Caquetio, Caiquetio, or Caiquetia are natives of northwestern
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, living along the shores of
Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo (Spanish: Lago de Maracaibo; Anu: Coquivacoa) is a lagoon in northwestern Venezuela, the largest lake in South America and one of the oldest on Earth, formed 36 million years ago in the Andes Mountains. The fault in the northern se ...
at the time of the Spanish conquest. They moved inland to avoid enslavement by the Spaniards, while their numbers were drastically affected by colonial warfare, as were their neighbours, the
Quiriquire and the
Jirajara. The Caquetíos were also present in
Aruba
Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
,
Curaçao
Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...
and
Bonaire
Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west ( leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC i ...
when these islands were first colonized by
Alonso de Ojeda
Alonso de Ojeda (; c. 1466 – c. 1515) was a Spanish explorer, governor and conquistador. He travelled through modern-day Guyana, Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, Curaçao, Aruba and Colombia. He navigated with Amerigo Vespucci who is famous ...
in 1499. The occupants of this region were known as Caquetíos by the Spaniards and their language (''
Caquetío
Caquetio, Caiquetio, or Caiquetia are natives of northwestern Venezuela, living along the shores of Lake Maracaibo at the time of the Spanish conquest. They moved inland to avoid enslavement by the Spaniards, while their numbers were drastically ...
'') belongs to the
Arawakan
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
family of languages. The Caquetío and the Jirajara spoke the same language, and their cultures were quite similar. The Arawakan or Caquetío language is termed a "ghost" language because virtually no trace of it survives. Only the name remains, saved in 17th-century texts.
Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire
When the Spanish arrived in Aruba around 1500 they found the Caiquetios in Aruba, living much as they did in the
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...
. The Caiquetios had probably migrated to Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire in canoes made from hollowed out logs they used for fishing. Such crossings from the
Paraguana peninsula in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, across the 17 miles (27 km) of open sea to Aruba, would be possible in the canoes the Caiquetios of Venezuela built.
Settlement areas in Venezuela and Colombia
"This nation is very large, but lives in many areas separated from each other," so the summary of the 16th century chronicler Juan de Castellanos.
The Caquetío settled not only in the coastal region in the west of what is now Venezuela, but in at least two other regions: the valley of
Barquisimeto
Barquisimeto (; guc, Watkisimeeta) is a city in Venezuela. It is the capital of the state of Lara and head of Iribarren Municipality. It is an important urban, industrial, commercial and transportation center of the country, recognized as the f ...
in the state of
Lara
Lara may refer to:
Places
* Lara (state), a state in Venezuela
*Electoral district of Lara, an electoral district in Victoria, Australia
* Lara, Antalya, an urban district in Turkey
* Lara, Victoria, a township in Australia
* Lara de los In ...
and in what is now Colombia's
Llanos Orientales. In the fertile valley of Barquisimeto, according to
Nikolaus Federmann
Nikolaus Federmann ( es, link=no, Nicolás Féderman, ) (c. 1505, Ulm – February 1542, Valladolid) was a German adventurer and conquistador in what is modern-day Venezuela and Colombia. He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedi ...
, the first conquistador to enter their land, there were 23 large settlements and they could muster 30,000 warriors. According to concurring reports of the chroniclers
and
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo
Gonzalo may refer to:
* Gonzalo (name)
* Gonzalo, Dominican Republic, a small town
* Isla Gonzalo, a subantarctic island operated by the Chilean Navy
* Hurricane Gonzalo, 2014
See also
* Gonzalez (disambiguation)
* Gonzales (disambiguation)
* ...
y Valdés, they inhabited the savannas from the
Rio Apure in the north to beyond the
Rio Casanare in the south. The west-east extension of the "Grassland Caquetío" was from the edge of the Andes to far into the savannas, possibly as far as the
Rio Meta
The Meta River is a major left tributary of the Orinoco River in eastern Colombia and southern Venezuela, South America. The Meta originates in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes and flows through the Meta Department, Colombia as the confluence of ...
.
Spanish period
During the first years of colonization, the natives of Aruba were described by the Spaniards as Caquetíos. In addition, the Caquetíos in the mainland were the tribe geographically closest to Aruba, and archaeological evidence points towards close ties between both groups during
pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
times. Perhaps as many as 600 lived in Aruba at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1499.
Together with Curaçao and Bonaire, Aruba was declared an island without use in 1513, and two years later some 2000 Caquetíos from the three islands combined were transported to
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...
to work in mines. These people presumably comprised the entire population of the islands, but 150 to 200 were returned to Aruba and Curaçao in 1526 to work on the exportation of
brazilwood
''Paubrasilia echinata'' is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is endemic to the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. It is a Brazilian timber tree commonly known as Pernambuco wood or brazilwood ( pt, pau-de-pernambuco, ; ...
,
kwihi, and
divi-divi
''Libidibia coriaria'', synonym ''Caesalpinia coriaria'', is a leguminous tree or large shrub native to the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and northern and western South America. Common names include divi-divi, cascalote, guaracabuya, gu ...
. The people returned to Aruba and Curaçao were mainly Caquetíos, but some Arawaks from other Caribbean islands were included in the group. Because of the complexity of the Aruba cave labyrinths, it is possible that they were mostly natives who had escaped deportation, but they could have been recent migrants from the mainland. In addition, substantial mainland-to-Aruba migrations of escapees occurred from 1529 to 1556, during the development of the
Venezuelan colony (Haviser, 1991).
Dutch period
Aruba was neglected by the Spaniards from 1533 until the Dutch conquest of 1636, when Spanish and native languages (especially Caquetío) were widely spoken. Upon the Dutch conquest the Spaniards fled, and the natives were deported to the mainland because they were regarded as sympathetic to the Spaniards. However, in that same year of 1636, the
Dutch West Indian Company (WIC) assigned Aruba the duty of breeding horses and cattle, and natives were chosen for these endeavors because they had a good reputation as wild-horse hunters. Also, some in war with Spaniards west of Maracaibo fled to Aruba.
The importance of Aruba diminished after the
1648 Peace Treaty between the Netherlands and Spain, and the island was neglected again. In 1655, the Dutch West Indian Company recognized free inhabitants of Aruba as trade partners. These people were assigned a piece of land on which to maintain themselves through cultivation; they also cut and sold wood and exploited marine resources.
Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, who wrote about his experiences as a
buccaneer
Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from Stuart Restoration, the Restoration in 16 ...
in the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, gives a description of the Aruban way of life during the second half of the 17th century. Exquemelin points out that the people spoke Spanish, were Catholic, and were visited frequently by Spanish priests from the mainland. As an example of their strong links with the mainland, some 200 residents agreed to leave Aruba in 1723 to raise the Venezuelan town of El Carrizal under the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of the city of
Coro.
Dutch government records show that the last true native of Aruba died in Aruba around 1862. However, even today, recognisable features remain in the faces of many of the native Arubans. Recent
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...
Analysis in Aruba has shown the existence of
Amerindian DNA still present in population.
[Gladys Toro-Labrador et al]
Mitochondrial DNA Analysis in Aruba: Strong Maternal Ancestry of Closely Related Amerindians and Implications for the Peopling of Northwestern Venezuela.
Caribbean Journal of Science, Vol. 39, No. 1, 11-22, 2003
Bibliography
*(1948). '' Handbook of South American Indians''. Volume 4. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
*Hertog, Johannes (1961). ''History of the Netherlands Antilles''. Dewitt.
*Hutkrantz, Ake (1979). ''The Religions of the American Indians''. M. Setterwall, trans. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Steward, Julian et al., eds (1959). ''Native Peoples of South America''. New York: McGraw Hill.
* Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés: Historia General y Natural de las Indias. Madrid 1959.
* Juan de Castellanos: ''Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias''. Bogotá 1997.
* Indianische Historia; Nicolaus Federmann. Introduction by Juan Friede. München 1965.
References
{{authority control
Arawak peoples
Indigenous peoples in Venezuela
Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean