Any time, nuk. Also, I think this lack of knowledge of the Taino roots hasn't been the DR's fault on its entirety, because you have to take into account there are many Afrocentrists (or AfroNazis, more like it) in the US that are interested in "erasing" the native component of the West Indies' racial make-up. And seeing how there are significant segments of our population that are prone to adopt anything that an american says as a dogma, well, we don't need to speculate what the result would be. In the only thing that the DR hasn't bowed down yet to US interests is on the haitian issue (and that's not by much).

Lautaro:

Thanks for this and all the previous post you have made. It has been very informative. Many years ago I read Ponz account of the history of Dominican Republic but was left with several curiosities and I think some of them have been answered.

I once met a genetist who explained to me that the DR is a snapshot of the future makeup of the world.

It might be far-fetched to some people over here, but I think that, notwithstanding the issues with the haitian descended population, the DR is the country that is closest to achieving a racial democracy on the entire continent. Even though many people would try to crucify me for saying this, the fact that the majority of the population is well represented on the political and military class and the level of miscegenation of our population speak more eloquently than all the defaming campaigns waged against us on foreign lands. And as you might know, political power and military high ranks on LA are the exclusive domain of the european descended elite.

AfroNazis? You've been reading too many GC posts Lautaro. Do you really think US Afrocentric scholars were the ones who buried our Taino heritage? That would be quite a feat considering the uphill battle of these scholars to be heard as regards US history, never mind somehow burying history of DR. You could argue that perhaps, in their attempt to redeem African heritage of the New World at large, that these scholars got too defensive or too emphatic. But I would venture that most of them are more sensitive to native histories than establishment (Eurocentric) historians responsible for claims these people were totally wiped out.

I'm telling this because of their paramount influence with the dominican diaspora (see Junot Diaz, Silvio Torres Saillant and Ernesto Sagas' cases). And you must know that the diaspora have had a great cultural influence on the population at large on recent decades.

Do you really believe that Afronazis as you call lthem exist? At one time in the early part of my life I did belive so, but later learned that many African Americans issues with west indians or carribean peoples denying afro component of their heritage was rooted in these groups not identifyng with African Americans and not wanting to be classified as such. These groups just as domincinas, harboured their identity in their cultural roots and not race or color.

I'm still confused. Are you saying these fine men are 'AfroNazis'? I don't doubt they are influenced by black intellectuals, interact with them...and even to some degree consider themselves black intellectuals. But does that make them 'AfroNazis', and are all afrocentric scholars ultra afrocentrics? Are they really the ones who did the erasing in three short decades after the establishment ran history for so many centuries? I don't understand why you are so quick to discard the equanimity and even-handedness of the article and start pinning the blame for this historical ignorance of the Taíno on afrocentric scholarship. Also, after centuries of not telling their story one can hardly blame the afrocentric scholars for bursting on the scene so energetically and emphatically. I would also venture that if the afrocentric scholars and movements of the US had never emerged we would certainly not be coming across scholarship on native peoples of America being funded at universities. That was a barrier the afrocentric scholars broke.

Let's speak the truth

why is it that the Spaniards, French and Portuguese in Caribbean and South America mixed with the natives, while the British did not? This isn't meant to offend anyone, but could it be tied into the fact that the Spaniards, French, and Portuguese were Catholic and the British were protestant? If anyone has any thoughts, i'd like to know.

yumnuk religion may be a part of it, but there's also the immediate history of the Iberian's before their arrival. They already came from a culture where there were issues around identity, mixing and clashing of cultures, religions, and genes, and also a tradition of counter-culture/camouflaged resistance. I'm reading a great book on the topic now...

Undoing Empire: Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean by José F. Buscaglia-Salgado

...hope to share a review when I finish.