Long before Africans were brought to Haiti’s shores, indigenous groups inhabited the land that would become Hispaniola and later Haiti or as they called it, Ayiti — the land of the mountains. At one point, Haiti was inhabited by three distinct indigenous populations — the Guanahatabey, the Arawaks or Tainos, and the Caribs. The Arawaks/Tainos originated from the Orinoco and Amazon basins, while the Caribs came from South America.