Quisqueya
Quisqueya
Quisqueya, one of two names given by the Tainos to the island that Christopher Columbus was to call Hispaniola. In addition to Quisqueya (Mother of the Earth), the Tainos referred to their island as Haiti (Land of Mountains). Quisqueya was divided into five parts: the central region, Maguá; the western section, Jaragua; the northwest, Marién; the east, Higüey; and the south, Maguana. The Tainos belonged to the family of Arawaks, who, over the course of centuries, had migrated from what is now Venezuela, across the Lesser Antilles, to Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba. The arrival of the Spaniards proved disastrous to the Tainos. It is estimated that they numbered 400,000 when Columbus reached Quisqueya in 1492. By 1568, there were thirteen left.
See alsoColumbus, Christopher; Hispaniola.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Roberto Cassa, Los Tainos en la Española (1975).
Frank Moya Pons, "The Tainos of Hispaniola: The Island's First Inhabitants," in Caribbean Review 13, no. 4 (1984): 20-23, 47.
Juan Tomás Tavares K., Los Indios de Quisqueya (1988).
Additional Bibliography
Cambeira, Alan. Quisqueya La Bella: the Dominican Republic in Historical and Cultural Perspective. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997.
Deagan, Kathleen A and José Maria Cruxent. Columbus's Outpost among the Tainos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Maya Pons, Frank. Manual de historia dominicana. Santo Domingo: Cribbean Publishers, 1997.
Kai P. Schoenhals