Colonial Tourism Exploits Puerto Rico’s Indigenous Healing Heritage: How Spa Botánico Commercializes Manos Santas
Original framing: “Travelers To Puerto Rico Discover Ancient Indigenous Healing Traditions” — bing news
The Taíno people, the original stewards of Manos Santas, developed these healing practices over centuries as part of a holistic worldview where health is interconnected with land, ancestors, and community. Their knowledge was systematically suppressed during Spanish colonization, with healers labeled as witches or witches’ tools burned to erase cultural memory. Today, Taíno activists like the *Jatibonicu Taíno Tribal Nation* work to reclaim and protect these traditions, yet their voices are excluded from mainstream narratives that frame healing as a tourist commodity.
The commercialization of Manos Santas at Spa Botánico exemplifies how colonialism persists through the extraction of Indigenous knowledge, where Taíno healing traditions are repackaged as a luxury experience for Western tourists while the communities who created them face erasure and poverty.
This narrative is not merely about cultural appropriation but about the structural violence of land dispossession, federal suppression of Indigenous identity, and the neoliberal tourism economy that profits from Puerto Rico’s colonial status. The Taíno people, whose ancestors were nearly exterminated and whose knowledge was criminalized, are now fighting to reclaim their heritage in a system designed to silence them. Solutions must center Taíno sovereignty, from legal protections for their intellectual property to land restitution and educational reforms that honor their history. Without these systemic changes, the wellness industry’s 'discovery' of Manos Santas will remain a continuation of colonial theft, not a celebration of Indigenous resilience.