Canovanas,Puerto Rico 3/28/2008
A CaribbeanPassion is my Fine Arts during the last 2 years.I live in Puerto Rico,a Caribbean Iland with wonderful scenes and vibrant colors.Since i start to take the images of my country and people i decided to put this simple website so the world can had a piece of my iland at home.
With a wonderful weather Puerto Rico is one the most tourist visiting in the Lesser Antilles.The rich of the cultural scene is very vast, with close relations with other cultures,during the Spanish colonization in the 1800,when Christopher Columbus arrive in 1892.This bring to our Tainos a new heritage.Spaniards start the colonization of Boriken and the settlement of a new social,economic and politics new order.The Spaniards also brought with them another roots of their owns life the food,lifestyles and knowlege that mix with our Tainos way of living.With the colonization and the spread of this events to the world the spaniards ship brought many europeans and slaves.
The slaves of Puerto Rico who came from Africa is another heritage that roots our culture.
According to historians, the first free black man arrived in the island in 1509. Juan Garrido, a conquistador who belonged to Juan Ponce de León's entourage was the first black man to set foot on the island and in the New World. Another free black man who accompanied de León was Pedro Mejías. It is believed that Mejías married a Taíno woman chief (a cacica) by the name of Luisa.[1]
When Ponce de León and the Spaniards arrived in the island of "Borinken" (Puerto Rico), they were greeted by the Cacique Agüeybaná, the supreme leader of the peaceful Taíno tribes in the island. Agüeybaná helped to maintain the peace between the Taínos and the Spaniards. However, the peace would be short-lived because the Spaniards soon took advantage of the Taínos' good faith and enslaved them, forcing them to work in the gold mines and in the construction of forts. Many Taínos died as a result of either the cruel treatment that they had received or of the smallpox disease epidemic which had attacked the island. Many Taínos either committed suicide or left the island after the failed Taíno revolt of 1511.[2]
