that were new to the Caribbean, to which the indigenous population lacked immunity. These new diseases were the chief cause of the dying off of the Taíno, but ill treatment, malnutrition, and a drastic drop in the birthrate as a result of societal disruption also contributed. The first recorded smallpox outbreak in the Americas occurred on Hispaniola in 1507. Epidemics of the disease caused high fatalities among the Taíno.
The Spanish passed the Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513, the first nationally codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly with regards to native Indians. They forbade the maltreatment of natives, endorsed their conversion to Catholicism, and legalized the colonial practice of creating encomiendas, where Indians were grouped together to work under colonial masters. The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in a distant colony.
With the decline in the Taíno population, the Spanish governors began importing enslaved Africans as laborers. In 1517, Charles V authorized the draft of slaves. The Taíno people became virtually, but not completely, extinct on the island of Hispaniola. Some who evaded capture fled to the mountains and established independent settlements. Survivors mixed with escaped African slaves (runaways called maroons) and produced a multiracial generation the Spanish called zambos. They used the term mestizo for those children born to native women and European – usually Spanish – men. The later French settlers called people of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry marabou. The children born of unions between African women and European men were called mulâtres. During the French colonial years, some white fathers sent their mixed-race sons to France for educations and passed on social capital in other ways, freeing their slaves mistresses and their children. A class of gens de couleur libre (free people of color) developed on the island.
As a gateway
