Dominican Republic

Introduction
History
The Dominican Republic has a long and turbulent history, with enough milestones to make for a crowded holiday calendar and enough "firsts" to fill a page in an almanac. (Among them is having the first European settlements in the New World, established by Christopher Columbus and his brother Bartholomew.) The island has played a pivotal role in the development of the Caribbean for more than five centuries, with ample amounts of blood and treasure spilled along the way. The Dominican national character has been shaped by centuries of colonialism, political and economic turmoil, outside invasions, civil wars, and racial divisions. Remarkably, the country has now entered a phase of comparative stability.
 Pre-Columbus
The earliest Amer-Indians to have settled what is now Hispaniola are believed to have come from two different directions. The first migrated from the west around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago (probably from Yucatan in current-day Mexico, possibly by way of Florida and the Bahamas). These were eventually absorbed by several new waves of immigrants who came from the south, starting 2,000 years ago or more. The latter, of Arawak descent, originated in the Amazon and made their way north through modern-day Venezuela and the Guyanas before crossing the Caribbean via dugout canoe. Around 600 to 800 AD, the Tainos, one of the Arawak groups, arrived in Hispaniola and became the dominant people there. The Tainos called the island Quisqueya ("Greatness") or Haiti ("Rugged Mountain").
Another Arawak group, the Caribs, arrived on Hispaniola several centuries later, after populating the Lesser Antilles, the smaller islands to the east. At the time of Columbus' arrival, the Caribs' presence on Hispaniola was limited mostly to the area around present-day Saman. The Caribbean took its name from the Caribs, as did the word "cannibal," since the Caribs were once called Canibas. While it's unproven that they actually practiced cannibalism, the Caribs were known to be much fiercer warriors than the Tainos, and had pillaged Taino villages both on neighboring islands and on Hispaniola itself.
The Tainos - whose name in Arawak dialect meant "good," "friendly," or "noble" - were believed to have been a largely peaceful, agrarian, family-oriented society, who survived by fishing, eating fruit, and growing such staples as yucca, corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, cassava, and tobacco on communally owned plots of land. They were organized into at least five separate tribes, each headed by a cacique, or chief. As Christopher Columbus would later write, the Tainos were a strong and handsome people, and they had the most sophisticated culture in the Caribbean, rich in artistic and religious traditions. Skilled artists, sculptors, and craftsmen, they made boats, pottery, baskets, hammocks, and gold jewelry.
While the Taino people have long since disappeared, Taino culture is still much in evidence in the Dominican Republic in a number of prime archeological sites. Dozens of caves are decorated with pictographs and petroglyphs (rock art), which may be found along the southeastern Caribbean coast, the southwest, the far west, the north coast, and other areas of the country. By 1492, as Columbus' ships approached from Spain, Tainos numbered anywhere from several hundred thousand to one million or more.
 Columbus' Arrival
Christopher Columbus, an Italian admiral in the employ of Queen Isabela of Spain, arrived in the Caribbean in the fall of 1492 with three ships, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and his Spanish crews. They had crossed the Atlantic from the Canary Islands in about five weeks, believing they had found a shortcut to the Asian East Indies. After scouting out parts of the Bahamas and Cuba, they arrived along the northern coast of the island Columbus called Hispaniola ("little Spain"), where he made note of the exotic beauty of the mountainous landscape, the luxurious plants, and the tropical fish, as well as the friendly and docile nature of the inhabitants. Columbus wrote that the Tainos "ought to make good and skilled servants" and good converts to Christianity.
The natives threw feasts for the Europeans and indicated that Columbus and his men could find gold and other treasures in the island's interior. Columbus gathered up sample gold ornaments, plants, spices, dyes from trees, herbal medicines, plus a few native people and animals, and prepared to head back to Spain to show off the "riches of the Indies." But on Christmas Eve, 1492, the flagship Santa Maria ran aground on a reef and wrecked near present-day Cap Haitien in Haiti. Columbus was forced to leave 39 men behind at a settlement he called La Navidad, in honor of Christmas. The men erected a fort from the salvaged remains of the ship.
Upon his return the following year with another 1,500 men, Columbus found La Navidad burned to the ground and the 39 settlers all dead. Some had died of disease and in-fighting; the rest had been attacked and killed by a local chief, Caonabo, after the Spaniards had raided and looted Taino villages. Columbus founded a new settlement farther east, along the north coast in the present-day Dominican Republic, calling it La Isabela after the Spanish queen. Although more than a third of its settlers fell ill within the first week, La Isabela survived four years, from 1494 to 1498, long enough for the Spaniards to establish a strong foothold in the area and exploit the Tainos for slave labor, women, and gold.
 The Fate of the Indians
The Tainos were no match for the Spaniards, who brought iron weapons, armor, horses, and dogs. Caonabo, the Taino chief who had led the attack on La Navidad, was captured and killed, as was his widow, Anacoana, and almost all other Taino chiefs. European diseases for which they had no immunity - especially smallpox, influenza and measles - took a huge toll on the Tainos, as did brutal forced labor on plantations, in mines, and in construction projects. The Tainos were forcibly removed from their villages, causing their social structure to collapse and their crops to go untended. Spanish-imported cattle and pigs also ravaged their fields, resulting in widespread famine. Mass extinction followed. (The Tainos "repaid" the Europeans in part by introducing them to syphilis, the first case of which appeared in Spain in 1493.)
Within 50 years, all but a few hundred Tainos had been wiped out. No full-blooded indigenous peoples remain in the Dominican Republic today, although intermarriage with Spaniards has produced a substantial number of Dominicans of mixed "Indio" race. The only remaining full-blooded Amer-Indians in the Caribbean are about 2,000 Caribs who have survived on the island of Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic. Their original culture, though, has disappeared.
Only one Taino cacique, Enriquillo, successfully resisted the Spanish. From 1820-33, Enriquillo led a revolt from his base in the mountains of the southwest, near present-day Lake Enriquillo, where he and his men conducted raids against the Spanish and managed to elude capture. Eventually, the Spanish negotiated a settlement, and Enriquillo and his followers were allowed to live peacefully on a reserve. The author Jesus Galvan told the story of Enriquillo in his 1882 novel of the same name.
 Expansion of Empire
In 1498, Bartholomew Columbus, facing insurrection from Spanish settlers in La Isabella, founded the settlement of Santo Domingo along the southern coast, near the Ozama River. Santo Domingo grew to become the first permanent European city in the New World and the capital of the emerging Spanish Empire in the Caribbean. Christopher Columbus himself suffered a humiliating setback in the year 1500 when he was led back to Spain in shackles, accused of ruthless treatment of natives and colonizers alike, and of trying to usurp authority from the Spanish crown. Although he was soon released and continued exploring America, he never again wielded his previous clout in the new colony. He died in 1506, convinced he had been wrongly deprived of his rewards for discovering a new route to "Asia." As he wrote in his will, "I presented [to Spain] the Indies. I say presented, because it is evident that by the will of God, our Sovereign, I gave them, as a thing that was mine."
Columbus' successor, Nicolas de Ovando, shown above, appointed governor of the colony in 1502, became the driving force behind the construction of Santo Domingo. By 1503, the first city walls began to arise. Within the next few years, building would begin on the first fortress, first hospital, first church, first monastery, first stone house, and first paved road in the Americas. The first cathedral, university, and convent would follow. Explorers and conquistadors used Santo Domingo as a base for expeditions to Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Colombia, and Jamaica, all of which were claimed for the Spanish Crown.
Ovando also founded the north coast settlement of Puerto Plata in 1502, which served as a supply stop for Spanish galleons hauling silver from Mexico to Spain. To the west of Santo Domingo, Azua de Compostela was founded in 1504 and served as home for a time to such future conquistadors as Diego Velazquez (who conquered Cuba), Hernn Corts (who conquered Mexico), and Juan Ponce de Len (who later went off in search of the Fountain of Youth in Florida). By 1508, Ponce de Len had constructed (using Indian labor, to be sure) a fortress-like house near the far southeastern tip of the island. The Spanish set up sugar plantations and cattle ranches in the area.
As the Indians succumbed to disease and harsh treatment, the Spanish began importing African slaves to Hispaniola to replace them; the first arrived around 1503. Some of these, called cimarrones, later escaped to live in the wild mountain valleys of the western part of the country, where many became small farmers. A number of their descendants survive today in outlying areas, especially near the Haitian border.
The Columbus family returned to power in 1509, when the admiral's son, Diego, was appointed governor of the colony to succeed de Ovando. To keep Diego's authority in check, however, the Spanish established the powerful Audiencia Real, a panel of judges that functioned as the unquestioned Supreme Court for the entire West Indies and Caribbean basin. The Audiencia was based in Santo Domingo, but the city's glory days were short-lived. Mexico and Peru, rich in silver and gold, became far more precious to the Crown than Hispaniola, whose stores of mineral wealth never met expectations. Diego and his family eventually returned to Spain, while colonists who remained increasingly turned to growing sugar, raising livestock, and supplying provisions to the Spanish ships that passed by the island on their way to the richer colonies. By 1520 or so, both Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata were already in steep decline.
A series of natural and man-made disasters - earthquakes, hurricanes, and raiding parties - also befell the colony. In the early 1560s, Santo Domingo and Santiago were severely damaged by earthquakes. Then, in 1586, the English buccaneer Sir Francis Drake, right, pillaged and burned much of what remained of Santo Domingo. And as the 16th century ended, much of the north coast had become a haven for smugglers and pirates. Many residents turned to trading illegally with English privateers, in direct defiance of the Spanish crown.
 The 17th Century
Fearing that its colony was slipping out of its control, Spain decided to destroy its north coast settlements, torching Puerto Plata in 1605 and forcing its residents to relocate to the south near Santo Domingo. The Spanish also razed Montecristi, a town in the far west (near the present-day Haitian border) that was founded around the same time as Puerto Plata and had enjoyed some level of prosperity on its own. For all practical purposes, Spain abandoned the area for the next century and a half. The shock waves were felt throughout the colony, whose economy was in shambles, its people often on the brink of starvation.
In 1655, the English returned to Santo Domingo in the form of an invasion force led by William Penn - an attempt that was beaten back by the Spanish. But by then, Santo Domingo had become a virtual backwater. In 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France (present-day Haiti), while retaining control of the eastern two-thirds, the present-day Dominican Republic. France's colony, called Saint-Domingue, grew rich with an economy fueled by sugar cane and huge numbers of African slaves to work the plantations.
 The 18th Century
Concerned about increasing French prosperity and inroads into the eastern section of Hispaniola, Spain paid renewed attention to its colony. In 1737, the Spanish imported Canary Islanders (off the west coast of Africa) to resettle Puerto Plata on the north coast, and did the same when establishing the northeastern settlement of Santa Brbara de Saman in 1756. Within another few decades, the north coast had become a center for the mahogany trade, exporting valuable tropical woods to Europe that had been harvested from the rainforests to the south. By the 1780s, about 150,000 settlers occupied the colony, with Spanish-ancestry settlers outnumbered nearly three to one by African slaves and mixed-race or black freemen.
In 1791, with imported Africans facing torturous conditions on the sugar plantations, a slave uprising broke out in French Saint-Domingue, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture (above). With the plantations burning and fearing for their colony, France abolished slavery there in 1794. L'Ouverture consolidated his base and prepared to declare an independent state called Haiti.
 The 19th Century
The first 10 years of the 19th century saw a complicated type of military and diplomatic chess game waged among France, Spain, and the newly empowered ex-slave army in Haiti. In 1801, L'Ouverture marched into Santo Domingo and took the city virtually unopposed. The Haitians were now in effective control of the entire Spanish colony; one of L'Ouverture's first acts was to free the slaves there. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, to quash the slave rebellion. The French drove the black army back to the west, and Spain ceded its territory in the east to the French in exchange for land that Napoleon had captured in Spain. L'Ouverture officially established the Republic of Haiti on the western third of Hispaniola in 1804, which remained independent. But France ruled the eastern part of the island until 1809, when a force of Dominicans drove them out and reincorporated with Spain. Meanwhile, slavery had been reinstituted in the colony, making the Haitians nervous about their own security.
In 1822, Haitian forces once again invaded the Spanish colony and regained control, abolishing slavery again and ruling over the entire island for the next 22 years. By the 1830s, a resistance movement among white property owners was brewing in the east, led by Juan Pablo Duarte, a young nationalist who had studied in Spain. In early 1844, Duarte and two other conspirators - Ramon Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sonchez, known as the Trinitarians - successfully led a revolt against the Haitians, resulting in the founding of the new Dominican Republic. Dominicans still celebrate February 27, 1844, as their Independence Day. And Duarte, Mella, and Sonchez have remained national heroes. The nation's first constitution was signed in San Cristobal in 1844.
In a preview of the political instability that was to follow, the Trinitarians ruled only briefly before themselves being ousted. For the rest of the century and into the next, the country was ruled by a succession of caudillos, military strongmen who grabbed control from each other and ruled with iron fists. Corruption and repression reigned, as the caudillos rewarded their cohorts and families with the spoils of power and brutally suppressed their opponents. The country remained roiled in turmoil, with periodic coups, outbreaks of civil war, and economic crises alternating with all-too-short periods of relative peace and prosperity.
In 1861, as a means of consolidating his own power, one caudillo, General Pedro Santana (the same man who had earlier ousted the Trinitarians), invited the Spanish to annex the country. Spain sent in troops and issued new laws, spurring rebellion and civil war in 1863. Independence was restored in 1865 when Dominicans drove the Spanish out for good in the War of Restoration. (August 16, Restoration Day, is another national holiday.) Less than two decades later, another tyrant, General Ulises Heureux, overthrew a relatively liberal government to initiate his own reign of corruption from 1882 to 1899, when he was assassinated.
The 19th century also brought American influence to the Dominican Republic. First to arrive were two shiploads of freed American slaves, who settled in Santa Brbara de Saman during the 1820s. By mid-century, then-US Secretary of State William Seward was coveting the Saman Peninsula for a naval base (Santana had offered to sell him the territory). Charges of corruption helped sink that deal, and later led to the 1870 US Senate defeat of President Grant's scheme to annex the entire country.
Some aspects of the Dominican economy did improve in the latter decades of the 19th century. Sugar, timber, tobacco, coffee, and bananas all emerged as important export crops, and the north coast towns of Puerto Plata and Sosa both became prosperous shipping ports.