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Talk:Spanish–Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén

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Too Many Chiefs, Not Enough Indians

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Why are there so many commanders in the infobox? This is a fairly small scale conflict, thus about five commanders on each side would be enough.--Catlemur (talk) 09:08, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At least on the Taíno side, there is no real hierarchy beyond the distinction between the high chief and the lesser chiefs. For the most part, those that did not join the Spanish were in charge of protecting their own chiefdom, excluding the cooperative attacks. That is the reason why every municipality has an "heroic" legend about its own cacique, and also the reason why 19th century authors decided to give a stellar role to a select few. Each of the Spaniards listed lead incursions against the Taíno, with only the ones listed as "leaders" having been given distinct authority beyond the title of "captain". There still wasn't a formal government -the entire conflict took place during the colonization- which meant that among Ponce de León's men there were no colonels or generals, nothing really distinct. As a matter of fact, most were militia men that were just being forced into military service out of necessity and which were most likely more comfortable in a political setting. Given that, I decided not to arbitrarily and subjectively decide which chief or captain was more "relevant". - Caribbean~H.Q. 03:29, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. I changed the MILHIST tag back to South American since it also covers the Caribbean.--Catlemur (talk) 14:14, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]