History on Mona Island

Abstract

The history of Mona Island and her transitory and permanent communities provides an interesting perspective on the role this small island has played over the long-term in spheres of maritime interaction in the Caribbean and further afield. In particular, we examine the role that the extraordinary cave systems have played in attracting people to the island and into the subterranean realm within. Through a recent study of the extant historical sources and archaeological evidence for past human activity on the island, we trace this historical landscape and seascape in order to review the importance of Mona in wider regional dynamics through time.

Complex landscape biographies: palimpsests of Fort-Liberté, Haiti

“…Recent studies have focused on the indigenous plantscape dynamics that benefitted the early Europeans' survival and domination of the Caribbean (Pagán-Jiménez et al, 2020) and the pre-colonial landscape that was changed over time by colonial activity (e.g. Bain et al, 2018;Castilla-Beltrán et al, 2020Hofman & Keehnen, 2019;Rivera-Collazo, 2015;Rivera-Collazo et al, 2018;Samson & Cooper, 2015).…”

‘The Mona Chronicle’: the archaeology of early religious encounter in the New World

“…In AD 1494, one or more indigenous communities lived on Mona's coast, a day's canoe journey from the neighbouring, larger islands, tending agricultural plots and taking advantage of the abundant terrestrial and marine resources. Stone-lined plazas and a long history of the use of the island's many caves indicate that these communities were tied into inter-regional networks (Dávila Dávila 2003;Samson & Cooper 2015a). Accounts of Mona in early colonial documents (Samson & Cooper 2015b) identify that indigenous populations were fully immersed in direct contact with Europeans and Africans throughout the sixteenth century.…”

“…Stone-lined plazas and a long history of the use of the island's many caves indicate that these communities were tied into inter-regional networks (Dávila Dávila 2003;Samson & Cooper 2015a). Accounts of Mona in early colonial documents (Samson & Cooper 2015b) identify that indigenous populations were fully immersed in direct contact with Europeans and Africans throughout the sixteenth century. This indio population experienced a generation of transformation as Spanish power was increasingly projected into the Caribbean.…”

“…Archaeological evidence of an indigenous presence on Mona spans over 5000 years (Dávila Dávila 2003;Samson & Cooper 2015b). The population that witnessed Columbus's ships was part of a large, complex cultural network of territorially, genetically, linguistically and artistically interwoven chiefdoms stretching from the Bahamas to the Lesser Antilles, with some population estimates for Hispaniola alone of over one million people, and for Puerto Rico of 100 000 (Anderson-Córdova 1990;Rouse 1992;Moscoso 2008 …”

“…Indigenous presence has been identified in 30 cave systems around the island. Evidence includes the greatest diversity of preserved indigenous iconography in the Caribbean, with thousands of motifs recorded in darkzone chambers far from cave entrances (Lace 2012;Samson et al 2013;Samson & Cooper 2015b). Marks consist of geometric motifs, meanders and areas where the soft cave crusts have been deliberately and systematically removed, as well as extensive and complex imagery of anthrozoomorphic and ancestral beings (cemíes) (Figure 3).…”