This dissertation examines the absence of Indianista literature from most recent studies on nineteenth-century racial discourse in the Spanish Antilles as well as the role that this literature played in nation-building. Through a comparative study of this literature in the Spanish Antilles, I show that in contrast with continental Spanish American Indianismo, that which was generated in this region does not assert a mestizo cultural or biological national identity. In general, this literature focused instead on elaborating allegories to comment on controversial political issues. It was a distinctly criollo way to address such concerns instead of reverting to neoclassical Greco-Roman mythological or historical analogies that were imitative of European writing. In the first chapter, I consider the case of Indianismo in Puerto Rico, focusing on its most popular example, Alejandro Tapia y Rivera's La palma del cacique. The next chapter looks at Cuba, studying Jose Maria Heredia, Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, and Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda's Indianista works in contrast with those traditionally seen as exemplary of Cuban Indianismo, such as Jose Fornaris' Cantos del Siboney. Finally, I look at the polemical issue of the development of Indianismo in the Dominican Republic, focusing my analysis on the famous novel, Enriquillo, by Manuel de Jesus Galvan.

However, these pieces of literature still contributed substantially to race-making in the nineteenth-century in other ways due to their wide circulation, with many being printed in multiple editions in short periods of time due to their success with contemporary readers. In addition to the widely recognized negative impact that this literature had in downplaying the role of the African in the formation of the modern Spanish Antillean nations, for example, some of the most well-known works contributed to the evolution of one of the most progressive concepts of the time, that of a "raceless nation." Perhaps more importantly, others may be read as contributing to early formulations of anti-slavery discourses, allegorically linking the stories and histories of the African and Taino peoples in the Spanish Antilles that have so often been treated as mutually exclusive in the nation-building process in the region.