In October 11, 1492 three ships arrived to our land the caribbean island called Guanahani. This spanish people immediately claimed this their propety and renamed it San Salvador.They thought we were indians because they they thought they had landed in India. The spanish people took control of us knowing we didn't have no weapons or nothing to defend ourselves against them, we then became their captivos. We were put to work all day but only one time we had a victory La Navidad all spanish were killed but then we got capture again and put enslaved. We tried to rebel but the spanish responded us with brutal forces:they attacked my people, let them be eaten by dogs, burned alive, killed babies against rocks, slaughter . Hatuey an Taino leader who escaped the spanish capture and led a revolt against spanish in Cuba. He was killed but to all of us he is our hero. For two years the spanish suffered starvation they refused to eat our food and our great weather was too humid and hot for them. Later on the spanish created the ecomiendas system each spanish colonist was given a land grant, they could used use and do whatever thay wanted to us. They put us to work and made us suffer of starvation. In 1510 a roman catholic priest organized to protest the injustices of the spanish against us. Fray Antonio de Montesinos was the leader for this march.Montesinos said that they couldn't called themselves christians if they were treating humans like this. Las Casas owned an encomienda with native workers. Montesinos then convince him about the wrong things he was doing and gave away his encomiendas. He was then called "Protector of the Indians." Because the spanish had killed most of my people they started bringing slaves from Africa into the caribbean. Soon after that they started dying because the spanish were working them to death. They started bringing sugar from Africa and then grew it in the caribbean. As sugar became increasingly properous they then realized they needed more of my people to send them to the others caribbeans. Enslaved africans faced horrible conditions:they made them starve to death, worked to death, branded as property, taken away from their family, treated worse than animals, hanged for punishment, chained together for months below deck with rats. By the mid's 1500's there were more africans on other islands than spanish people. As you could see this is my horrible life as a Taino but I'm going to keep on trying to change everything for all my people that were killed by spanish.
