Pre-Columbian era The islands of the Caribbean were first settled around 6,000 years ago by hunter-gatherer peoples originating from Central America or northern South America. The
Arawakan-speaking ancestors of the
Taíno moved into the Caribbean from South America during the 1st millennium BCE, reaching Hispaniola by around 600 CE. These Arawakan peoples engaged in farming, fishing, hunting and gathering, to 2 million. By 1492, the island was divided into five Taíno chiefdoms. The Taíno name for the entire island was either
Ayiti or
Quisqueya.
European colonization is the oldest cathedral built in the Americas.
Christopher Columbus arrived on the island on December 5, 1492, during the first of his
four voyages to the Americas. He claimed the land for Spain and named it
La Española, due to its diverse climate and terrain, which reminded him of the
Spanish landscape. In 1496,
Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher's brother, built the city of
Santo Domingo, Western Europe's first permanent settlement in the "
New World". The Spaniards created a
plantation economy. Initially, after friendly relationships, the Taínos resisted the conquest, led by female Chief
Anacaona of Xaragua and her ex-husband Chief
Caonabo of Maguana, as well as Chiefs
Guacanagaríx,
Guamá,
Hatuey, and
Enriquillo. The latter's successes gained his people an autonomous enclave on the island. Within a few years after 1492, the population of Taínos had declined drastically due to
smallpox, measles, and other diseases that arrived with the Europeans. African slaves were imported to replace the dwindling Taínos. The last record of pure Taínos in the country was from 1864. Still, Taíno biological heritage survived due to intermixing. Census records from 1514 reveal that 40% of Spanish men in Santo Domingo were married to Taíno women, and some present-day Dominicans have Taíno ancestry. In 1795, Spain ceded Santo Domingo to France by the
Treaty of Basel as a result of its defeat in the
War of the Pyrenees. Saint-Domingue achieved independence as Haiti from France on January 1, 1804. In 1809, the French were expelled from the island and Santo Domingo returned to
Spanish rule.
Ephemeral independence and Haitian occupation (1821–1844) and others established a secret patriotic society called
La Trinitaria, which helped undermine Haitian occupation. After a dozen years of discontent and failed independence plots by various opposing groups, Santo Domingo's former Lieutenant-Governor (top administrator),
José Núñez de Cáceres, declared the colony's independence from the
Spanish crown as
Spanish Haiti, on November 30, 1821. This period is also known as the Ephemeral independence. The newly independent republic ended two months later, when it was occupied and annexed by Haiti, then under the leadership of
Jean-Pierre Boyer. For twenty-two years, Haiti controlled Santo Domingo, which it called ''Partie de l'Est'', treating it as a colonial territory. The unpaid Haitian army sustained itself by taking resources from the Dominican people and land without compensation.
First Republic (1844–1861) (up to 1849) In 1838,
Juan Pablo Duarte founded a secret society called
La Trinitaria, which sought the complete independence of Santo Domingo without any foreign intervention. Also
Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and
Ramon Matias Mella, despite not being among the founding members of La Trinitaria, were decisive in the fight for independence. Duarte, Mella, and Sánchez are considered the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic. On February 27, 1844, the members of
La Trinitaria declared independence from Haiti. They were backed by
Pedro Santana, a wealthy cattle rancher, who became general of the army of the nascent republic. The decades that followed were filled with tyranny, factionalism, economic difficulties, rapid changes of government, and exile for political opponents. Archrivals Santana and
Buenaventura Báez held power most of the time, both ruling arbitrarily. They promoted competing plans to annex the new nation to a major power. The Dominican Republic's first
constitution was adopted on November 6, 1844, and its population in 1845 was approximately 230,000 people (100,000 whites; 40,000 blacks; and 90,000 mulattoes). In March 1844, Haiti invaded but the Dominicans put up stiff opposition and inflicted heavy casualties on the Haitians. By April 15, Dominican forces had defeated the Haitian forces on both land and sea. In early July 1844, Duarte was urged by his followers to take the title of President of the Republic. Duarte agreed, but only if free elections were arranged. However, Santana's forces took Santo Domingo on July 12, and they declared Santana ruler of the Dominican Republic. Santana then put Mella, Duarte, and Sánchez in jail. On February 27, 1845, Santana executed
María Trinidad Sánchez, heroine of La Trinitaria, and others for conspiracy. After defeating a Haitian invasion in April 1849 at the
Battle of Las Carreras, Santana marched on Santo Domingo and deposed President
Manuel Jimenes in a
coup d'état. At his behest, Congress elected Buenaventura Báez as president, but Báez was unwilling to serve as Santana's puppet. In November–December 1849, Dominican seamen raided the Haitian coasts, plundered seaside villages, as far as
Dame-Marie, and butchered crews of captured enemy ships. A fourth and final invasion by Haiti in November 1855 was defeated by Dominican forces by January 27, 1856, resulting in thousands of Haitian casualties. Again, Santana and Báez competed for political dominance, with Báez prevailing in 1857 and expelling Santana, and Santana returning to power in 1859 and expelling Báez.
Restoration Republic (1865–1899) In 1861, after imprisoning, exiling, and executing many of his opponents and due to political and economic reasons, Santana asked Queen
Isabella II of Spain to retake control of the Dominican Republic. Spain, which had not come to terms with the loss of its mainland American colonies 40 years earlier,
annexed the country. The island was occupied by 30,000 Spanish troops bolstered by battalions of Cuban and Puerto Rican volunteers and 12,000 Dominicans who aligned themselves with the Spanish forces. The Haitian rebel
Sylvain Salnave, fearful of the reestablishment of Spain as colonial power, gave refuge and logistics to revolutionaries seeking to reestablish the independent nation. The ensuing civil war, known as the
War of Restoration, killed more than 50,000. The war began on August 16, 1863; by 1865, the Dominican forces had confined the Spanish troops to Santo Domingo, and the Spaniards were afraid to venture outside the capital. After nearly two years of fighting, Spain abandoned the island in July 1865. One military historian estimates Spanish casualties at 10,888 killed or wounded in action and thousands dead from
yellow fever, while the Dominican forces fighting for Spain suffered 10,000 casualties. Another military historian estimates that Spain lost 18,000 dead, a figure that does not include the Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans fighting alongside them. The Dominicans fighting for independence against Spain suffered more than 4,000 dead. Political strife again prevailed in the following years; warlords ruled, military revolts were extremely common, and the nation amassed debt. It was now Báez's turn to act on his
plan of annexing the country to the United States, where two successive presidents were supportive. U.S. President
Ulysses S. Grant desired a naval base at
Samaná and also a place for resettling newly freed African Americans. The treaty was defeated in the
United States Senate in 1870. Báez was toppled in 1874, returned, and was toppled for good in 1878. Relative peace came to the country in the 1880s, which saw the coming to power of General
Ulises Heureaux. "Lilís", as the new president was nicknamed, put the nation deep into debt while using much of the proceeds for his personal use and to maintain his police state. In 1899, he was assassinated. However, the relative calm over which he presided allowed improvement in the Dominican economy. The sugar industry was modernized, and the country attracted foreign workers and immigrants. Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians from the
Ottoman Empire began to arrive in the country during the latter part of the 19th century. They were referred to locally as "Turks" because they were Ottoman subjects and carried Ottoman passports. During the U.S. occupation of 1916–24, Dominican peasants would not only kill U.S. Marines, but would also attack and kill Arab vendors traveling through the countryside.
20th century (1900–1930) From 1902 on, short-lived governments were again the norm, with their power usurped by caudillos in parts of the country. Furthermore, the national government was bankrupt and, unable to pay its debts to European creditors, faced the threat of military intervention by France,
Germany, and
Italy. United States President
Theodore Roosevelt sought to prevent European intervention, largely to protect the routes to the future
Panama Canal. He made a small military intervention to ward off European powers, to proclaim his famous
Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine, and also to obtain his 1905 Dominican agreement for U.S. administration of Dominican customs, which was the chief source of income for the Dominican government. A 1906 agreement provided for the arrangement to last 50 years. The United States agreed to use part of the customs proceeds to reduce the immense foreign debt of the Dominican Republic and assumed responsibility for said debt. A political deadlock in August 1914 was broken after an ultimatum by Wilson telling the Dominicans to choose a president or see the U.S. impose one. A provisional president was chosen, and later the same year relatively free elections put former president (1899–1902)
Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra back in power. With his former
Secretary of War Desiderio Arias maneuvering to depose him and despite a U.S. offer of military aid against Arias, Jimenes resigned on May 7, 1916. Wilson thus ordered the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic. waving over
Ozama Fortress during the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic, U.S. Marines landed on May 16, 1916, and seized the capital and other ports, while General Arias fell back to his inland Santiago stronghold.
Fort San Felipe in Puerto Plata was captured on June 1 by U.S. Marines after a battle against Dominicans. A significant weaponry disparity led to Arias's defeat as his forces tried to block the Marines' advance on Santiago with trenches and old black-powder rifles. The clashes with the U.S. Marines marked the first time that the Dominicans had ever encountered a machine gun. A peace delegation from Santiago surrendered the city on July 5, coinciding with General Arias' surrender to the Dominican governor. The military government established by the U.S. under the Navy and Marine Corps on November 29, led by Vice Admiral
Harry Shepard Knapp, was widely repudiated by the Dominicans, but organized resistance ceased. Rear Admiral
Thomas Snowden relieved Rear Admiral Knapp as military governor of the Dominican Republic on February 25, 1919. The system of forced labour used by the
Marines in Haiti was largely absent in the Dominican Republic. The U.S. government's rule ended in October 1922, and elections were held in March 1924. This was accompanied most noticeably by absolute repression and the copious use of murder, torture, and terrorist methods against the opposition. Starting in 1935, several Dominicans were assassinated in
New York City after taking part in anti-Trujillo activities. In October 1937, under Trujillo's orders, Dominican troops killed an estimated 17,000–35,000 Haitian men, women, and children on the Haitian-Dominican border. During
World War II, Trujillo symbolically sided with the
Allies. During the
Battle of the Caribbean in 1942, German U-boats torpedoed and sank two Dominican-flagged merchant vessels—the
San Rafael off the coast of Jamaica and the
Presidente Trujillo off
Fort-de-France—along with four other Dominican-manned ships in the Caribbean. The country did not contribute militarily, but its sugar and other agricultural products supported the Allied war effort. in Trinidad, Cuba, August 13, 1959 Under Trujillo, a weapons factory at
San Cristóbal produced rifles, machine guns, and ammunition. Trujillo also formed a right-wing Foreign Legion of 3,000 mercenaries to attempt to overthrow
Fidel Castro in Cuba. Major
William Morgan, acting as a double agent for Castro, pretended to lead the operation for Trujillo but secretly informed Castro of the plot. On August 13, 1959, a
C-47 transport flying from the Dominican Republic carrying military advisors and supplies landed at
Trinidad airport, where Castro seized the aircraft and its ten occupants; an exchange of gunfire left two of the advisors and three Cuban forces dead, and around 4,000 suspects were arrested throughout Cuba. Earlier in June, Cuban soldiers and Cuban-trained Dominican guerrillas attempted an
unsuccessful invasion of the Dominican Republic. In 1956, Trujillo's agents kidnapped
Jesús Galíndez, a Basque exile, in New York and had him flown to the Dominican Republic, where he was killed. The case drew attention in the United States and contributed to growing criticism of the regime. On November 25, 1960, Trujillo's henchmen killed three of the four
Mirabal sisters, nicknamed
Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). Along with their husbands, the sisters were conspiring to overthrow Trujillo in a violent revolt. The
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed on the anniversary of their deaths. For a long time, the U.S. and the Dominican elite supported the Trujillo government. This support persisted despite the assassinations of political opposition, the
massacre of Haitians, and Trujillo's plots against other countries. The U.S. finally broke with Trujillo in 1960, after Trujillo's agents attempted to assassinate the Venezuelan president
Rómulo Betancourt with a car bomb, as he was a fierce critic of Trujillo. During Betancourt's earlier exile in Cuba, Trujillo's agents attempted to inject poison into him on a
Havana street in broad daylight. After its representatives confirmed Trujillo's complicity in the nearly successful assassination attempt, the
Organization of American States (OAS), for the first time in its history, decreed sanctions against a member state. The OAS voted unanimously to condemn the Dominican Republic for its aggression and imposed an arms embargo. The United States severed diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic on August 26, 1960, and in January 1961 suspended the export of trucks, parts, crude oil, gasoline and other petroleum products. U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower also took advantage of OAS sanctions to drastically cut purchases of Dominican sugar, the country's major export. This action ultimately cost the Dominican Republic almost $22,000,000 in lost revenues at a time when its economy was in a rapid decline. Trujillo had become expendable, and dissidents inside the Dominican Republic argued that assassination was the only certain way to remove him. On May 30, 1961, Trujillo was shot and killed by Dominican dissidents during a car chase. On April 28, U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson deployed U.S. Marines from
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to Santo Domingo to protect American citizens and support the
military junta that had ousted Bosch in the 1963 coup, with U.S. forces subsequently expanded to 24,000 troops. Balaguer remained in power as president for 12 years. His tenure was a period of repression of human rights and civil liberties. His rule was criticized for a growing disparity between rich and poor. It was, however, praised for an ambitious infrastructure program, which included construction of large housing projects, sports complexes, theaters, museums, aqueducts, roads, highways, and the massive
Columbus Lighthouse, completed in 1992 during a later tenure. In 1978, Balaguer was succeeded to the presidency by opposition candidate
Antonio Guzmán Fernández, of the
Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD).
Hurricane David hit the Dominican Republic in August 1979, which left upwards of 2,000 people dead and 200,000 homeless. The hurricane caused over $1 billion in damage. Another PRD win in 1982 followed, under
Salvador Jorge Blanco. Balaguer regained the presidency in 1986 and was re-elected in 1990 and 1994, in the latter defeating PRD candidate
José Francisco Peña Gómez, a former mayor of Santo Domingo. The 1994 elections were flawed, bringing international pressure, to which Balaguer responded by scheduling another presidential contest in 1996. Balaguer was not a candidate. The PSRC candidate was his Vice President
Jacinto Peynado Garrigosa.
1996–present In 1996, with the support of Joaquín Balaguer and the Social Christian Reform Party in a coalition called the Patriotic Front,
Leonel Fernández achieved the first-ever win for the
Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), which Bosch had founded in 1973 after leaving the PRD. Fernández oversaw a fast-growing economy: growth averaged 7.7% per year, unemployment fell, and exchange and inflation rates were stable. He was succeeded by the opposition candidate
Luis Abinader in the
2020 election (weeks after
protests erupted in the country against Medina's government), marking the end to 16 years in power of the centre-left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). In May 2024, President Luis Abinader won a second term in the
elections. His tough policies towards migration from neighbouring Haiti was popular among voters. ==Geography==