The Taino Lie: How a Fake Tribe Rewrote Caribbean History: An Exposé of Modern Ethnohistorical Manipulation in the Caribbean

The modern resurgence of so-called “Taino identity” represents one of the most compelling—and problematic—cultural phenomena in contemporary Caribbean discourse. Over the last fiftyyears, self-identified Taino groups have emerged across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic,Cuba, and within diasporic communities in the United States, particularly in the New York tri-state area and Florida. These groups claim to be the descendants of a once-unified Indigenousnation thought to have been rendered extinct during the early colonial period. They presentthemselves as living embodiments of Taino ancestry, culture, and political continuity, invokingterms like “reclamation,” “existence,” and “revitalization.” These claims, however, do not holdup to critical historical scrutiny.