Taíno Leaders of Cuba & Jamaica

Long before European arrival, the Taíno people thrived across the Caribbean, living in organized chiefdoms led by caciques — leaders who guided their people with wisdom and protected their communities across the islands.

This flyer honors some of their remembered names. In Cuba: Hatuey (c. 1470–1512), who paddled from Hispaniola to warn the Taíno of the invading Spaniards, led a guerrilla resistance, and was burned at the stake in 1512 — today remembered as Cuba’s “first national hero.” And Guamá (c. 1470–1532), who led a decade-long rebellion in the mountains of eastern Cuba, keeping independent Taíno communities alive until his death.

In Jamaica — called “Xaymaca,” Land of Wood and Water, by its people — Ameyro, a cacique on the island’s eastern end, formed a guatiao (a bond of friendship and mutual respect) with Diego Méndez during Columbus’s stranded fourth voyage, and is one of the few Jamaican Taíno leaders recorded by name.

The Taíno were skilled farmers, navigators, healers, and astronomers, and their legacy lives on in words we still use every day: hurricane, hammock, canoe, barbecue, tobacco, cassava, maize.

We are still here. We are still Caribbean. One People. Many Islands. One Heritage.