Taíno people in the context of "La Navidad"

La Isabela in Puerto Plata Province, Dominican Republic was the first stable Spanish settlement and town in the Americas established in December 1493. The site is 42 km west of the city of Puerto Plata, adjacent to the village of El Castillo. The area now forms a National Historic Park.

La Isabela was founded by Christopher Columbus during his second voyage, and named after Queen Isabella I of Castile. The settlement of La Navidad, established by Columbus one year earlier to the west of La Isabela in what is present day Haiti, was destroyed by the native Taíno people before he returned. La Isabela was abandoned by 1500.

The Tibes Indigenous Ceremonial Center (Spanish: Centro Ceremonial Indígena de Tibes) in Sector La Vega de Taní, Barrio Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico, houses one of the most important archaeological discoveries made in the Antilles. The discovery provides an insight as to how the indigenous tribes of the Igneri and Taínos lived and played during and before the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World. Tibes is the oldest Antillean Indian ceremonial and sports complex yet uncovered in Puerto Rico. Within its boundaries is also the largest indigenous cemetery discovered to date – consisting of 186 human skeletons, most from the Igneri and the rest from the pre-Taíno cultures. Based on the orientation of the ceremonial plazas, this is also believed to be the oldest astronomical observatory in the Antilles. The museum was established in 1982 and restored in 1991.

Iguana (/ɪˈɡwɑːnə/, Spanish: [iˈɣwana]) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described by Austrian naturalist J.N. Laurenti in 1768. Two species are placed in the genus: The green iguana, which is widespread throughout its range and a popular pet; and the Lesser Antillean iguana, which is native to the Lesser Antilles. Genetic analysis indicates that the green iguana may comprise a complex of multiple species, some of which have been recently described, but the Reptile Database considers all of these as subspecies of the green iguana.

The word "iguana" is derived from the original Taino name for the species, iwana.In addition to the two species in the genus Iguana, several other related genera in the same family have common names of the species including the word "iguana".

The Parque Nacional de las Cavernas del Río Camuy (English: Camuy River Cave National Park) is a cave system in Puerto Rico. It is located between the municipalities of Camuy, Hatillo, and Lares in northwestern Puerto Rico, but the main entrance to the park is located in Quebrada, Camuy. The caverns are part of a large network of natural limestone caves and underground waterways carved out by the third-largest underground river in the world, the Río Camuy (Camuy River). The cave system was "discovered" in 1958 and was first documented in the 1973 book Discovery at the Río Camuy (ISBN 0-517-50594-0) by Russell and Jeanne Gurnee, but there is archaeological evidence that these caves were explored hundreds of years ago by the Taíno Indians, Puerto Rico's first inhabitants. Over 10 miles of caverns, 220 caves and 17 entrances to the Camuy cave system have been mapped so far. This, however, is only a fraction of the entire system which many experts believe still holds another 800 caves. Only a small part of the complex is open to the public. The 268-acre park built around the cave system features tours of some of the caves and sinkholes, and is one of the most popular natural attractions in Puerto Rico. After restorations necessitated by Hurricane Maria, a destructive storm that struck Puerto Rico in 2017, the park re-opened on March 24, 2021. It then closed again from September 2022 until February 2023 due to Hurricane Fiona.

A cacicazgo (Spanish; also anglicized as caciquedom) is a Taíno chiefdom, ruled by a cacique. The Spanish colonial system recognized indigenous elites as nobles in Mexico and Peru, and other areas. Nobles could entail their estates, which were called cacicazgos on the model of Spanish entailed estates, or mayorazgos. This term is found in contexts such as "la princesa de Cofachiqui, señora de un cacigazgo indígena" or, for example: "In November of 1493, the island of Boriquén had approximately 20 cacigazgos." According to Spanish chronicles, the cacique was at the apex of the Taíno feudal structure. Bartolomé de las Casas refers to these cacigazgos as kingdoms.

Many individual cacicazgos have been studied in colonial Mexico, showing that entailment was a successful means to preserve noble indigenous resources as the situation for commoners declined. There are cases where Spaniards married into cacique families, thereby giving them access to indigenous resources. In the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico, a whole section of records, called Vínculos, is devoted to individual noble entailments. A collection of them was published in 1961. Cacicazgos survived into the nineteenth century. Conflicts over inheritance were common, and the litigants' arguments found in these cases form the basis for understanding some of the dynamics of the institution. Over time, the concept of cacique shifted, with some women attaining the title of cacica. Cacicazgo likewise underwent some transformation during the colonial era in Mexico. "By law, a cacique was a single heir and possessor of a cacicazgo estate, which always included land and often a subject labor force to work it. The Indians themselves, however, saw things differently, and by late colonial times it was not unusual for all the sons and daughters of a cacique (or cacica) to adopt the title. How and why this change took place, its chronology, and what it meant for local community organization remain imperfectly understood...The late colonial setting was vastly different, and indigenous noble claims of the period must be understood in the context in which they arose."