Indigenous Migration, Diaspora, and Transculturation in Colonial Cuba

Summary

For nearly half a millennium, Cuba served as an outpost, key to the defence of the Spanish American empire, and one of the first centres for slavery in the colonial Americas. At the same time, Cuba also served the interests of various continental and isthmian American Amerindian groups and individuals, many who, from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, journeyed to the island colony voluntarily for trade, diplomacy, and refuge. At the same time, thousands were also transported involuntarily as victims of forced migrations. In both cases, many of these indigenous peoples settled in Cuba. The source territories of these journeys included Florida, New Spain/Mexico, and Central America. Evidence to date strongly suggests that the most continuous and substantial sources for Indigenous movement, migration, and settlement in Cuba originated in the Mesoamerican and isthmian regions, and included, for example, Maya and Nahua peoples. This study examines the diasporic and multicultural indigenous presence in Cuba, with particular emphasis on the early colonial period as, on one hand, suggestive of continuity with pre-colonial migration dynamics, and, on the other, as the springboard for mobility and extra-continental migrations of Amerindian peoples during the colonial period to the largest island in the Caribbean.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on Early Migrations in the Western Caribbean   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage