Early Spanish explorers used the terms Arawak and Caribs to distinguish the indigenous people of the Caribbean and New World.

The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. All these groups spoke related Arawakan languages.

Island Arawak have cultural and linguistic similarities with the mainland Arawak. Subsequent scholars shortened this convention to "Arawak", creating confusion between the island and mainland groups. In the 20th century, scholars used "Taíno" for the Caribbean group to emphasize their distinct culture and language. Taíno influence has survived until today, as can be seen in the religions, languages, and music of Caribbean cultures.

The Lokono and other South American groups resisted colonization for a longer period, and the Spanish remained unable to subdue them throughout the 16th century. In the early 17th century, they allied with the Spanish against the neighbouring Kalina (Caribs), who allied with the English and Dutch. The Lokono benefited from trade with European powers into the early 19th century, but suffered thereafter from economic and social changes in their region, including the end of the plantation economy. Their population declined until the 20th century, when it began to increase again.

Much of the Arawak of the Antilles intermarried after the Spanish conquest. In South America, Arawakan-speaking groups are widespread, from southwest Brazil to the Guianas in the north, representing a wide range of cultures. They are found mostly in the tropical forest areas north of the Amazon. As with all Amazonian native peoples, contact with European settlement and Africans brought to work in the colonial period led to culture change.

The Spaniards who arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1492, and later in Puerto Rico, brought few women on their first expeditions. Many of the explorers and early colonists raped Taíno women, who subsequently bore mestizo or mixed-race children. Over subsequent generations, the remnant Taíno population continued to mix with Spaniards and other Europeans, as well as with other Indigenous groups and enslaved Africans brought over during the Atlantic slave trade. Today, numerous mixed-race descendants still identify as Arawak, Taíno or Lokono.

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