Polack Post: Caribbean Indigenous Connection
By Peter Polack
Peter Polack
I was once married to a Canadian woman from an indigenous background referred to in Canada as a Métis or mixed blood. Her youngest brother has spent his life in and out of jail. That experience gave me understanding and empathy for those people with the blight of alcohol on their communities. Luckily, Caribbean indigenous communities have not been beset by that scourge.
The Caribbean does not have widespread groups of indigenous communities throughout the islands but a few do exist, mostly the Carib or Garifuna of St. Vincent and Belize. The Caribs were thought to be cannibals.
The original settlers of Jamaica were Arawaks, later wiped out by the Spanish from overwork and disease. Descendants of our original Spanish rulers now peaceably and profitably occupy many of the North Coast resorts of Jamaica without having to bear any reparation burden.
That happens if there is no modern day representation for a people destroyed by genocide.
They are sometimes referred to as the Second Spanish Invasion.
They have not been prominent in post Melissa hurricane relief and restoration. A good start would be the Maroon communities of Jamaica, now in a time of need.
Some sources believe there are remnants of Arawak and Taino blood in the Maroon communities. These indigenous people of Jamaica are also thought to have been the first runaway slaves to form early Maroons, a word taken from the Spanish word for wild.
There may be concrete confirmation in the works with the development of DNA ancestry.If confirmed, the Maroons like the Métis of Canada, may see some benefits coming their way from the Spanish government or Spanish entrepreneurs in Jamaica and even the government of Jamaica as a national treasure, to be preserved.
One story has Diego Mendez, the Portuguese secretary of Christopher Columbus, returning to Spain with several Arawaks.
Time will tell if any bloodline exists in Europe from any Arawaks taken from the New World.
Notes
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/02/08/maroons-and-their-indigenous-lineage
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
