The Taínos were an indigenous people that lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived there. They came from the Caribbean coast of South America. Around 1200 CE, they moved northward to the island chain of the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles.
When Christopher Columbus came to the Americas, the Taínos were living in the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico), and some islands of the northern Lesser Antilles. Their culture was different from the culture of the Arawak people (another indigenous group of South America). They were the first people that the Spanish met in the Americas.