The Pre-Columbian Period

The belief that the American Indians were indigenous persisted until relatively recently. But today it is generally accepted that the first Americans were actually wandering Asians who took advantage of the prevailing ice age to cross the Bering Straits from Siberia to Alaska and enter a continent devoid of human life. Then, perhaps 10,000 years ago most of the large ice caps melted and seas rose, inundating the land bridge and sealing off the Asian pioneers in what would later be called the New World.

They were hunter-gatherers, these pioneers, with a nomadic way of life, which meant that when a band became too numerous to function efficiently, a part would break off and move on to new lands. Gradually this hiving out took them southward, and archeological remains tentatively suggest that some 9,000 years ago the southerly thrust finally came to an end as they reached the southern tip of South America.

It seems to have been much later, however, that the first humans settled the islands of the Caribbean, although there is neither a firm date nor agreement on the mainland from which those first to arrive came. For example, the northern Antilles, Cuba, is a short sailing distance from both southern Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula, whereas on the other end of the island chain, to the southeast, lies Trinidad, just off the South American continent.

When the first Spaniards reached the Caribbean, they found at least four Indian cultures whose bearers had apparently arrived at different times, with the levels of those cultures reflecting the stage of human development on the mainlands when the mingrations occurred.