I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase before “race is a social construct”, and that is because it truly is. It was invented as a way to define physical differences between people, but has more often been used as a tool for oppression and violence. The Idea of race and the census has changed drastically through out the years. Every year you hear about the Census, but what is it? A Census is an official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details of individuals. To understand how race was viewed in both regions, I will give you a timeline of how identity looked after the first census.

Dominican Republic & Haiti:

Taíno were declared extinct shortly after 1565 when a census shows just 200 Indians living on Hispaniola, now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The census records and historical accounts are very clear: There were no Indians left in the Caribbean after 1802.

Note: In the early 1500’s Columbus said “all the Indians were extinct”, Ramon Pane in his diary exposes Columbus by saying (and im paraphrasing) “Most Spanish soldiers had a Taino wife, and you can clearly still see Indians on the island. It’s very visible.”. If you’re interested in reading his Diary where this could be found, you can purchase the E-Book version here or purchase the hard copy here. I would say to purchase the E-Book for easy access, but I do recommend the Hard Cover. This book of Ramon Pane’s journal is so special because he documented a lot of the Taino creation stories and spirituality.

A Time Line Of the Puerto Rican Census:

1510: There were Taino still with traditional Taino names working the encomienda And this could be found in this book right here.

1787: Census in Puerto Rico listed 2,300 pure Indians in the population (This is obviously not including mixed natives).

When the Indian or indigenous option was placed in the Puerto Rican census, 20,000 people identified as Indian.

1802: No Taino were recorded, which means the Indian category was removed from the census.

1898- 1912: Puerto Ricans (Including Taino) were tricked into attending boarding schools such as the Carlisle Boarding School to Assimilate to the U.S like other Native people. The story and research can be found here.

The Carlisle Boarding School Issue: Some people play semantics when it comes to indigeneity in the Caribbean. Some people claim despite there are records of these children who were there listed as “Porto Rican Indian”, that it’s doesnt mean they are Taino, due to the name Taino not being written. The other Argument was that they were just Puerto Rican and Not Taino. You can see the image of one of the boys and clearly see he is indigenous, but there is always an inner fight about semantics in the Carribean. Our ancestors never Identified as Taino, that was a fairly new name pushed upon us. It was a misinterpretation given to us by the Spanish. Just like other Tribes, there are names the colonizer called us vs what we called ourselves. In PR we were Borikwa the same word Puerto Ricans use until this day, however it is spelled the spanish way Boricua vs the way it really is spelled.

Note: many people especially non-native people or detribalized people tend to mix up how tribes function as well as the complexity of history within each country. For example being from a tribe is a nation within a nation, but also your race. A good example of that is being Cherokee, Lakota, Seminole, etc isn’t being American, due to their tribes being within America due to colonization. How outsiders consider them, does not dictate how they identify, typically. They are Cherokee, Lakota, or Seminole. So when you say Native American, Mexican American, Japanese American, African American etc this is to insinuate assimilation to the Nation that is America. This is no different when it comes to Taino. If you look more into the Carlisle Boarding School Taino were listed as “Porto Rican Indian” and Natives from Mexico were listed as “Mexican Indian”. The difference is Taino assimilated into what they often teach in the Caribbean which is the three races narrative, which means to be mixed with Spanish, African, and Native. This is what the “Puerto Rican” Identity is looked as. It was viewed as a melting pot just like America. Although there might be those who are mixed there are people in the Caribbean who were raised culturally Taino. The same could be said for Eastern band tribes who are bi racial and tri racial that look phenotypically white or black, but were raised with their culture and people.

Words On The Census That Replaced Taino Were:

Blanco, Negro, Pardos, Mulatto , or Colored.

As stated in my earlier articles there was a word to identify mixed Taino called Mestizo. In some ways Mestizo also meant from living a more civilized life than traditional not just being mixed. Mestizo later became a distinct culture for Taino who assimilated into Caribbean societies such as PR, DR, Cuba, Jamaica, Or Haiti.

The Term Negro: In A Dutch-French-Spanish dictionary of 1639 has the following entry for Spanish "negro": noir, sombre, obscur, offusque, brun (French), swart, doncker, bruin (Dutch). Thus, Spanish "negro" could be translated as "dark" or "brown" as well as "black" (swart). Un­ doubtedly this usage facilitated making reference to all slaves as "negroes" or "negers" in the Dutch language. Moreover, it is signifi­cant that a Spaniard residing in Antwerp in the early seventeenth­ century (the preparer of the dictionary) saw "negro" as being trans­lated in a number of ways in both French and Dutch. To read more you can find this here.

Pardo: Was another way to say mixed race

Mulatto: Was to be mixed specifically with Spanish and African blood.

Colored: Was another way to say someone was Black or Taino, but so was Negro at the time.

2000: On this year 13,336 people in Puerto Rico identified as “American Indian”

2010: Close to 20,000 people in Puerto Rico identified themselves as “American Indian” in the 2010 U.S. Census report, a 49 percent increase in the number of island Puerto Ricans to do so.

A Timeline Of The Census In The United States:

1790: The first Census was created by George Washington however Native people were not counted until 70 years AFTER the census.

1790-1850: Native People were not counted through out this time with the exception in New Mexico giving natives a chance to fill themselves in under the term “copper”. Tribes in the U.S were viewed as a people who were not taxed therefore they were not counted.

1860: Native people were first counted in the American census.

1880: The Census of 1880 introduced a special enumeration schedule for the Indian Division that could be used to measure the degree to which an Indian had adopted a European way of life. For example, it asks if a person was a chief or war chief, wore citizen’s dress, was supported by civilized industries in whole or part, or was supported by hunting, fishing, or gathering.” This effectively measured how “civilized” and assimilated Native people had become to the white man’s ways as opposed to living their traditional ways of life.

1930: “Mexican” was introduced as a category. Prior to the 1930 Census, Mexicans had been categorized as White.

1950: The number of separate racial categories was actually reduced in the 1950 Census.”

1970: The Mashpee filed a land claim that took them to trial. The standard imposed in the case required the Mashpee to show they were a “unitary Native people,” Shapiro said, but the census data was inconsistent. They were then challenged as to whether they were culturally Native based on standards of distant tribes. The jury ultimately decided that the Mashpee weren’t really Native.

I know it may seem a bit confusing lumping the Carribean with the U.S, however paper genocide happened to Natives everywhere including Central and South America. Somethings to take into consideration was race was so interesting because in certain time periods your race was your class or financial status. A great example of that is there are stories of slave masters marrying a slave. She would be originally black, however when she died due to being married to a white man they would classify her as white or mulatto. Another example was stated a paragraph before. If someone native was viewed to be living a more civilized lifestyle they were considered “White”. It’s worth noting the very first time you were allowed to fill in the census yourself, was in 1960. This means anytime prior, it was being filled out by an observer. Within those times there were three tools that resulted in paper genocide in the states, used against Native people.

Tools That Changed Native People’s Race On The Census Were

1 Drop Rule

Blood Quantum

Paper Bag Rule

One Drop Rule And Blood Quantum

A good example for Native people being misraced can be viewed here which is a paragraph extracted from the citation:

“In North Carolina many people of Lumbee Indian identity were categorized, at times, as "negroes.". In 1837 Charles Oxendine of Robeson County was punished as "a free negro. " In 1842 one of the Braveboy family was called a "negro" while in 1857 a Chavers was charged as "a free person of color" with carrying a shotgun. He was not convicted because the act specified "free negroes" and he was charged as a "free colored. " The court stated that "Free persons of color may be . . . persons colored by Indian blood . . . the indictment cannot be sustained.".

The one drop of black rule really affected a lot of eastern band tribes that mixed with run away slaves such as the seminole, creek, cherokee, choctaw, shinnecock, and more. A lot of them were classified as Black or Mulatto if they lived off the reservation away from their people. This information is cited and can be viewed here. A paragraph that was extracted from the citation is:

“Take U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in the 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar decision holding that if tribes weren’t “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed, then they can’t hold land in trust. This affects tribes that were not federally recognized before 1934, often because the government used the existence of intermarriage and assimilation to deny their status as Indian nations. This history is now being used against them, particularly for tribes mixed with Black people.”

The Paper Bag rule concept was a census officer would look at your skin complexion and compare it to a paper bag. If you were lighter than the bag, you were white. If you were darker, you were black. If you were the exact same color you were labeled Native. You can find this information here and this is also a paragraph quoted from the source:

“Up to the 1950 census, how a person’s race was classified was often based entirely upon the perception of the enumerator. If a different census taker comes to the door and they leave their paper bag at home, then maybe they’re Indian that year,” Shapiro said, referring to the idea that a person’s race could be determined based on whether their skin color was darker than a paper bag. According to Shapiro, Native people often went underground to evade persecution. They would sometimes hide when census takers would come, Shapiro explained, changing their appearance, making strategic marriages, and employing other strategies to hide their indigeneity in the hopes they wouldn’t be exiled. This affected the accuracy and quality of the counts.”

It’s worth mentioning even during the days of segregation, Native people were treated accordingly to their skin color if they lived outside their reservation. If you were a white passing native you were treated like a white person. If you were a brown native or black passing native you were treated black. This happened even to “Puerto Ricans” or any other spanish speaking people when they “migrated here”. If you were a white passing Mexican, you were treated white, if you were a brown Mexican you were treated black.

To view a true timeline on the U.S Census click here.