A historical novel, Columbus and Caonabó: 1493-1498 Retold dramatizes Columbus's invasion of Española on his second voyage and the bitter resistance mounted by its Taíno peoples, led by the Taíno chieftain Caonabó. Based closely on primary sources, the story is told from both Taíno and European perspectives, including through the eyes of Caonabó and Columbus. Chief Caonabó opposes any European presence on the island and massacres the garrison Columbus left behind on his first voyage. When Columbus returns, the second voyage's twelve-hundred settlers suffer from disease and famine and are alienated by his harsh rule, resulting in crown-appointed officers and others deserting for Spain. Sensing European vulnerability, Caonabó establishes a broad Taíno alliance to expel the intruders, becoming the first of four centuries of Native American chieftains known to organize war against European expansion. Columbus realizes that Caonabó's capture or elimination is key to the island's conquest, and their conflict escalates--with the fateful clash of their soldiers, cultures, and religions, enslavement of Taíno captives, the imposition of tribute, and hostile face-to-face conversations. As battles are lost, Caonabó's wife Anacaona anguishes and considers how to confront the Europeans if Caonabó is killed. The settlers grow more brutal when Columbus explores Cuba and Jamaica, and his enslaved Taíno interpreters witness them forcing villagers into servitude, committing rape, and destroying Taíno religious objects. Chief Guarionex, whose territory neighbors Caonabó's, studies Christianity with missionaries and observes the first recorded baptism of a Native in the Americas but ultimately rejects his own conversion. Isabella and Ferdinand are disturbed when Columbus initiates slave shipments home, but they deliberately acquiesce--and the justification for the European enslavement of Native Americans begins to evolve. The novel is the sequel to Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold, which portrays the lives of the same Taíno and European protagonists from youth through 1492. Historic and newly drawn maps and portraits are woven into the narrative, including of Columbus and Caonabó. The Sources section discusses interpretations of historians contrary to the author's presentation and issues of academic disagreement.

A Taino Indian boy on the island of San Salvador recounts the landing of Columbus and his men in 1492.

A historical novel, Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold dramatizes the story of Columbus's epic voyage from a bicultural perspective, fictionalizing the beliefs, thoughts, and actions of the Native Americans who met Columbus side by side with his own and those of other Europeans, all closely based on Columbus's Journal and other primary sources.

Applying the legend of the "stranger king" to Caonabo, the mythologized Taino chief of the Hispaniola settlement Columbus invaded in 1492, Keegan examines how myths come to resonate as history--created by the chaotic interactions of the individuals who lived the events of the past as well as those who write and read about them. The "stranger king" story told in many cultures is that of a foreigner who comes from across the water, marries the king's daughter, and deposes the king. In this story, Caonabo, the most important Taíno chief at the time of European conquest, claimed to be imbued with Taino divinity, while Columbus, determined to establish a settlement called La Navidad, described himself as the "Christbearer." Keegan's ambitious historical analysis--knitting evidence from Spanish colonial documents together with data gathered from the archaeological record--provides a new perspective on the encounters between the two men as they vied for control of the settlement, a survey of the early interactions of the Tainos and Spanish people, and a complex view of the interpretive role played by historians and archaeologists. Presenting a new theoretical framework based on chaos and complexity theories, this book argues for a more comprehensive philosophy of archaeology in which oral myths, primary source texts, and archaeological studies can work together to reconstruct a particularly rich view of the past.  A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

Hispaniola examines the early years of the contact period in the Caribbean and in narrative form reconstructs the social and political organization of the Ta&iactue;no.

Keegan and Carlson, combined, have spent over 45 years conducting archaeological research in the Caribbean, directing projects in Trinidad, Grenada, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, the Turks & Caicos Islands, and throughout the Bahamas. Walking hundreds of miles of beaches, working without shade in the Caribbean sun, diving in refreshing and pristine waters, and studying the people and natural environment around them has given them insights into the lifeways of the people who lived in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Sadly, harsh treatment extinguished the culture that we today call Taíno or Arawak. In an effort to repay their debt to the past and the present, the authors have focused on the relationship between the Taínos of the past (revealed through archaeological investigations) and the present natural history of the islands. Bringing the past to life and highlighting commonalities between past and present, they emphasize Taíno words and beliefs about their worldview and culture.