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Southeastern Geographer, Volume 49, Number 4, Winter 2009, pp.

394-403 (Article)
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DOI: 10.1353/sgo.0.0059

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Cassava and Carrying Capacity in

Aboriginal Puerto Rico
Revisiting the Taino Downfall at Conquest
FRANCISCO WATLINGTON
University of Puerto Rico

How many aborigines lived in late Borikn (mod-

del colapso por el agotamiento de los recursos

ern Puerto Rico) at the inception of the Spanish

cuando la intrusin espaola los llevo ms all de

conquest? The question has raised much con-

sus lmites.

troversy both because of the lack of primary data

and the disparate research approaches employed
by practitioners of different academic disciplines.

key words: Geographical constraints of island

population

However, available surrogate sources of information make possible a heuristic model of former

introduction

population, grounded in the geographic concept

of carrying capacity. Assessment of available
multi-source evidence suggests that aboriginal
Puerto Rico was an exceptionally dense ecumene
with a geographical subsistence base that teetered on the verge of collapse from resource exhaustion when the Spanish intrusion pushed it
over the edge.
Cuantos aborgenes vivan en el viejo Borikn
(Puerto Rico moderno) al principio de la conquista espaola? Esta pregunta ha levantado
mucha controversia, tanto por la falta de informacin de primera mano, como por los distintos
enfoques usados por practicantes de diferentes
disciplinas acadmicas. Sin embargo, fuentes secundarias de informacin hacen posible desarrollar un modelo heurstico de la poblacin pasada,
basado en el concepto geogrco de capacidad de
carga poblacional. La evaluacin de mltiples
evidencias disponibles sugiere que el Puerto Rico
aborigen era un ecmeno excepcionalmente denso
con una base de subsistencia geogrca al borde
southeastern geographer, 49(4) 2009: pp. 394403

Much of the native Taino population of

the Island disappeared between the passage of Columbus in 1493 and the beginning of effective Spanish occupation by
Jun Ponce de Len in 1508, fteen years
later. In contrast with Hispaniola and
other early landfalls (Cook and Lovell
1992; Smith 1994), the epidemiological
and ecological impact of the conquest was
mitigated in Puerto Rico by having been
anticipated during a generation prior to
the denite invasion. The indigenes had
time and distance to recover from the zoonotic inuenza introduced by Columbus to
Hispaniola on his second voyage (Guerra
1985, 1986), with the high rates of morbidity and mortality characteristic of virgin soil epidemics (Cohen 1989).
The plague plausibly arrived on Puerto
Rico mitigated by distance, mutation and
mestizage. The wave of advance of the
pathogen would have accompanied the

Cassava and Carrying Capacity in Aboriginal Puerto Rico

desperate throng, some already infected,

eeing Hispaniola. Seeking refuge with
their boricua kinfolk, those that were ill
advanced the contagion that was decimating their homeland. Among the fugitives,
however, came a multitude of women impregnated by the invaders, prospective
mothers of the rst generation of mestizos
with enough paternal genetic resistence
to ensure continuity of the authoctonous
population.1 Concurrently, as the disease
extended its range, the pathogen would
presumably have diminished its virulence
through adaptive selection, the epidemic
becoming more benign.
Recovery of the native population from
introduced disease occurred in a socioecological environment unperturbed by
the direct onslaught of colonization. It is
likely that much of the original population
of Puerto Rico survived until the takeover
of 15111512 (Sued-Badillo 2001), a
good generation after Columbus took possession of the Island. In 1508 the paramount cacique (indigenous chief) of the
densely inhabited south and west coasts
opted for vassalage. Following the Taino
protocol of guatiao he exchanged his name
of Agueyban for that of Ponce, thus perpetuating the toponym of his territorial
seat, the premier urban center of southern Puerto Rico. The abuses of the encomienda system soon did away with the
alliance and revolt was followed by repression and drawn out guerrilla resistance
for at least a decade (Anderson-Crdova
2005; Sued-Badillo 2008).
During the rst quarter century of the
colony, the replacement of a subsistence
economy for one of resource exploitation,
with transformation of agricultural elds
to livestock rangeland, sufces to explain
an exodus to South America (Vzquez

395

de Espinosa 1629). However, the unrestrained exploitation of the natives would

diminish after the conquest of Mexico in
1521, with the departure of many encomenderos (labor pool consignees), taking
their Indians with them to more promising
continental destinations. A remnant of local Indians designated de encomienda in
the Lando slave census of 1532 (DamianiCsimi 1994) excludes probable nuclei
of hispanicized Indians which the toponomy of indigenous settlement names suggests were disseminated throughout the
Island.2

the research problem

The drastic historical decline of the
Taino population belies indications that
Puerto Rico was among the most densely
peopled Caribbean islands at the time of
the arrival of the Spaniards. Although
rst-hand census documents have yet to
be found, it is known that the conquistadors, to avail themselves of the native labor pool, developed geographical registers
of able-bodied young men for allotment of
manpower in their encomiendas (Sauer
1966). Thus, a century later the Crowns
fact-nding envoy Vzquez de Espinosa
(1629) would cite an estimated population of 600,000 Indians, not counting
women and children.3 Adding the same
number of women yields an able adult
population of 1.2 million.
However, when children are included
an impressive total population of 3.6 million is obtained. An unsurprising result if
the paleodemographic estimate takes into
account the high infant mortality, which
according to reliable estimates would have
averaged around 50 percent (Cohen 1989;
Curet 2005). Consequently, in order to

396

fr ancisco watlington

maintain a stable population, that neither

decreases nor increases signicantly, each
woman of reproductive age would have
borne no less than four children, to insure that at least two of them would reach
generational recruitment age.4 Therefore,
adding 2.4 million youngsters to the 1.2
million adults gives a sum total of 3.6 million persons, more or less the same number of residents in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the present millenium.5
State of knowledge
The chronology of attempts by historians and others to estimate the size of
the original aboriginal population of Puerto Rico was exhaustively reviewed by
Moscoso (2008), who nonetheless failed
to mention the ponderable paleodemographic assessment of Curet (2005). As
documented by Moscoso, many historians
have rejected the existence and subsequent extinction of the sizable Contact period population of Puerto Rico postulated
by Vzquez de Espinosa.
For example, at the turn of the twentieth century, pathnding anthropologist Salvador Brau declared (Brau 1907,
pp 133134):
The production of the country in the
state of incipient culture in which it
was would not have allowed lling the
alimentary needs of 600,000 souls
which correspond approximately to
two thirds of the present census.
Brau was the rst modern investigator
who attempted to refute with a logical discourse the estimate of native population
established by Vzquez de Espinosa, although he interpreted it incorrectly. Finally, he asked rhetorically (Brau 1894,
p 310):

Has anyone calculated the number of

cassava plants that must be cultivated
to sustain a half million persons?
Brau did not attempt the calculation.
Nor have others who have accepted Braus
position uncritically. Few have applied alternative methodological approaches such
as the one elaborated by Moscoso, who arrived at a hypothesized population of
110,000 Indians by combining a list of
known caciques (chiefs) by presumed rank
with documentary estimates of probable
village size (Moscoso 2008). However,
Moscoso explicitly rejects the early colonial synonymy of Indian as family
head postulated by Las Casas (1965)
[1535/1548] as implying an unacceptable
330,000 Tainos by his own accounting of
village size (Moscoso 2008, p 224).

method of analysis
The estimate of endemic population recorded by Vzquez de Espinosa can be
evaluated by calculating total consumption of the Tainos basic subsistence crop:
cassava, and determining the agricultural
area necessary for its production. From the
analysis one can infer the ancient carrying
capacity of Puerto Ricos arable land. Cassava, yuca in Taino and Spanish (Manihot esculenta) is the root crop which provided the foodstuff that sustained dense
population masses on the Antilles as documented in historical records (Figure 1).
Cassava produces more alimentary biomass per agricultural unit area than any
other cereal crop. Currently, world-wide
productivity of the tuber averages some
11 metric tons per hectare (1 hectare
is equivalent to 2.471 acres), and has
reached 80 to 100 tons in experimental

Cassava and Carrying Capacity in Aboriginal Puerto Rico

Figure 1. Yuca illustration from the 18th century. Taken from D.W. Gade, 2003.

397

398

fr ancisco watlington

plantings (Taylor et al. 2004). Its nutritional properties are four times greater
than rice or maize, reaching 250,000 calories per ha (De Vries et al. 1967). Cassava
is the sixth most cultivated foodstuff in the
world, after potatoes, and represents the
basic subsistence for more than 700 million persons (Marcon et al. 2007).
Present productivity of cassava in
circum-Caribbean countries including
Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Jamaica and Dominican Republic reaches 15 to 20 metric
tons per ha, from 75 percent to 100 percent over the world average (Hershey et al.
1997). The antipodal region comprising
southern Brazil, Paraguay and northern
Argentina (Gade 2003) is equally productive, surpassing the total production of
Brazil (Hershey et al. 1997). It has been
noted that the latitudinal amplitude of
daylength, which increases toward the periphery of the tropical zone is a critical
phenological parameter of Manihot esculenta which correlates with increased productivity (Gade 2003; Watlington 2003).
Although cassava is processed in diverse ways, available documentation indicates that the hardtack biscuit-bread
known as casabe was the basic provision
of the pre-Columbian Antilles (Watlington
2003). Yield of casabe is equivalent to 33
percent of the weight of fresh cassava
(Hillocks et al. 2002). Therefore, assuming a tuber crop of 15 tons per ha, a conservative estimate of casabe bread yield in ancient Borikn would be about 5,000 kilos
(5 metric tons) per ha.
At present, few regions of the world are
so dependent on casabe bread or its mealy
alternates so that consumption per person
reaches one kilogram daily. The most notable exception appears to be in West Africa
where the consumption of gari, a fer-

mented casabe meal has exceeded 300 kg

per person yearly (Jones 1959). In America the highest level of consumption occurs
in Paraguay at 340 kg per person yearly
(Hershey et al. 2000). Sixteenth century
colonist-historian Bartolom de Las Casas
offered a more modest estimate of roughly
half as much for the Taino, about a half
kg daily per adult (Las Casas 1967). Assuming an annual cycle of production, one
hectare of cassava would provide enough
casabe to feed 27 persons (two children =
one adult). Therefore, a population equivalent to 2.4 million adults would have required less than 90,000 ha of conucos
(plantations) of cassava.
Puerto Rico with Vieques (a smaller island that is part of Puerto Rico) comprises
a land area of some 9,000 ha, of which an
estimated 60 percent is cultivable (LpezMarrero and Villanueva-Coln 2006).
Roughly 40 percent of that area, 216,000
ha, is considered to have the highest agricultural potential. Thus the hypothesized
Taino population would have required less
than half (41.6 percent) of the best land
for its basic sustenance. Nonetheless, besides the area in conucos of cassava, a
comparable area in brush fallow must be
added, as well as additional land for permanent orchards of select tree and palm
crops (Watlington 2003).

discussion
It has been well documented that indigenous populations in widespread regions of the world were far larger before
the post-Columbian European expansion
diminished their numbers (Crosby 1972,
1986; Butzer 1992). Nonetheless, diverse
traditional agrarian societies that are
densely peopled continue to be viable in

Cassava and Carrying Capacity in Aboriginal Puerto Rico

Asia, Africa and America (Weischet and

Caviedes 1993). Moreover, some modern
countries that inherited high population
densities have developed very productive
agro-industrial systems, analogous to that
of the native Taino, in which agricultural
raw materials are processed into various
durable products by means of technological inputs which generate collateral economic activities (Watlington 1974; Dufour
et al. 1996).
All things considered, if the population
at Contact derived from Vzquez de Espinosas estimate is reliable, the Island
would have been populated close to the
limit of its agricultural carrying capacity,
with all of its most productive land being
utilized in some manner. To be sure other
resources must be taken into account.
Streams, wetlands and coastal to oceanic
waters would have contributed most of
the protein nutriments to complement the
caloric foods from agriculture (Watlington
2003; Newsom and Wing 2004). What human and environmental impacts would
have resulted from population pressure on
the available geographic resources?
That the late prehistorical Taino were
under serious nutritional stress has been
recently determined from skeletal remains
unearthed at two widely separate archaeological sites by paleopathologist Edwin
Crespo-Torres (2008). His analysis conrms the ndings of others indicating an
infant mortality rate of around 50 percent
and an average adult life expectancy of
30 to 35 years (Watlington, unpublished
data). Moreover, the very young and subadult segments were the most severely
stricken by the pathological consequences
of undernourishment.
Diverse sources provide circumstantial
evidence of an extensively deforested

399

Taino landscape, not very different from

the degraded rural countryside of Puerto
Rico during the rst half of the past century.6 The most abundant seeds found in
archeobotanical sites are those of guava
(Psidium), cotton (Gossypium) and numerous other useful shrubby species that
spring up quickly in recently cultivated
fallowed elds (Newsom and Wing 2004;
de France and Newsom 2005). The necessity of rewood for baking casabe and
cooking, and of lumber for housing, as
well as the practice of re-drive hunting of
jutas, cavylike rodents, had transformed
vast areas of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
into shrubby second growth sabanas (a
Taino toponym), as observed by Columbus
himself (Varela and Gil 1992).
The anthropogenic savannas, parklands, glades and grasslands abandoned
by the Taino provided an ideal environment for the proliferation of introduced
cattle, goats and range hogs. In sixteenth
century Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, freerange livestock numbers increased exponentially, maintaining the deforested
landscape by grazing and rooting. Henceforth there developed an economy of
hatos, extensive cattle baronies which
dominated the colony, and was adversarial
to agricultural and population growth until the second half of the sixteenth century
(Moscoso 1997).

conclusion
In conclusion, the romantic pristine
myth of picturesque Indian villages at
Contact, scattered throughout a forested
island paradise is as invalid for Puerto Rico
as it is for the rest of pre-Conquest America (Denevan 1992). It can be said that,
based on the division of labor required for

400

fr ancisco watlington

cultivation, processing and distribution

of food products derived from cassava,
the Tainos developed a sophisticated social order comparable to the great preColumbian cultures of the Americas. The
Spanish invasion interrupted the rise of
Taino civilization, and the imposition of a
colonial economy destroyed it.
The colonial legacy should also be recognized. Rampant multiplication of feral
cattle during the early sixteenth century
fueled a dual economy of privileged hatos,
grazing rights land grants, and freelance
monteros licensed to round up ownerless
animals and either brand or butcher them
for hides and meat to be preserved as sun
or smoke dried jerky. Predictably, monterias often concealed rustling and contraband. The animals were located with dogs,
then maimed by lancing a leg tendon, a
technique called desjarretar.
Ironically, the free-ranging herds
prompted reforestation during the second
half of the same century by spreading
seeds of the fruits they foraged. The following quote from royal fact-nder Antonio
Herrera (ca. 16011615) offers a vivid
illustration (freely translated from GilBermejo Garca 1970, pp 1415):

woods and thus are of no prot. Under

this tree grass will not grow.
notes
1. The mass insemination did not necessarily
result from abduction and rape. As Ricardo Herren (1991) has explained, Amerindian societies
encouraged female free love promiscuity for
social and reproductive reasons.
2. As the scale of the nascent Spanish empire
became evident, Puerto Rico was redened as a
strategic bastion of its mercantile circuit. The
hispanicized Indians were recognized as the
fundament of a defensive populace capable of
resisting invasion. This explains early delimitation of a Special Military District of Caguas
Buena Vista (Salvador Padilla, personal communication), guarding the vulnerable eastern
ank of San Juan. Its coastal perimeter comprised a chain of settlements with Taino toponyms: Naguabo, Humacao, Yabucoa, Maunabo, and Guayama, in time elevated to the
rank of townships (municipios).
3. On Hispaniola, according to Vzquez de
Espinosa, there were 1.8 million indios not
counting women, children and the elderly.
Thus, total population would have summed
11.2 million, three times that of Borikn, which
seems proportional to the most cultivable area
of the neighboring island.

This island is very overgrown and

rugged: there were good livestock
ranges that are diminishing because of
certain trees called guayabos which
give fruits like apples, yellow outside
and red inside, white of meat, full of
grain, of which all livestock and birds
feed; wherever the grains fall with manure a tree sprouts and the land closes
up with scrub, such that the cows hide
therein becoming feral and do not return to the fold, giving birth in the

4. As noted by Columbus expert eye, the

adult population was young, appearing to average some thirty years of age (Varela and Gil
1992). According to Las Casas (cited in Sauer
1966), women had 3 to 5 children. Both estimates t the proposed demographic hypothesis.
5. With the caveat that their demographic
pyramids are quite different.
6. For similar reasons. A dense and depauperate rural population had denuded most of
the island for rewood, timber, pasture and
cane. After the mass exodus to the states in the

Cassava and Carrying Capacity in Aboriginal Puerto Rico

1940s and the rise of urban centered industrial-

Crespo-Torres, E.F. 2008. Estudio

ization in the 1950s, forest cover rebounded

paleopatolgico comparativo entre dos

from 6 percent to 30 percent in about forty years

sitios arqueo-lgicos en la Isla de Puerto

(Aide et al. 2000; Rudel et al. 2000). Inter-

Rico: Punta Candelero y Paso del Indio.

estingly, guava (Psidium guajava), an abundant

In 5 to Encuentro de investigadores de

invasive exotic (sic. Aide et al. 2000) in early

arqueologa y etnohistoria. Instituto de

abandoned elds, was gone after less than 35

years of forest regeneration.

401

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francisco watlington, ph.d. is a

Development and spontaneous

tenured professor (Catedrtico) in the

reforestation in post-war Puerto Rico.

Department of Geography at the University of

Professional Geographer 52(3):386397.

Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, where he obtained a

Sauer, C.O. 1966. The early Spanish Main.

Berkeley: University of California Press.

B.A. cum laude in Economics and a Masters

degree in Planning and Public Administration.

Cassava and Carrying Capacity in Aboriginal Puerto Rico

403

He pursued advanced studies in geography

three major themes: Historical biogeography of

and archaeology at the University of Florida, in

the Neotropical realm; Population history and

Gainesville, where he received the doctorate

prehistory of Puerto Rico; and Adaptive

in 1990. His diverse research interests feature

viticulture in the New World tropics.