The Taino people came to the Americas from Venezuela around 400 B.C. They cultivated crops like sweet potatoes, maize, yucca, and beans, and their population was estimated to be around three million on Hispaniola alone by the fifteenth century. They never developed a written language, but they crafted beautiful poetry, and many of their words are still used today.Along with being very innovative -- straining cyanide from yuccas, building canoes that went out on the ocean, and creating rubber balls that they played games with-- the Taino people were also very generous, which was likely a huge factor in their undoing. Columbus took this kindness for weakness, and decided they would make good slaves. Even though the native people and Columbus
