When Columbus and his men first landed on the islands of the Caribbean believing that they had made it to Asia, they encountered a thriving civilization of people who had been living there for thousands of years. Mistaking his location, Columbus referred to these people as Indians. In fact, they were the Taíno, Lucayan and Carib, the Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean. They were the first people of the Americas to be victims of European invasion, enslavement, and colonization, which resulted in devastating consequences for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.