ABSTRACT
The work of the historian, the ethnohistorian, and the archaeologist in any of its facets entails profoundly different dynamics within and outside the Caribbean. One could point out disparities in resources, differences in academic arrangements, political ordeals—in short, that wide gamut that has traditionally weakened the investigative effort of natives and nonnatives in producing a mosaic of appraisals and understandings that is very difficult to integrate in a coherent manner. Contrary to what occurred in many other regions of America, the Caribbean experience has had far shorter breathing space for the exercise of intellectual liberty. The Inquisition in America was established in Puerto Rico around 1519 and lasted until the nineteenth century. Archaeological research in the Caribbean, still dominated by a North American orientation and North American capital, has simply refused to address the subject of colonialism and underdevelopment in the region.
