Caribbean Artifacts

Stone and pottery pre-Columbian (pre-dates Columbus’ arrival in the Americas) ethnographic art effigies from the 15th century Tiano Culture.  The figurines are of anthropomorphic style (depicting a human-like figures) and the lizard pot were for ceremonial purposes. The Caribbean is the region of islands defined in the Caribbean Sea. The earliest interactions between Europeans and indigenous peoples in the New World took place in the Caribbean, as Columbus first made landfall in the region and sparked subsequent exploration. Beginning in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Europeans began to exploit the region for mineral and agricultural production, launching unprecedented demographic changes.  By the 17th century most of the indigenous culture of these islands had died from disease or starvation and were replaced by slave merchants with people of African origin. During the slave trade era, slave merchants landed more than four million Africans to the Caribbean Islands, many, of which, were then sold into the American Colonies. This art is a simple reminder of the Taino culture who developed a land suitable for inhabitances by the English, Spanish, Dutch, and other merchants that launched slave trade to the American Colonies that supported the colony of Virginia in developing tobacco as a cash crop and the Dutch ports that were the essential link to smuggling European supplies and weapons to the colonies for the American Revolutionary War.

Stone Effigy: Taino figurine, Pottery Effigy and Taino figurine
Provenance: James M. Cole Collection Sale
John Moran Auctions, Monrovia, CA;                                                                                                                 Gordon Barlow, Swoope, Virginia