“The entire political structure was inadequate to mobilize resistance to the constant marauding pressure of the Carib invasions originating from the eastern chain of islands.” Franklin Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism
Last week, I attended a celebration for Dr. Franklin Knight, esteemed scholar of Caribbean history whose work is considered canon for anyone interested in studying the region. It is bringing me back to the book quoted above, which I first read for my comprehensive exams ever so many years ago. I remember tackling it in an independent study I cobbled together on the history of the Caribbean; I remember being excited that it began with the Taino/Carib/Ciboney history of the islands of the Caribbean Sea. I wanted, at the time, to find a way to bring Black Puerto Rican history into my dissertation. Knight’s synthesis was useful for introducing me to the topic…and to how little we really know about the Indigenous Caribbean. And to some of the prejudices academics have have long held about proper and improper organization of society.
Simple things. Like civilizations swing from barbarous to savage to civilized, marching along toward higher orders (civilized) from lesser ones (barbarous). Or that sedentary populations with hierarchical structures are the best ones for survival.
And since I’m still thinking about Butler since my last post, still thinking about what it means to really relinquish our inner capitalist (i.e. murder our inner master à la the maroons of yore), I’m also thinking about these kinds of spectrums a bit more critically than I did years ago.
The passage above is drawn from Knight’s section, early in the book, where he describes Taino chiefdoms as “chronically weak.” Caciques did not have the power to mobilize their population in any considerable way. They could execute basic state level activities—levy taxes (in food), draft warriors for battle, settle disputes between villages, organize labor—but they, according to Knight, didn’t have the “special training” that would have led to mounting an effective resistance against the Caribs, who invaded from other islands. Unable to defend themselves against the Caribs, it made sense that they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against the Spanish.
So much ink has been spilled explaining why the Indigenous across the Western hemisphere couldn’t defend themselves. Not enough on what tyranny or madness propelled the Northeastern hemisphere across the Atlantic to rob, rape, and enslave in the first place.
But if we go with this premise, I actually wonder something else about the description of society in Knight’s work. What if this political structure—a cacique with limited ability to mobilize state resources and in power at the behest of the people—might actually be a creative response to those same incursions. If the structure is loose, is social and political recuperation easier after the apocalypse of invasion occurs over and over again? If the leadership is diffused, does it mean anyone could emerge as a leader? Is it easier to recover kin, if your country is limited to your household or even village? Are you a nation destroyed with each invasion or a smaller unit—a family suffering, but surviving?
Instead of assuming there is a one or better way to be, what if these ways of organizing the world are just different responses to different realities? What if some of these responses are damn smart—small, loose, always ready to move, always ready to regroup. Fractals and fragments more powerful than the whole put together.
Should we assume that is a worse way to be than the society we have now? Or is it just different and not what we would want or choose today? But who knows what we would choose to do if given the chance to evolve?
Anyway, Knight’s framing isn’t surprising and this isn’t a critique. This particular political economy framing is typical of the moment in history when the book was writing, and it is typical of now. Pointing it out should take nothing from the book, from the study itself, or from Knight as a scholar. This text is still canon. And the man who wrote it deserves all of his flowers. It is silly to have to say that these days, but there is a general lack of nuance and generosity floating around so I want to make it clear that lack is not this post. This post is just a bit of curiosity about how we think about the world and what we can learn from it. A bit of kitchen table discourse, if you will.