Spaniards' Conquest of Hispaniola

For at least 5,000 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans, the island, which he named Hispaniola, was inhabited by indigenous peoples whom he called "Indians." Anthropologists have traced multiple waves of indigenous immigration from two principal places. Some of the early Amer-Indians came from Central America (probably Yucatan and Belize) and some came from South America, descendants of the Arawakan Indians in Amazonia, many of whom passed through the Orinocco Valley in Venezuela. It is from the blending of these waves of indigenous immigrants that the Taíno Indians, the people who welcomed Columbus on his arrival, are believed to have originated.