The Taínos Refused to Grow Food.
The Spanish Starved. Rebellion against invasion triggered a series of events that would take a “swift and violent toll” on a Caribbean island’s native biodiversity.
This act of rebellion, writes environmental historian Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, “stemmed from the native population’s recognition of their control over the food supply.” She dubs it “the New World’s first food fight.”
The colonists were desperate for food. But, lacking knowledge and fearful of the untamed forests, they were unable to take advantage of the island’s native vegetation. (“It is a sad fate to die slowly from hunger within a few minutes’ walk from a seemingly endless supply of mangoes, papayas or avocados,” laments Paravisini-Gebert.)
To compensate, “the besieged conquerors resorted to eating everything in sight, with dire consequences for some species of fauna—and themselves,” Paravisini-Gebert writes. This first food crisis set several species on the path to extinction, including the Taínos’ mute hunting dogs and several endemic species of rodent. The colonists were so desperate that they even ate lizards, salamanders, and snakes.
Decolonizing in body, heart and mind. (CEPA)
CEPA is a project that designs and facilitates encounters rooted in practices to heal accumulated trauma from our being. It’s part of a movement of people working to transform their relationships and everyday life to co-create freedom, centering all marginalized peoples especially Puerto Rican women, gender nonconforming, trans, queer folx. To manifest a just future, we honor the wisdom of the earth and of our ancestors as we work to heal.
Decolonization for us is a process that begins as a personal questioning of one’s conditioning (what we value, how we learn) and ends with the autonomy of our lands. Our body is the first territory we can decolonize.Decolonization is:°A practice of remembering who we are, and of listening to and strengthening our intuition and our internal knowing.°Decolonization is not a metaphor. It is an undoing that has physical, psychological,social and cultural dimensions and they operate simultaneously and continuously.Decolonization is something we must practice. It is a series of actions: questioning,investigating, unlearning, practicing and sustaining. It requires a cultural shift in our collective conditions; and only we can manifest it together.°It creates the conditions where we are all guardians of the earth: it is a practice of recognizing, validating and expressing gratitude to the earth and other non-human beings that live on the planet with us.°We have witnessed the massive sale of Boriken that urges us to reclaim lands as away to allow us to return, remain and live a dignified life.
