to reconsider the myth of 
extinction at the onset of European contact 
–  merely reproduce accounts of indigenous 
non-existence by maintaining their minimal 
and insignificant association with early 
Maroon societies. I will later explore the 
efforts that have been made to counter 
colonial narratives that disentangle Taíno 
and Maroon histories of collaboration and 
survival.

  

The presumed fact of indigenous 
disappearance is also further embedded in 
academic literature regarding historical 
processes of cross-cultural contact in 
Jamaica. Complex discourses of creolization 
have offered frameworks in which the 
internal diversity of Caribbean nations can 
be examined.   While the term “creole” 
carries shifting definitions across time and 
space, Carolyn Allens (1998) investigates 
how imported populations in the New World, 
sharing common experiences of colonialism, 
fragmentation, and domination, engaged in 
finding new ways of belonging through the 
invention and adaptation of cultures. She 
describes creolization as “a common pattern”,   
holding distinct connotations and applications 
depending on the region.  The 19th century 
use of the term was often employed to denote 
one’s racial status and relationship with the 
land as native or foreigner.   Despite the 
intricacies of this discourse in academia, 
many scholars base their analysis of 
Jamaican creolization in the myth of 
indigenous disappearance and the cultivation 
of new “native” cultural practices and 
languages. In James A. Delle’s (2000) 
analysis of nineteenth century creolization 
in Jamaica, he simplifies creolization as a 
“theoretical concept used to explain 
processes by which European and African 
populations adjusted or adapted to conditions 
in the New World.”  .  

     Ibid.
     Wynter, 36.
     Simms, 245.   
     Carolyn Allens. “Creole Then and Now: The Problem of Definition.” Caribbean Quartery44, no.1/2 (1998): 36.
     Ibid., 44.
     Ibid., 36.
     Ibid., 37.    
     James A. Delle."The Material and Cognitive Dimensions of Creolization in Nineteenth-Century Jamaica." 
     Historical Archaeology 34, no. 3 (2000): 56.

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Additionally, he maintains it can be defined 
as a “cognitive process of defining a 
distinctly Jamaican social identity on the 
parts of both European and African peoples. 
In a similar way, Sylvia Wynter identifies 
creolization as a phenomenon in which 
African cultures operate as the “crucible of 
the cultural deposits of the immigrant 
peoples, transforming borrowed elements 
of culture into something indigenously 
Caribbean.”   The basis in which 
understandings of creolization (a processes 
that is generally accepted to accurately 
describe the ongoing experiences of 
African, European, and Asian populations 
in the Caribbean) ultimately reproduce 
narratives of the impossibility of 
indigenous survival and their subjugation 
to histories solely of conquest and genocide. 
In Delle’s analysis, he emphasizes 
creolization as “a special form of 
ethnogenesis in plantation contexts.”   
Shona Jackson (2012) highlights how 
“labor plays a role in becoming Creole,”   
in which post-Columbian populations (in 
the Jamaican case, Black and Afro-creole 
populations) are brought into academic 
discourse and given legitimacy as founding 
members of the modern nation state to which 
they are able to yield state power, arguably 
at the expensive of indigenous peoples.  I
nvestigations into the processes of 
creolization in Jamaica have largely focused 
on the cultural contacts between post-
Colombian populations,   

especially African and European, while 
failing to consider the role of indigenous 
Taíno cultures within  these paradigms. 
Moreover, these discourses surrounding 
Maroon ethnogenesis and the exclusionary 
nature of creolization studies have arguably 
aided in the ongoing denial of Taíno 
existence in contemporary Jamaica. Despite 
the role of scholarship in entrenching these 
myths, examining the ways in which recent 
discourses have challenged these enduring 
colonial narratives may give greater insight 
into the seemingly hopeful future for Taíno 
cultural revival on the island.

The effort to disrupt the widely accepted 
notion of indigenous extinction in Jamaica 
has been interdisciplinary. In the academic 
sphere, this work has been undertaken by 
historians, archaeologists, and geneticists 
seeking to develop a more informed 
understanding on the enduring legacies of 
pre-Colombian peoples and cultures in 
Jamaica. For instance, Lesley-Gail 
Atikinson’s 2006 editorial compilation of 
archaeological study into the earliest 
inhabitants of the island aims to challenge 
misconceptions about the Jamaican Taínos 
resulting from insufficient field research.   
Specifically, she cites a number of factors 
inhibiting academic inquiry into historical 
Taino sites and inadequate efforts at 
conserving existing ones as a major 
contributing factor preventing histories of 
indigenous survival in Jamaica from being 
recognized.   

      Ibid
      Wynter, 38.
      Delle, 56.
      Jackson, Shona N. Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean. University of Minnesota Press 
(2012): 47.
      Ibid.
      Atkinson, 7.
      Ibid.

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In a chapter of the text investigating Taíno 
ceramics from post-contact Jamaica, the 
author contests the myth of Taíno 
disappearance with a careful examination 
of archival documents in which census 
records report “Indian” populations 
alongside enslaved Africans in Sevilla la 
Nueva in 1533.   While colonial narratives 
assert indigenous extinction by as early as 
1520, these records suggest that Spanish 
authorities were considering possible ways 
to re-settle the remaining Taíno natives 
elsewhere on the island.   Further 
archaeological evidence suggests small 
Taíno populations present at the site during 
this period. 

Shifting disciplines, advancements in the 
field of genetic testing have also played a 
significant role in confronting the notion of 
indigenous extinction. Valid criticisms exist 
regarding the use of mtDNA (mitochondrial 
DNA) as an analytical tool for uncovering 
the histories of genetically diverse 
populations, and the adverse political 
implications of reviving or reconstructing 
these histories cannot be understated.   
Nevertheless, a study published in 2018 by 
Fuller and Torres investigates the extent to 
which Jamaica Maroons can trace their 
ancestry to indigenous Tainos. More 
specifically, the study builds on the growing 
debates amongst scholars regarding the 
intermixing of these two populations, 
 

seeking to validate these claims through 
genetic testing.  Self-identifying Jamaican
Taínos such as Dr Erica Neeganagwedgin 
have been publicly ridiculed and mocked for 
their efforts to reclaim a lost heritage.  
Genetic inquiry into Maroon populations 
therefore seeks to address the “longstanding 
antagonisms between oral history, colonial 
writings and contemporary scientific 
evidence.”   The study’s findings confirm 
the presence of Taíno DNA lineages in 
today’s Accompong Town Maroons, 
therefore supporting the theory of communal 
relationships that existed between indigenous 
and African populations during the colonial 
period.   The researchers maintain, “DNA is 
simply a testament to genetic exchange 
between African and non-African peoples.” 

However, as these new studies emerge, it is 
critical to ensure genetic findings to do not 
inspire a regression into essentialist 
discourses of Taíno existence in Jamaica. 
As Dr. Neeganagwedgin herself states, 
reviving the colonial pseudoscience of blood 
quantum is not the objective .   rather, there 
must be an understanding that after five 
centuries of extinction myths and ethnic 
intermixing, Taíno people and cultures do not 
exist in their “authentic” and undisturbed pre-
Colombian forms. The ongoing endeavor, 
therefore, is not to disentangle indigenous 
histories from those of the Maroons in order 
to identify modern-day indications of cultural 

      Ibid., 164.
      Atkinson, 164. 
      As explored in Gabriel Haslip-Viera, “The Politics of Taíno Revivalism: The Insignificance of Amerinidan mtDNA in the 
  Population of Puerto Ricans. A comment on recent research,” CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 
  vol. 18 no. 1 (2006).
      Torres and Fuller, 70.
      Ibid., 49.
      Ibid., 50.
      Ibid.
      Ibid., 67. 
      Neeganagwedgin, 383

      

      

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survival, but rather to continue challenging 
and disputing historical materials that have 
written Jamaica Taíno’s out of existence 
entirely. The remainder of this paper will 
explore the ways in which shifting 
paradigms on indigenous extinction have 
come to be recognized on the national level 
and what challenges persist in reconstructing 
Taíno histories.

In examining these conflicting discourses, 
it appears that recent work undertaken by 
scholars to revisit widely understood notions 
of Taíno disappearance is occurring 
alongside national initiatives to reclaim 
indigenous heritage in Jamaica. For instance, 
in 2006, the Jamaican National Heritage 
Trust marked May 5th as “Taíno Day,” 
aimed at raising public recognition and 
appreciation for the island’s original 
inhabitants.   The day is commemorated 
with exhibitions of historical artifacts and 
public lectures at the Institute of Jamaica.  
While this celebration may ultimately 
reflect the Jamaican state’s enduring 
recognition of Taíno heritage simply as a 
relic of the pre-colonial past, this national 
commemoration arguably marks a turning 
point for state actors to begin engaging in 
Taíno revival initiatives. This is further 
exemplified in the 2019 enstooling of a 
Taíno chief in Jamaica after over five 
hundred years.  
 

  “Jamaica Celebrates Taíno Day.” The Gleaner, May 5, 2011. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110505/newss5.html.
    Ibid. 
    Williams, Paul H. “Jamaica Gets First Taíno Chief in over 500 Years.” The Gleaner, June 19, 2019. 
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20190619/jamaica-gets-first-taino-chief-over-500-years

      

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According to The Gleaner, Robert Pairman, 
an advocate for the preservation of Taíno 
heritage in Jamaica, was named the cacique  
of a local Taíno tribe in which recovered 
symbolic gifts from the Institute of Jamaica 
were offered in celebration. The article 
detailing the event also cites newfound 
DNA testing as a significant source of 
validation for Taíno communities who 
have affirmed their indigenous ancestry 
despite centuries of denial. There have also 
been recent efforts by the National 
Commission on Reparations calling for the 
British to return stolen Taíno cultural artifacts 
to Jamaica.  Additionally, the 8th Annual 
International Maroon Council held by the 
Charles Town Maroon Council in 2016 
emphasizes the need to recognize centuries 
of indigenous survival in the Caribbean as an 
organizational goal. The event pamphlet 
stresses the importance of learning Jamaican 
Taíno histories and perspectives in order 
reimagine “how we Jamaicans see ourselves 
and claim identity.” 

Despite these historic advances, there 
remains substantial factors hindering 
research into Taíno histories that could 
arguably further progress ongoing revival 
efforts. Atkinson cites a lack of resources for 
investigation and long-term research as a 
major challenge faced by archaeologists in 
Jamaica.   

 

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  “Jamaica Celebrates Taíno Day.” The Gleaner, May 5, 2011. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110505/newss5.html.
    Ibid. 
    Williams, Paul H. “Jamaica Gets First Taíno Chief in over 500 Years.” The Gleaner, June 19, 2019. 
   http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20190619/jamaica-gets-first-taino-chief-over-500-years. 
    A Taiío chief
    Lewis, Emma. “As Jamaica Seeks the Return of Taíno Artefacts from Britain, Relics at Home May Not Be Safe · Global 
Voices.” Global Voices, September 2, 2019. 
   Charles Town Maroon Council. “Peace & Dignity Journey 2016.” 8th Annual Maroon Conference:Towards a Borderless 
Indigenous Community, (2016): 11.
    Atkinson, 7.

      

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More significantly, however, remains the 
challenge of preserving indigenous 
artifacts and historical sites. Real estate 
and infrastructural development threaten 
the remnants of Taíno civilizations left 
below the ground.   The mistreatment of 
these materials by institutional bodies and 
the neglect of calls for controlled 
development make uncovering lost 
histories all the more difficult. 

Through an examination of the literature 
on this matter, it appears that historical 
efforts to erase Taino existence from post-
conquest Jamaica have come under 
serious scrutiny in recent years. I have 
argued that discourses of creolization 
and notions of the “indigenization” of 
African Maroons do not provide 
constructive frameworks for which 
surviving Jamaican Taíno communities 
can investigate and validate claims to 
indigenous ancestry. While there persist 
individual attitudes that the possibility of 
indigenous survival is simply based in 
“sentimental declarations”  and false 
claims to an extinct heritage, certain 
actors in Jamaica are shifting towards 
an understanding of the need for Taíno 
cultural revival and formalized recognition 
of their survival. This calls upon the 
question of power; who is responsible 
for the resurgence of Taíno histories in 
Jamaica? In recent years there have been 
efforts to challenge colonial myths 
undertaken by scholars and Taíno 
activists, however, what does actual 
revival and recognition look like in the 
Jamaican context? Questions may arise in 
the near future regarding the role of the 
state in determining the validity of Taíno 

self-identification, and so the challenge of 
ensuring state actors do not resort to the 
use of colonial-era racialized ascriptions 
of “legitimate” indigenous heritage is 
critical. Taíno community leaders must 
arguably be at the forefront of 
conversations on formal recognition under 
the state. Enduring colonial narratives 
must continue to be challenged and 
criticized in Jamaican national discourse in 
order to advance projects of indigenous 
revival.   
 

    Ibid., 8.
    Thwaites, Daniel. “Wackos Are Not Extinct.” The Gleaner, July 27, 2014. 

      

 

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Allen, Carolyn. "Creole Then And Now: The Problem Of Definition." Caribbean 
           Quarterly 44, no. 1/2 (1998): 33-49.
Atkinson, Lesley-Gail, ed. The Earliest Inhabitants: the Dynamics of the Jamaican Taíno.  
           Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2006. 
Benn Torres, Jada and Harcourt Fuller, “Investigating the ‘Taíno’ Ancestry of the 
           Jamaican Maroons: A New Genetic (DNA), Historical and Multidisciplinary 
           Analysis and Case Study of the Accompong Town Marroons.” 
           Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 43, no.1 (2018): 47-78.
Charles Town Maroon Council. “Peace & Dignity Journey 2016.” 8th Annual Maroon  
           Conference: Towards a Borderless Indigenous Community, 2016. 
Delle, James A. "The Material and Cognitive Dimensions of Creolization in 
            Nineteenth-Century Jamaica." Historical Archaeology 34, no. 3 (2000): 56-72.
Duany, Jorge. “Making Indians out of Blacks: The Revitalization of Taíno Identity in  
            Contemporary Puerto Rico,” in Gabriel Haslip-Vera, Taíno Revival: Critical 
            Perspective on Puerto Rican Identity and Cultural Politics (2008): 261-280 
Jackson, Shona N. Creole Indigeneity: Between Myth and Nation in the Caribbean. 
             University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
“Jamaica Celebrates Taíno Day.” The Gleaner, May 5, 2011.  
              http://jamaicagleaner.com/gleaner/20110505/news/news5.html.
Kopytoff, Barbara. “The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity.” 
              Caribbean Quarterly 22, no. 2/3 (1976): 33-50.
Lewis, Emma. “As Jamaica Seeks the Return of Taíno Artefacts from Britain, Relics 
              at Home May Not Be Safe · Global Voices.” Global Voices, September 2, 2019. 
Neegangagwedgin, Erica. “Rooted in the Land: Taíno identity, oral history and stories of 
              reclamation in contemporary contexts.” AlterNative: An International Journal of 
              Indigenous Peoples 11, no. 4 (2015): 376-388
Simms, Gaama Gloria. “Maroon Indigenous Women Circle, Jamaica: Historical 
              Recurrences from Indigenous Women's Perspectives.” Journal of International 
              Women’s Studies 19, no. 2 (2018): 244-247.
Thwaites, Daniel. “Wackos Are Not Extinct.” The Gleaner, July 27, 2014. 
              http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140727/cleisure/cleisure4.html. 
Williams, Paul H. “Jamaica Gets First Taíno Chief in over 500 Years.” The Gleaner, 
              June 19, 2019. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20190619/jamaica-
              gets-first-taino-chief-over-500-years. 
Wilson, Kathleen. "The Performance of Freedom: Maroons and the Colonial Order in  
              Eighteenth-Century Jamaica and the Atlantic Sound." The William and Mary 
              Quarterly, Third Series, 66, no. 1 (2009): 45-86.
Wynter, Sylvia. “Jonkonnu in Jamaica.” Jamaica Journal 4, no. 2 (1970)
 

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