Hatuey was a great Taino Cacique and Waribo (warrior). Even though Hatuey was killed in 1512 we can see the spirit of his resistance reverberating in movements ever since.

To understand Hatuey’s story we must understand the Taino way of life before the Spaniards landed on our shores. The Taino lived on the islands of Cuba, Borinquen (Puerto Rico), Quiskeya (The Dominican Republic and Haiti), Jamaica, the Bahamas and many smaller islands. They raised their agricultural crops on Conucos, mounded gardens which were an incredibly effective form of agriculture. The Taino were skilled at fishing. They lived in a paradise, the volcanic soils could grow anything, it was never cold, and they had a deep profound connection to their ancestors. They were peacefully going about their lives peacefully, in harmony with the Earth, Atabey. This is the paradise Hatuey was living in.

Now imagine the dirty, ugly and disgusting Spaniards that landed on their shores. These men had been on boats without bathing for months. You can imagine how they stunk, these disgusting men landed on the beach of this paradise with greed, evil and a lust for wealth and gold. The Taino had not experienced the evil these people were bringing and had absolutely no context for it. These men had many shiny things, the Taino saw the shiny things as spiritual objects as their guanins were. The guanin was a gold necklace worn by the cacique, it was like a miniature sun when the light bounced off it. The imagery of mirrors and flashes is very important to many cultures, such as the Kongo ‘Flash of the Spirit’. When we are making medicines (nkisi, zemi, etc) we always welcome and pay attention if there is a lightning storm. We hang mirrors in the cemetery off trees. Perhaps the Taino thought “Let’s see what we can learn from these people, maybe they are very spiritual people“. The Taino welcomed these people. You see the Taino were doing what old school Boricuas, Dominicans and Cubans do when someone arrives at their door, expected or not, they welcome them and feed them. While the Taino welcomed these people into their homes, the Spaniards and their evil leader, the criminal Columbus, on the other hand was thinking about how easily he could enslave the Taino and steal their gold.

It did not take Hatuey long to realize the Spaniards only cared about gold and money. Hatuey traveled from his native Cuba throughout the other islands. He spread the message not to welcome these people, he advised the other islands to throw their gold into the ocean because that was all the Spaniards cared for. The hypocritical friar Bartolomé de las Casas recorded the following statement Hatuey made to the people of Cuba:

“Here is the God the Spaniards worship. For these they fight and kill; for these they persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea… They tell us, these tyrants, that they adore a God of peace and equality, and yet they usurp our land and make us their slaves. They speak to us of an immortal soul and of their eternal rewards and punishments, and yet they rob our belongings, seduce our women, violate our daughters. Incapable of matching us in valor, these cowards cover themselves with iron that our weapons cannot break…”

Hatuey

Hatuey united the islands against these invaders. Hatuey and his warriors waged guerilla warfare against the Spaniards. For 3 months the conquistadores were afraid to leave their fort because of Hatuey and his warriors. Due to a rat, a traitor, Hatuey was captured and tied to the rubber tree to be burned. A priest was present who asked Hatuey if he would become a Christian and be baptized so he could go to heaven. Hatuey asked the priest if the Spaniards went to this heaven when they died. Of course they responded “yes”. Hatuey then responded he would rather go to their hell. Hatuey was burned, it is said that he never shed one tear or uttered a word as he was burned, he simply looked into the sun. Hatuey means “certainty of the sun”.

Las Casas later wrote

[Hatuey], thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes… The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people. This is the name and honor that God and our faith have earned.

Las Casas

Note on Las Casas: contrary to popular belief Las Casas did not have a change of heart or ever really care about the Taino. Las Casas advised the Spaniards that they should stop killing the Taino and use christianity and other methods of cultural and spiritual genocide against them for easier conquest. He also supported the enslavement of Africans. Las Casas was never the “protector of the Indians”!

Hatuey’s sprit of unification and resistance is seen in Ramón Emeterio Betances’s efforts to unite the islands and overthrow Spanish rule in the 1800’s, it is seen in Rafael Hernandez’s ‘Preciosa‘, in Don Pedro Albizu Campos and the PNPR, it is seen in Simon Bolivar’s efforts to unite Latin America against Spanish rule, it’s seen in the unification of the Fania All Stars bringing about Salsa, it is seen in Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s fight for Cuban independence.

(Cick images to enlarge).

When Ramón Ementerio Betances traveled around the Caribbean and South America to gather support and create unity for the fight for Puerto Rican independence he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

José Martí traveled around South America advocating independence, more specifically literary independence.“Do not bury me in darkness / to die like a traitor / I am good, and as a good man / I will die facing the sun“, Martí writes in a poem four years before his death, there is no doubt he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

When Don Pedro Albizu Campos spent years imprisoned in the worst conditions and withstood years of radiation poisoning and experiments, not caring if being killed was inevitable, he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey. When he held a Puerto Rican flag, while it was illegal to, knowing he would be imprisoned again, even though he was extremely ill, he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey. “A people full of courage and dignity cannot be conquered by any imperialism”– Don Pedro.

When Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores and Andres Figueroa Cordero attacked congress, and Lolita Lebron raised a Puerto Rican flag, saying “I did not come here to kill anyone, I came here to die for Puerto Rico”, she was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

When Simón Bolivar united South America and fought against Spain, liberating many countries, he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

When Fidel Castro and Che Guevara dared to stand up to the United States and made Cuba a free nation, despite the embargo and US attempts at strangling the economy, they were fighting in the spirit of Hatuey. They were fighting in the spirit of Hatuey when the Cubans fought alongside Africans in Angola.

When Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman, knowing there was only two options: death or a life of imprisonment, they were fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

When Rafael Hernandez Marin wrote Preciosa, speaking of the oppression Borinquen was facing, in the original version singing ” “the American tyrant’s wickedness and destiny of black evil” he was resisting in the spirit of Hatuey.

In my own family we can see the spirit of Hatuey. We can see the spirit of Hatuey in my father when he stood up, despite everything that was against him from the very beginning and fought against spiritual genocide and attempted to unite a community that would be a spiritual family, that would be connected to the Earth and the ancestors, he was fighting in the spirit of Hatuey.

As we look at all these movements in the spirit of Hatuey we see that the sprit never dies and will always continue. We see that our ancestors may have been declared “gone” and eradicated, we are still here and Hatuey’s (and all our ancestor’s) revolutionary spirit will never die. We can say that Hatuey and the Taino Ancestors are the Mothers and Fathers of our Revolutions!

QUE VIVA LA ESPIRITU REVOLUCIONARIO DEL HATUEY.

(Long live the revolutionary spirit of Hatuey).