

































Exoticism, Exchange, and Early Indigenous-Colonial Relations 
in the 15th to 16th Century Caribbean

Akshay Dua
University of Toronto
FAS Political Science Specialist, History

The initial interactions between 
Indigenous groups and European 
colonists across the Caribbean were 
largely shaped by pre-existing 
sociocultural conditions. The central 
importance of exchange for social 
construction and the concomitantly 
high value placed upon foreign 
material was common to many 
Native societies. This played in 
contrast to European understandings 
of exchange, which was far more 
focused on economic gain and competitive bargaining. The role assigned to 
exchange and the foreign in Indigenous and European societies guided their 
perceptions of each other and respective goals in interaction. Native systems were 
well entrenched throughout the regional networks of trade and culture in the 
Caribbean, and so colonists entered into a world fundamentally defined by such 
systems. European imperial views permitted them to exploit these systems, twist-
ing Indigenous exaltation of intercultural trade into a tool for attempted oppres-
sion, subversion, and assimilation. Nevertheless, colonists were unable to under-
mine core structures, even if they appropriated them for the creation of new hierar-
chies and dehumanization of Natives. These structures prevailed even as coloniza-
tion grew more pervasive and degenerative. 

A B S T R A C T

B I O

Akshay Dua is an undergraduate student pursuing a Specialist in Political Science and a Major in 
History at the University of Toronto. His research interests are centered on humanitarian develop-
ment, the relevance of history and culture in contemporary politics, interstate geopolitical 
competition, and the magnification of repressed voices.

© 2021 Akshay Dua
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/

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Introduction
From the first point of contact between the 
desperate Spaniards and bemused 
Caribbean Natives on the shores of San 
Salvador to the expansive settlement 
projects of subsequent years, material 
exchange defined Indigenous-colonial 
relations in the Caribbean. The origins of 
their intercultural dynamics in the late 
15th and early 16th century, however, 
took form long before Spanish 
adventurers ever stepped foot in the 
Americas. These relations were shaped by 
the high value accorded to and desire for 
foreign goods in Indigenous Caribbean 
societies, henceforth entitled ‘exoticism’. 
Relations were further developed through 
complex processes of economic and 
political interaction. Here, ‘goods’ refer to 
both the material and immaterial, objects 
and knowledge. While it is essential to 
avoid generalization about the 
indescribably diverse peoples that 
populated the precolonial Caribbean, 
these systems of interaction and exchange 
extended from Hispaniola to the Orinoco 
basin and were widely affecting. In 
concordance with the desirability of the 
exotic, they produced remarkably similar 
precolonial cultural values among various 
Indigenous groups and typically 
imbalanced Indigenous-colonial 
relationships. I argue that exoticism 
dictated initial relations between the 
Spaniards and Caribbean Natives, and 
accelerated colonial material exploitation 

1

2

and political domination. This is visible 
through the impact of differentiated 
perceptions of trade, the hierarchizing 
character of exchange, and alterations 
to Indigenous cultural practices. Thus, 
as physical processes of colonization 
began, the roots of hegemony 
had already been deeply implanted.

Exchange and the Foreign in Indige-
nous Value Systems
To adequately examine the nature of 
Indigenous-colonial associations, their 
foundation in Indigenous sociocultural and 
economic systems must be clarified, and the 
associated value accorded to the foreign. 
From the first waves of Caribbean migra-
tion that expanded upwards from South 
America around 5000 BCE onwards, vast 
transregional trading networks began to be 
established.  A diversity of goods, from 
lapidary ornaments to knowledge systems, 
were exchanged between innumerable and 
often distant groups. Intercommunal 
interaction was frequent and ongoing, and 
embedded itself in the fabric of nearly all 
Caribbean polities. Simultaneously, foreign 
goods gained prestigious value, becoming 
indicative of authority throughout the 
Caribbean and lending its holders sociopo-
litical preeminence. It is unclear whether 
the economic centrality of exchange 
endowed foreign objects with value, or 
whether a preexisting affinity for the 
foreign among early societies promoted 
high mobility and the expansion of trade.

3

4

                     Antonio L. Curet, “The Earliest Settlers,” in The Caribbean: A History of the Region and its Peoples, ed. Stephan Palmié
                 and Francisco A. Scarano (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 56-65.
                    Corinne L. Hofman et al., “Island Rhythms: The Web of Social Relationships and Interaction Networks in the Lesser 
                 Antillean Archipelago between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1492,” Latin American Antiquity 18, no. 3 (September 2007): 250-259, 
                 https://doi.org/10.2307/25478180.
                    Corinne L. Hofman et al., “Stages of Encounters: Migration, Mobility and Interaction in the Pre-Colonial and Early 
                 Colonial Caribbean,” World Archaeology 46, no. 4 (August 2014): 595-596, doi:10.1080/00438243.2014.925820.
                    Floris W.M. Keehnen, Corinne L. Hofman, and Andrzej T. Antczak, “Material Encounters and Indigenous 
                  Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas,” in Material Encounters and Transformations in the Early Colonial 
                  Americas: Archaeological Case Studies, ed. Corinne L. Hofman and Floris W.M. Keehnen, (Boston: Brill, 2019), 3-5.   
                     

1

2

3

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                     Annie Cody, “Distribution of Exotic Stone Artifacts Through the Lesser Antilles: Their Implications for Prehistoric 
                  Interaction and Exchange,” Proceedings of the International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology 14 
                  (Bridgetown, 1991): 209-210. 
                     Michael Heckenberger, The Ecology of Power: Culture, Place and Personhood in the Southern Amazon, AD 1000-2000 
                  (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 61.
                     Floris W.M. Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’: The Indigenous Adoption of European Material Goods in Early Colonial 
                  Hispaniola,” in Material Encounters and Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas: Archaeological Case Studies, ed. 
                  Corinne L. Hofman and Floris W.M. Keehnen (Boston: Brill, 2019), 67-68. 
                    Hofman et al., “Island Rhythms,” 258-259.
                    Heckenberger, The Ecology of Power, 64 
                    Franz Scaramelli and Kay Tarble de Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture in the Colonization of the Orinoco, 
                  Venezuela,” Journal of Social Archaeology 5, no. 1 (February 2005): 154-155, 
                  https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1177/1469605305050152.
                     Nelly Arvelo-Jiménez and Horacio Biord, “The Impact of Conquest on Contemporary Indigenous Peoples of the Guiana 
                  Shield,” in Amazon Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Anna Roosevelt (Tucson: 
                  University of Arizona Press, 1994), 57-58.
                      Heckenberger, The Ecology of Power, 57.
                      William F. Keegan and Corinne L. Hofman, The Caribbean before Columbus (New York: Oxford University Press, 
                   2017), 109.

5

Regardless, this exoticism and exchange 
became inseparable, and likely caused 
reciprocal amplification. Due to the far 
reaches of interactive trade, exoticism 
can then only be understood as pan-Ca-
ribbean, rather 
than a limited regional phenomenon.

Those that controlled the flow of foreign 
goods became powerful regional actors, 
and often caciques.  Alien jewelry, tools, 
and esoteric forms of knowledge in the 
way of information or cultural practices 
such as dance and folklore could bestow 
esteem.  Political hierarchies were 
structured through the trade of these 
goods. Consequently, a community’s 
foreign items were overwhelmingly 
stored within elite residences.  The 
association of some of these goods 
with religious symbolism also granted 
these leaders an air of spiritual authority 
alongside their temporal one. However, 
these power structures were not 
immutable or inflexible. To preserve 
their alterity and associated renown, 
goods were persistently exchanged and 
widely dispersed, thereby creating new 
elites and displacing old ones.  

5

6

6

7

7

9

9

8

8

The intersection of exoticism and trade 
extended to social organization, with 
intercommunal ties and resolution of 
disputes being facilitated through 
exchange. This entailed material interde-
pendence, as well as integrative social 
processes such as matrilineal marriage, 
adoption, large ceremonies, and frequent 
travel.  Even warfare served these ends, 
by plundering and subsequently adopting 
alien objects and prisoners of war into 
conquering societies.  All these practices 
constituted social incorporation, with 
symbolic articles and people from 
foreign cultures being absorbed. Incorpo-
ration strengthened a community’s 
culture through expansion of practice and 
identity, but also reinforced exoticism, 
interdependent communion, and 
exchange on which the culture was 
based.  This was evidenced in the physi-
cal structure of precolonial communities, 
with a common feature of villages being 
pavilions designated as welcoming and 
trading spaces for passing travellers.  
Although all Caribbean societies 
possessed idiosyncratic practices, they 
were seemingly connected, from South 
America to the Greater Antilles by this 

11

10

10

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                     Scaramelli and Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture,” 150-153. 
                    Mary Jane Berman and Perry L. Gnivecki, “Colonial Encounters in Lucayan Contexts,” in Material Encounters and 
                     Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas: Archaeological Case Studies, ed. Corinne L. Hofman and Floris W.M. 
                     Keehnen (Boston: Brill, 2019), 43-45.
                    Fernando Santos-Granero, Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life (Austin: 
                     University of Texas Press, 2009), 47.  
                    Lynne A. Guitar, “Negotiations of Conquest,” in The Caribbean: A History of the Region and its Peoples, ed. Stephan 
                      Palmié and Francisco A. Scarano (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 120-123. 
                   Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, “European Material Culture in Indigenous Sites in Northeastern Cuba,” in Material Encounters 
                      and Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas: Archaeological Case Studies, ed. Corinne L. Hofman and Floris 
                      W.M. Keehnen (Boston: Brill, 2019), 102-103. 
                  Christopher Miller and George Hamell, “A New Perspective on Indian-White Contact: Cultural Symbols and Colonial 
                      Trade,” The Journal of American History 73, no. 2 (1986): 312-313, https://doi.org/10.2307/1908224.
                  Ibid., 315-318.

14
15

16

17

18

definitive  sociocultural foundation. 
Therefore, trade and exoticism not only 
ensured physical survival through com-
modities, but social survival through 
maintenance of friendly relations and 
cultural preservation.

Contrary Perceptions of Trade 
The importance of exotic goods in 
Caribbean Indigenous societies was 
central to the divergence of their percep-
tions of exchange from Spanish colonial 
viewpoints. Indigenousgroups largely 
entered trade relationships in pursuit not 
only of physical sustenance, but social 
enhancement, through incorporation of 
foreign articles.    The Europeans, howev-
er, regarded trade in a purely economic 
manner, with each side trying to maxi-
mize their gains while incurring minimal 
costs.  Crucially, Indigenous uses of 
slavery tended to be exogenous—through 
abduction in warfare—and were directed 
towards humane societal assimilation of 
foreigners.  Early forms of Spanish 
enslavement or indentured labour, such as 
the encomienda system, prioritized 
exploitation of labour for peak efficiency 
and production.

14

15

16

17

This difference was ground in principles 
of communion versus competition. 
Spaniards continually sought to identify 
the most worthless items within their own 
value systems that could be exchanged 
with Natives in an attempt to exploit 
Indigenous openness to multifarious 
objects of trade.  This effort failed to 
realize that Indigenous systems funda-
mentally differed in perception of value, 
caring little for the functions Europeans 
had ascribed to objects in favour of the 
objects’ ability to be socially incorporat-
ed. Thus, their varying perspectives 
inculcated imperial notions of inherent 
Native primitivity in their failure to 
understand value as it was defined by 
Europeans. 

These demeaning conceptions became 
particularly acute in the eagerness with 
which Indigenous peoples accepted gaudy 
and cheap ‘trinkets’ of Europeans such as 
coloured beads or metal pieces. Entire 
regions were ostensibly purchased with 
such objects, with Europeans exploiting 
the Indigenous perception of trade as 
socially constructed rather than competi-
tive. Rather than primitivity, the appeal of 
these glass and metal objects derived 
from Indigenous belief that they could be 
effectively incorporated.

19

20

18

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                     Hofman et al., “Island Rhythms,” 259-260.
                     Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’,” 65-67.
                     Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: 
                     Oxford University Press, 2004), 33.
                     Scaramelli and Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture,” 158.
                     Cody, “Distribution of Exotic Stone Artifacts,” 209-210.
                     Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’,” 74-75.
                     Miller and Hamell, “A New Perspective,” 312.
                     Keehnen, Hofman, and Antczak, “Material Encounters,” 5.
                     Miller and Hamell, “A New Perspective,” 312.
                     Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’,” 74-75.

21
22

23

24
25

This was often because they resembled 
Indigenous constructions and symbology 
but were nevertheless foreign products.  
These objects were often repurposed for 
alternate uses, such as implementation 
into Indigenous tools, fineries, or ritualis-
tic items.  This tendency spawned colo-
nial arguments for their evolutionary 
failure and consequent inability to com-
prehend complex European practices. 
This included the refusal to consume 
rather than adopt domesticated animals as 
incorporated creatures.

Foreign Goods in Indigenous-Euro-
pean Interaction
The desirability of foreign goods itself 
was misconstrued by the Europeans as a 
desire for specifically European goods. In 
the colonial view, the interdependent 
exchange encouraged by exoticism was 
merely a form of dependence, which 
colonists had adopted upon initiating 
trade.  Strong Indigenous desire for their 
goods and knowledge was seen as an 
implicit admission of European superiori-
ty, even though many Indigenous groups 
typically regarding all foreign goods as 
desirable for their sociocultural purposes. 
Ornamental stone artifacts from South 
America, for example, were considered 
highly valuable among the elites of the 
Greater Antilles.   Both Indigenous 
groups and colonists therefore viewed 

possession of European objects and 
knowledge among Natives as status 
symbols, but for far different reasons. 
Indigenous peoples granted this prestige 
on account of an individual’s apparent 
access to trade and foreign goods, provid-
ing them with power and the means to 
expand their community’s social struc-
tures. The Spaniards, however, perceived 
this possession as the mark of an enno-
bled savage, with close connections to the 
colonial elite and ability to recognize the 
depravity of Indigenous culture.  Kalina-
go warfare against the Spanish, an 
Indigenous opportunity for foreign 
incorporation by capturing prisoners and 
looting, was also used by Spaniards to 
demonize the Kalinago as atavistic 
monsters.  

These notions elevated evolutionary 
rhetoric against Indigenous peoples, by 
contending that even they were cognizant 
of their own inferiority. This cultivated 
the seeds of Eurocentric acculturation 
theory, which held that the triumph of 
European over Indigenous culture was 
inevitable and inseparable from modern-
ization. This perception of exoticism 
reflected Spanish goals in trade. While 
many Natives believed that European 
exchange could augment socialization and 
communion, the Spaniards sought to 
‘civilize’ and assimilate Indigenous 

26
27

21

22

23

25

24

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29
30

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                       Neil Lancelot Whitehead, “The Ancient Amerindian Polities of the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Atlantic Coast,” in 
                          Amazon Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Anna Roosevelt, 33-53 (Tucson: 
                         University of Arizona Press, 1994), 39.
                      Rojas, “European Material Culture,” 109.
                      Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’,” 67-68.
                      Heckenberger, The Ecology of Power, 130. 
                      Scaramelli and Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture,” 139-141.
                      Ibid., 149-151.
                      Whitehead, “The Ancient Amerindian Polities,” 41.
                      Scaramelli and Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture,” 148-150.
                      Arvelo-Jiménez and Biord, “The Impact of Conquest,” 71-72.

31

32
33
34

peoples through trade. Hence, colonists 
characterized Indigenous adoption of 
these goods as an attempt to liberate 
themselves from innately primitive 
cultures and accept Spanish dominion.  
The giving of Spanish clothing to 
Natives, a prestigious foreign item in the 
Indigenous view, was especially regarded 
as a transformative method of civilization 
due to its tangible alteration.  These 
distinct perceptions of Indigenous exoti-
cism and trade permitted ideological 
subordination of Natives and self-glorifi-
cation by Spaniards, thereby justifying 
cultural colonization.

Hierarchy in Exchange 
The ideological institution of natural 
Indigenous inferiority in initial Spanish 
interactions was followed by the exten-
sion of this effort to political hierarchies. 
Political organization in the precolonial 
Caribbean was often determined by the 
exotic and trade, with one’s access 
according them with significant prestige. 
Regional powerbrokers amassed foreign 
goods and knowledge in order to assert 
their status in ostentatious public displays, 
while power continually changed hands 
through the high mobility of goods, partly 
to preserve their exotic quality.  Despite 
significant material exchange between 
Natives and Spanish colonists, European 
goods were sparse across Indigenous 

communities.  This was largely because 
most were located in elites’ physical 
residences, a trend displayed in the 
households of many caciques such as 
Guacanagarí.  The ownership of foreign 
goods granted elites an authority over 
specific areas that was often non-heredi-
tary and ultimately transient. 

 Spanish colonists shattered this complex 
political system, by exploiting the widely 
enshrined principle of exoticism. The 
prevalence of identifiable regional leaders 
within the economic supply chain simpli-
fied colonial appropriation of power and 
goods, through assassination or coercion.  
This permitted them to wrest command 
over Indigenous trade networks and 
monopolize its foreign goods, both their 
own and others, in order to institute 
themselves as high-ranking authorities.  
Indigenous trade networks based in 
exoticism thus unwillingly facilitated 
imperial hegemony. While some Indige-
nous leaders gained prominence by 
controlling exchange of European manu-
factured goods, many were subordinated 
to Spanish rule.  Additionally, Spaniards 
imposed dependency relationships upon 
Indigenous polities by controlling access 
to foreign goods and resources, especially 
addictive ones such as alcohol.  Depen-
dency was deepened by the introduction 
of differential exchange and debt 

35
36
37
38
39  

29

30

31

34

32

33

35

36

37

38

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                       Kathleen Deagan, “Colonial Origins and Colonial Transformations in Spanish America,” Historical Archaeology 37, 
                          no. 4 (2003): 6, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25617091.
                       Heckenberger, The Ecology of Power, 57.
                       Deagan, “Colonial Origins,” 8. 
                       Kathleen Deagan, “Colonial Transformation: Euro-American Cultural Genesis in the Early Spanish-American 
                          Colonies,” Journal of Anthropological Research 52, no. 2 (1996): 150-151, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3630198. 
                       Scaramelli and Scaramelli, “The Roles of Material Culture,” 136-153.
                       Keehnen, “Treating ‘Trifles’,” 65-75.
                       Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet de Onís (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 
                           98-103.

40

41
42
43

mechanisms, thereby intensifying the 
costs of adopting foreign goods while 
heightening their appeal. 
 The impermanence of power was broken 
by this new order, with colonists main-
taining their authority by stagnating the 
formerly rapid flow of intercommunal 
trade and exclusively holding its exotic 
products. Beyond regional dominance, 
colonists exercised exoticism to deepen 
local political influence, primarily 
through intercultural marriage. Many 
Spanish settlers married elite Indigenous 
women in order to assume preeminent 
positions within various Indigenous 
communities and legitimize land acquisi-
tion, through matrilineal policies.  While 
the indigenous population initially 
embraced these occurrences for the 
purpose of foreign integration and social 
expansion, colonists employed it to 
acquire localized power over Indigenous 
groups.  These marriages were even 
endorsed by the Spanish Crown, in order 
to educate Natives in supposedly civiliz-
ing Spanish traditions.   The significant 
role of exoticism in precolonial political 
organization ultimately benefited the 
arriving colonists of the late 15th century, 
providing a path towards pervasive 
methods of political and economic rule 
and Indigenous subjugation.

Cultural Transformation and 
Meaning
The value of the exotic as it related to 
Indigenous-Spanish interaction profound-
ly affected the character and customs of 
Indigenous culture. The mass influx of 
foreign goods expanded the range of 
social and economic practices, and 
rejuvenated preexisting traditions in 
exoticism, trade, and incorporation. 
However, it did so at the cost of validat-
ing Spanish claims to superiority and 
homogenizing foreign influences in native 
societies, with the Spaniards monopoliz-
ing the exotic through their grip on trade 
networks.  At first, Indigenous peoples 
usually perceived this influence as a form 
of “cultural enhancement”, a view shared 
by the Spaniards, but was credited instead 
to racist theories of acculturation and 
social Darwinism.  This became more 
pointed as Indigenous societies, despite 
modifying many goods, began to display 
markers of European influence. This 
included infrastructural, agricultural, 
linguistic, culinary, fashion, and manufac-
turing practices.

Much of this cultural alteration resulting 
from implementation of the exotic 
signified a process of creolization 
between diverse native groups and the 
Spaniards. The emergent mixed-race 
peoples were simultaneously exhibited as 

44
45
46

39  

40

41

42

43

44

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                       Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: 
                            Cornell University Press, 2008), 58-60.
                       Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Praeger, 
                            2003), 78-79.

47

48

the beginnings of inexorable acculturation 
processes and deplored for the tainting of 
Indigenous ancestry.  These claims were 
buttressed by Spanish portrayal of Indige-
nous goods and culture as detrimental to 
Natives themselves, positing that trade 
items such as chocolate and tobacco were 
corrupting forces, despite using them 
themselves.  Spaniards argued that their 
goods were far superior, as evidenced in 
rapid Indigenous incorporation of specific 
items such as European domestic animals 
and tools.  This imperial campaign built 
on Indigenous affinity for foreign goods 
in order to perpetuate unidirectional 
reliance, economic exploitation, and 
political command. Thus, exoticism and 
incorporation of European elements into 
Indigenous culture were encouraged by 
the Spanish Crown and settlers, giving 
rise to new ethnic groups and irreversibly 
altering Indigenous culture. Although this 
served some Indigenous cultural objec-
tives, it bore the cost of greatly advancing 
colonial ones.

Conclusion 
The legacies of Spanish settlement in the 
Caribbean remain devastating to this day, 
having inflicted countless horrors on 
Indigenous peoples and placing them at 
the whims of colonial jurisdiction. 
Repression was not solely directed by 
Spanish practices, but inadvertently by 
Indigenous values in exoticism and 
exchange. In the early years of the 
colonization project, from the 15th to 
16th century, Spaniards exploited this 

tradition to institute their authority and 
degrade Indigenous sovereignty and 
culture. The impact of exoticism is visible 
in the two groups’ differing perceptions of 
trade, placement of political elitism in 
exchange, and Indigenous cultural 
transformations. The results of these 
dynamics have remained in place for 
many generations after Spanish invasion.

46

47

48

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Anderson, Virginia DeJohn. Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed 
        Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 
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        Present:  Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Anna Roosevelt, 55-78. Tucson: 
        University of Arizona Press, 1994.
Berman, Mary Jane and Perry L. Gnivecki. “Colonial Encounters in Lucayan Contexts.” 
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         Archaeological Case Studies, edited by Corinne L. Hofman and Floris W.M. 
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Cody, Annie. “Distribution of Exotic Stone Artifacts Through the Lesser Antilles: Their 
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Deagan, Kathleen. “Colonial Transformation: Euro-American Cultural Genesis in the 
         Early Spanish-American Colonies.” Journal of Anthropological Research 52, no. 2 
         (1996): 135-160. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3630198.
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        Early Colonial Caribbean.” World Archaeology 46, no. 4 (August 8, 2014): 590–609. 
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