Steel, germs, guns, and mtDNA

[shkrobius]

I am in Puerto Rico this week, and this brings to mind Diamond's steel, germs, and guns. The story so far: all of the local (warm, wonderful, virtuous) Taino Indians perished in an apocalyptic genocide, being brutally persecuted by the (cold, greedy, murderous) Spaniards and further decimated by the combined forces of pox and measles

Comments

[piterburg]

It is not clear what the mystery was exactly. Everyone who is familiar with Latin American realities knows that most inhabitants of those countries (with the exceptions of Argentina, Uruguay and some areas of Brazil) have Indian ancestors, including those people who do not identify themselves as mestizo. It is also well known that there was a great shortage of white women in the colonies and that European and African immigrants had a habit of having children with indigenous women. (Btw, the Caribs had a habit of doing the same - they were leaving most women of conquered tribes alive and had children with them.)

I once had a gentleman from a prominent family in the state of Ceara (NE Brazil) tell me that his ancestors "came from Portugal". His facial features told otherwise. When we started talking about his family history in more detail, it turned out that he has exactly one Portuguese ancestor (in direct male accession line) who came from Portugal in 1830's and married a Guarani woman. His story is quite typical.

[shkrobius]

The Caribs are said to be different, actually. They moved in large bands with their women and children; it was nothing like European colonization. They did thorough cleaning jobs

[piterburg]

The stories about the genocide are for whipping anti-Western sentiment and to make white Westerners feel guilty - that seems to be quite clear.

I am not sure that you are right about Caribs though: a while ago I came across (do not remember where) some mention of early Spanish explorers being dumbfounded by the fact that male Indians speaking a different language from the females. As the explorers eventually found out, the males were marauding Caribs who not so long before Spaniards' arrival killed off the male population of the island and sired children with the females. (The island might have been Dominica, but I am not sure).

[shkrobius]

I found this story; so I was wrong and they were having female captives. I have to read more about that. It is said that the captives were from small islands raided from the bigger ones.

[chaource]

Why is the male ancestry European but the female Amerindian? Is this because the male Amerindians were killed?

[shkrobius]

Not necessarily. Someone's genes are always leaving the pool. If the descendants of the Spanish have been systematically leaving more descendants than other groups, you will get this picture 25 generations later. This is more than likely given that they had better lands, more wealth, etc

[vdinets]

Actually, there are a few Puerto Ricans who consider themselves part Taino, and an interesting open-air museum of Taino culture somewhere on the S side.

[shkrobius]

I've been there

[vdinets]

Nope, I don´t remember it... you can ask LJ-user botalex, he usually knows such things.