Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean
The Classic Taíno lived in eastern Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. They spoke a dialect called Classic Taíno. Compared to their neighbors, the Classic Taíno had substantially developed agricultural societies. Puerto Rico was divided into twenty chiefdoms which were organized into one united kingdom or confederation, Borinquen. Hispaniola was divided into roughly 45 chiefdoms, which were organized into five kingdoms under the leadership of the chief of each area's premier chiefdom. Beginning around 1450, Classic Taíno from Hispaniola began migrating to eastern Cuba; they are conventionally known as the Cuban Taíno. The Cuban Taíno gained power over some of Cuba's earlier Western Taíno inhabitants, the Ciboney, but no regional or island-wide political structure had developed on the island at the time of Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Piracy in the Caribbean
On the shared Anglo-French island of Saint Christophe (called "Saint Kitts" by the English) the French had the upper hand. The French settlers on Saint Christophe were mostly Catholics, while the unsanctioned but growing French colonial presence in northwest Hispaniola (the future nation of Haiti) was largely made up of French Protestants who had settled there without Spain's permission to escape Catholic persecution back home. France cared little what happened to the troublesome Huguenots, but the colonization of western Hispaniola allowed the French to both rid themselves of their religious minority and strike a blow against Spain—an excellent bargain, from the French Crown's point of view. The ambitious Huguenots had also claimed the island of Tortuga off the northwest coast of Hispaniola and had established the settlement of Petit-Goâve on the island itself. Tortuga in particular was to become a pirate and privateer haven and was beloved of smugglers of all nationalities—after all, even the creation of the settlement had been illegal.