A linguistic analysis supporting a new model of the colonization of the Antilles before 1492 This work formulates a testable hypothesis of the origins and migration patterns of the aboriginal peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), the Lucayan Islands (the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Crown Colony of the Turks and Caicos), the Virgin Islands, and the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, prior to European contact. Using archaeological data as corroboration, the authors synthesize evidence that has been available in scattered locales for more than 500 years but which has never before been correlated and critically examined. Within any well-defined geographical area (such as these islands), the linguistic expectation and norm is that people speaking the same or closely related language will intermarry, and, by participating in a common gene pool, will show similar socioeconomic and cultural traits, as well as common artifact preferences. From an archaeological perspective, the converse is deducible: artifact inventories of a well-defined sociogeographical area are likely to have been created by speakers of the same or closely related language or languages. Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles presents information based on these assumptions. The data is scant—scattered words and phrases in Spanish explorers' journals, local place names written on maps or in missionary records—but the collaboration of the authors, one a linguist and the other an archaeologist, has tied the linguistics to the ground wherever possible and allowed the construction of a framework with which to understand the relationships, movements, and settlement patterns of Caribbean peoples before Columbus arrived.

This book contains a list of Taino words, many of which are not found in any other text book about the Taino language. This rare collection of indigenous words were gathered from the mountainous areas of Maricao, Puerto Rico, which eludes to the name Boricua; the true name of the Native Americans from Puerto Rico. The author of these words is unknown but were obtained by Dr. Richard Morrow Porrata in their original form some 30 years ago. Since then he has studied them and has identified most of them as rare and unique to Puerto Rico. They are assembled in this book in their original form and are a great asset for those who share Dr. Morrow's love towards revitalizing the Taino language. They are immensely valuable and helpful towards filling in the blanks in Taino syntax. This book is a must for any student of the Taino language and it is Dr. Morrow's pleasure to share these remnant words of the Boricua Indian with the world.

This is the most advanced book written on the subject of the Taino language. It is authored by Professor Richard Porrata Doria, Ph.D., and is the adopted contemporary language of the Descendants of Puerto Rico's First Nation. It teaches the reader the fundamentals of the Taino language, its syntax, and sets the proper standard on how to formulate the language in logical and systematical order. Professor Porrata gives instructions throughout the book through teaching sessions and domains that he developed, which instructs the student how to correctly use Taino prefixes, suffixes, connotations, etc.. His easy to learn teaching methods show the student how to properly construct Taino sentences such as questions and answers and other expressions in Taino; a language that was once thought to be extinct but that Professor Porrata has proven it to have been only sleeping. The book is cram backed with illustrations and Taino sentences. He also teaches the reader of independent study the process of verbing and word blending to bring Taino words back into existence. A retired associate professor from the University of Puerto Rico's Multilingual and Cultural Institute, a US Army language instructor, including 120 credit hours of Native American linguistics from the University of Oregon, and his numerous books written on the Taino language reflects that Dr. Porrata is in the tradition of keeping the Taino language alive. This book is a must for anyone interested in learning how to speak, read, and write in the Taino language.

This seminal work was assembled by Dr. Richard Morrow Porrata, a retired professor from the University of Puerto Rico's Multilingual and Cultural Institute Division of Continuing Education. He is a Native American descendant of Taino ancestry. He is presently the administrator for the Taino Descendants of Puerto Rico with FamilyTreeDNA.com and the Chairman for Descendants of Puerto Rico's First Nation. Additionally, he was the national president for the Native American and Alaskan Native Coalition during the Clinton administration. He also served as an ambassador for the Taino people and was a former Taino chief in 1994, and a deputy chief under Paramount Chief Hilary Frederick of the Caribe Indian Nation in 1997. Moreover, he is a Doctorate Fellow of Walden University. Dr. Morrow has been fascinated with his Taino ancestry since childhood when his Puerto Rican mother told him that her mother's side of the family were Taino Indians. After moving to Puerto Rico in 1991 from the Continental United States he was surprised to find out that many Puerto Ricans believed that the Taino Indians had all dissapeared 500 years ago. This led Dr. Morrow on a quest to conduct genealogical research to prove his mother's words by acquiring documented evidence in the form of vital statistics that not only identified ancestors as indigenous but also a paper trail that led his native roots straight back to the Indiera, the last known Taino settlement in Puerto Rico written about by the famous historian Dr. Salvador Brau. Moreover, the age of DNA proved without a doubt that his mother's lineage was indeed Native American, which National Geographic stated went back some 30,000 years to some of the first people who enter the Americas. This intrigued Dr. Morrow so much that he continued digging deeper by not only using historic documents but studying Native American pottery for several years; not to become a potter but to learn the engineering process behind ceramics such as local materials and designs used in the construction of clay vessels. By using his maternal DNA results along with his knowledge of Native American pottery, he was able to trace an Ostionoid lineage out of Puerto Rico going back to the Mississippi River and Ohio River valleys. Not only did he trace a native lineage going back to the Mississippi and Hopewell cultures but he broaden his investigation by proving an indigenous presence on the island of Puerto Rico by going forward starting from the year 1797; a date that most historians thought was the last documented evidence of Indian people living on the island. He made several discoveries such as allocating an old 1817 militia roll from San German, Puerto Rico that identifies 382 Indian soldiers with their full names and ranks. Dr. Morrow devotes an entire chapter in honor of these soldiers. This is the first historic book about Puerto Rico that gives a written account about the existence of these Taino warriors. He discribes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, an American Indian existence in Puerto Rico into the 20th Century by presenting government documents of that era from both local and federal archives. Dr. Morrow's research took many years that has added up into thousands of hours. He includes all of his technics and discoveries into this book so that anyone who has an oral history of being Taino can learn how to validate their Taino lineage supported by documented evidence without having to spend decades researching as he has done. In his book he explains his research methods from acquiring documents, to DNA matching, and the use of ArcheoCeramic technology.. He explains in detail how to use direct and indirect evidence as tools for proving one's Taino lineage. This book is not only a valuable resource for the Taino descendant of Puerto Rican heritage but it can also benefit people from the Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica who may also have a family oral history of being Taino.

Rosario Ferre uses family history as a metaphor for the class struggles and political evolution of Latin America and Puerto Rico in this highly provacative, profound, and delightfully readable collection of stories. Originally published in Spanish under the title Maldito Amor ("Cursed Love"), Sweet Diamond Dust introduced American readers to a voice that is by turns lyrical and wickedly satiric. In this tale the De La Valle family's secrets, ambitions, and passions, interwoven with the fate of the local sugar mill, are recounted by various relatives, friends, and servants. As the characters struggle under the burden of privilege, the story, permeated with haunting echoes of Puerto Rico's own turbulent history, becomes a splendid allegory for a nation's past. The three accompanying stories each follow the lives of the descendants of the De La Valle family, making the book a drama in four parts, raising troubling issues of race, religion, freedom, and sex, with Ferre's trademark irony and startling imagery.