1492-00-00: (Cacique, the Title for Taíno Chiefs Who Governed the Five Chiefdoms of Ayiti at the Time of Columbus’s Arrival, a Matrilineal System in Which Su…

1492-00-00: (Cacique, the Title for Taíno Chiefs Who Governed the Five Chiefdoms of Ayiti at the Time of Columbus’s Arrival, a Matrilineal System in Which Succession Passed Through the Eldest Sister’s Line): When Columbus first set foot on Ayiti in 1492, the island was organized into five Taíno chiefdoms, each governed by a cacique, or local chief. The territories of Jaragua in the south and Marien in the north roughly correspond to present-day Haiti, while the remaining three chiefdoms, Higuey, Magua, and Maguana, occupied the eastern two-thirds of the island, roughly the modern Dominican Republic. The Taíno operated under a matrilineal system of succession: when a cacique died, leadership passed to the eldest child of his eldest sister, and his own children were passed over. This social structure, which centered women in the transmission of political authority, was one of the first things European colonizers would work to dismantle. Understanding that Ayiti had its own sophisticated political geography before 1492 is essential to understanding that what followed was one system of power destroying another.