Cibuco

Sixteenth-century geographer Lopez de Velasco is one of the few accessible sources available on the mysterious "pueblo" of Cibuco by the town of Guadianilla. Although his  Geografía y descripción universal de las Indias was probably not completely accurate for the population and demographics of the Spanish Caribbean possessions, he was writing when the Cibuco settlement was, presumably, occupied by "indios." Unlike Salvador Brau, who wrote centuries later and did not always clearly provide his sources, Velasco claimed the residents of Cibuco were descendants of enslaved "Indios" brought to the island from other parts of the Americas. One can assume they were "Caribs" and Yucatecans, natives of the coast of Venezuela and probably mainland areas such as Florida and even Brazil. According to Brau's La colonizacion de Puerto Rico, Cibuco was established with 48 manumitted "Indios," suggesting a very small settlement. 

Besides these "Indios" who were presumably freed after the 1542 laws abolishing Indian enslavement (though it continued in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo anyway), Lopez de Velasco also mentioned "algunos indios" in Arrecibo (Arecibo). Salvador Brau likewise mentioned "Indios" in Arecibo, describing them as workers on hatos who also caught turtles. The island of Mona still had "algunos indios" as well. Overall, Lopez de Velasco suggests that "Indios" were few in Puerto Rico, but this is possibly due to a large mestizo population and omission of other communities, like the "Indios" of the Quebrada de Dona Catalina, near San Juan. This community owned a "hacienda" for their conucos in the 1500s, and included people of African descent. In addition, Sued Badillo illustrated other examples, such as enslaved Indians held by the governor of the Puerto Rico in the 1560s. Samuel de Champlain wrote about "Indians" in San Juan in the late 1500s, too. Nevertheless, it is clear from Lopez de Velasco's work that Cuba had more Indian pueblos (9), and mentioned Indian families in Baracoa, Bayamo, Puerto del Principe, Santi-Spiritus, La Trinidad, and Guanabacoa. 

So, what happened to the mysterious "Cibuco," which may have been the only official Indian pueblo in Puerto Rico? Salvador Brau, in his Historia de Puerto Rico, argued that the population was resettled into the hills of the San German area. Anderson-Cordova, in Surviving Spanish Conquest wrote that the town was inhabited by Indians set free by Governor Vallejo and the settlement was already gone by 1582. Brau, again, claimed Cibuco was abandoned when destroyed by French corsairs, which is plausible. If the population of Cibuco simply moved into the hills of western Puerto Rico, perhaps they joined other undocumented groups of "Indians" and mestizos, since western Puerto Rico had a larger presence of "Indians" than San Juan, according to the de Lando "census" of 1530. 

Did they move into the hills that would later become La Indiera, only to be joined later by Mona "Indians" resettled into the region? If Abbad y Lasierra was correct, though writing in the late 1700s and not providing his sources, many of these "Indios" in the hills near San German and Anasco were actually descendants of indigenous Puerto Ricans who fled the Spanish to live in Mona, Monico, Vieques, and other islands, but later requested to return. Thus, if the "algunos indios" on Mona were resettled in the hills of western Puerto Rico sometime in the 1600s, perhaps they joined or communicated with descendants of indigenous Indians and enslaved "indios" in the region, not to mention the probably large number of mestizos and mixed-race people represented among the free peasantry in the island. This, however, still does not explain the reappearance of "Indios" in the censuses of the later decades of the 1700s, unless it was in part a response to attempts to seize their lands or labor, which Puerto Ricans of "Indian" descent mobilized against in part through claims of indigeneity? So many questions remain...