Hi MeoW333. Native American as in the indigenous people of the carribean. Not those of the continental United States. The caribe indians come to mind off hand.
Very interesting history about the caribes. Anyway, they are one of the groups to be considered indigenous to the carribean islands. So very simply put, they were there, the Spaniards came settled in and then the Spaniards brought over Africans to do the manual labor. Then you have a blending of those races over centuries and viola you have a one sentence history of Puerto Rico
So that would give you a very simple idea of the blending of the cultures and religions and genetics
Sorry to add to this, Kat, but I'm actually taking my second class right now specifically on this topic of Amerindians and the Caribbean (now doing the French Caribbean) with one of the foremost authorities in the world on this subject.
The Caribs were on the Lesser Antilles, and the Spaniards avoided this area because they were seeking gold (at first, and then when that didn't pan out, sought to bring about the first "sugar revolution", which ultimately failed at the time of the Tiano-Arawak's extinction in the early 1500s, thus making way for the African Slave Trade, as Indentured Servants died too quickly, could not meet labor demands, and scoffed at the idea of doing "slave labor"). If you want to know the term for these indigenous populations, it is "Amerindian", in an academic sense.
Caribs survived until the early 19th c., but the Arawaks on the Greater Antilles were decimated rather quickly (for various reasons, but mainly because of their political structure and epidemiological factors).
Puerto Rico was not where the rest of these populations were deported to...they were sent to Saint Dominique (modern Haiti) and St. Vincent's...
The ethnogenesis you are speaking of is most likely the "Black Caribs"...they were deported to Honduras in 1797 by the British (called "Garifuna"). The only place now-a-days that has any remnants of these populations is Saint Dominique (Haiti), according to the foremost academics on this subject. Creole (and all included forms) is remarkable in that it is the most recently created language in the world. The different Creoles cannot even be called dialects because they are so different. This blending was from the African and French populations
In all my studies, I have never encountered Puerto Rico as having any role in these populations....and P.R. is not considered to be in the "Caribbean" by modern-day Historians.
Not trying to be snarky - I just spend ridiculous amounts of time/energy on this subject for school and thought I would throw in a mini-history lesson! =)
