Pre-Columbian era Prior to the arrival of
Christopher Columbus and the Spanish in 1492, the native
Taíno people populated the island which they called
Ayiti ("land of high mountains") or "Quisqueya" (from Quizqueia), meaning "great thing" or "big land" ("mother of all lands"), and which the Spanish later named
Hispaniola. At the time, the island's territory consisted of five Taíno chiefdoms: Marién, Maguá, Maguana, Jaragua, and Higüey. These were ruled respectively by
caciques (chiefs) Guacanagarix, Guarionex,
Caonabo, Bohechío, and Cayacoa.
Arrival of the Spanish On his first voyage the navigator Christopher Columbus, arrived in 1492 under the Spanish Crown as he landed on a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. Columbus promptly claimed the island for the
Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española ("the Spanish Island"), later Latinized to
Hispaniola. He established a settlement in the northern part of the island, which later came under attack by the people of the area. The native Taínos' egalitarian social system clashed with the Europeans' feudalist system, which had more rigid class structures. The Europeans believed the Taínos to be misled, and they began to treat the tribes with violence and hatred.
Conquest and settlements After the sinking of the
Santa María ship Columbus established a military fort to support his claim to the island. The fort was called
La Navidad because the shipwrecking and the founding of the fort occurred on Christmas Day. While Columbus was away, the garrison manning the fort was wracked by divisions that evolved into conflict. The more rapacious men began to terrorize the Taíno, the
Ciguayos, and the
Macorix people. The powerful
Cacique Caonabo of the
Maguana Chiefdom attacked the Europeans and destroyed La Navidad. In 1493, Columbus returned to the island on his second voyage and established the first Spanish colony in the New World, the city of Isabella. This time Columbus returned to
Hispaniola with seventeen ships. The settlers built houses, storerooms, a Roman Catholic church, and a large house for Columbus. He brought more than a thousand men, including sailors, soldiers, carpenters, stonemasons, and other workers. Priests and nobles came as well. The first Mass was celebrated on 6 January 1494. The town included homes, a plaza, and Columbus' stone residence and arsenal. Dating from 1496, when the Spanish settled on the island, and officially from 5 August 1498, Santo Domingo became the first European city in the Americas. Bartholomew Columbus founded the settlement and named it La Nueva Isabela, after
an earlier settlement in the north named after the Queen of Spain
Isabella I. In 1495 it was renamed "Santo Domingo", in honor of
Saint Dominic. The expectations of obtaining great wealth in the island had been high for those who had arrived, and the violent nature and competitive drive of the colonizers also created conflicts among them. In 1497, a colonial administrator
Francisco Roldán rebelled against Columbus and established a rival regime in the island, recruiting half of the Spanish in 1498, and all the towns and fortresses had joined him except La Vega and La Isabella. Roldán also promised to exempt some Indians from paying tribute, which they did with gold they collected from the rivers, if they gave him their support, thus getting the help of some natives. Roldán took weapons from La Isabela and retired to Xaragua. When Christopher Columbus returned to America in 1498 on his third voyage, he began a pact with the rebels, which was signed in August 1499, where he agreed to allow the use of the indigenous people as personal service, and gave back pay for the last two years. Even to those who had not worked, he distributed land, authorized the Spaniards to join with the Tainos and to return to Spain whenever they wished. Roldán was also reinstated as Mayor of La Isabela and, in March 1500, Roldán himself helped put down a rebellion led by Pedro Riquelme and Adrián de Mújica against Columbus. Roldan died in 1502, in a hurricane that occurred coinciding with Columbus's arrival in America on his fourth voyage to the Indies. That hurricane would also kill Francisco de Bobadilla, the investigative judge who ordered Columbus' arrest in August 1500.
Establishment of Santo Domingo Santo Domingo came to be known as the "Gateway to the New World" and the chief city and capital of all Spanish colonies in the Americas during the colonization era. Spanish Expeditions which led to
Ponce de León's colonization of
Puerto Rico,
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar's colonization of
Cuba,
Hernán Cortés' conquest of Mexico, and
Vasco Núñez de Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean were all launched from Santo Domingo. A large discovery of gold was also found in the island, in the
Cordillera Central mountain region, which led to a mining boom and a
gold rush that lasted from 1500 until 1508.
Ferdinand II of Aragon "ordered gold from the richest mines reserved for the Crown." The total sum of gold extracted during the first two decades in the Island was estimated at 30,000 kilos, an amount greater than the totality of production in Europe in those years and above the total gold collected by the Portuguese in Africa. The colony's Spanish leadership changed several times, when Columbus departed on another exploration,
Francisco de Bobadilla became governor. Settlers' allegations of mismanagement by Columbus helped create a tumultuous political situation. In 1502,
Nicolás de Ovando replaced de Bobadilla as governor, it was he who dealt most brutally with the Taíno people. In June 1502, Santo Domingo was destroyed by a major hurricane, and the new Governor
Nicolás de Ovando had it rebuilt on a different site on the other side of the
Ozama River. At the time of its completion, the wards could accommodate up to 70 patients, comparable to the most advanced churches of Rome. In 1509, the
Atarazanas Reales (Royal Shipyards), a waterside building that housed the shipyards, warehouses, customs house and tax offices in the port of Santo Domingo, began construction. In addition to serving as warehouses, the complex also housed the Santo Domingo office of the
Casa de Contratación, headquartered in
Seville. Thus, the Atarazanas also served as the first customs and tax house of the New World. Management was contracted by the Crown to the powerful
Welser banking family, which had a slave-trading empire.
Enslavement of Africans The Spanish monarchs,
Ferdinand I and
Isabella granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African
slaves, and in 1510 the first sizable shipment consisting of 250
Black Ladinos arrived in Hispaniola from Spain. Eight years later African-born slaves arrived in the
West Indies. Sugar cane was introduced to Hispaniola from the
Canary Islands, and the first sugar mill in the New World was established in 1516. The need for a labor force to meet the growing demands of sugar cane cultivation led to an exponential increase in the importation of slaves over the following two decades. The sugar mill owners soon formed a new colonial elite, and initially convinced the Spanish king to allow them to elect the members of the
Real Audiencia from their ranks. Diego Colón arrived in 1509, assuming the powers of Viceroy and admiral. In 1512, Ferdinand established a
Real Audiencia with
Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, Marcelo de Villalobos, and
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón appointed as
judges of appeal. In 1514, Pedro Ibanez de Ibarra arrived with the
Laws of Burgos. Rodrigo de Alburquerque was named
repartidor de indios and soon named
visitadores to enforce the laws. Another rebel also fought back, the native Taino
Enriquillo led a group who fled to the mountains and attacked the Spanish repeatedly for fourteen years. The Spanish ultimately offered him a peace treaty and gave Enriquillo and his followers their own city in 1534. By 1545, there were an estimated 7,000 maroons beyond Spanish control on Hispaniola. The
Bahoruco Mountains in the south-west were their main area of concentration, although Africans had escaped to other areas of the island as well. By the 1540s, French, English and Dutch pirates had become active in the Caribbean Sea. In 1541, Spain authorized the construction of Santo Domingo's fortified wall, and decided to restrict sea travel to enormous, well-armed convoys. In another move, which would destroy
Hispaniola's sugar industry,
Havana, more strategically located in relation to the
Gulf Stream, was selected as the designated stopping point for the merchant
flotas, which had a royal monopoly on commerce with the Americas. With the conquest of the
Spanish Main, Hispaniola slowly declined. Many Spanish colonists left for the silver mines of the American mainland, while new immigrants from Spain bypassed the island. Agriculture dwindled, new imports of slaves ceased, and white colonists, free blacks, and slaves alike lived in poverty, weakening the racial hierarchy and aiding
intermixing, resulting in a population of predominantly mixed Spaniard, Taíno, and African descent. Except for the city of Santo Domingo, which managed to maintain some legal exports, Dominican ports were forced to rely on contraband trade, which, along with livestock, became the sole source of livelihood for the island dwellers.
English and French incursions , Colonial Santo Domingo In 1586,
Francis Drake captured the city and held it for ransom. Drake's invasion signaled the decline of Spanish dominion over the Caribbean region, which was accentuated in the early 17th century by policies that resulted in the depopulation of most of the island outside of the capital. An English expedition sent by
Oliver Cromwell in 1655 attacked the city of Santo Domingo, but was defeated. The English troops withdrew and took the less guarded colony of
Jamaica, instead. In 1697, the
Treaty of Ryswick included the acknowledgement by Spain of France's dominion over the Western third of the island, now
Haiti. In 1605, Spain, unhappy that Santo Domingo was facilitating trade between its other colonies and other European powers, attacked vast parts of the colony's northern and western regions, forcibly resettling their inhabitants closer to the city of Santo Domingo. This action, known as the
devastaciones de Osorio, proved disastrous; more than half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease. The city of Santo Domingo was subjected to a
smallpox epidemic, cacao blight, and hurricane in 1666; another storm two years later; a second epidemic in 1669; a third hurricane in September 1672; plus an earthquake in May 1673 that killed two dozen residents. San José de Ocoa, the best-known maroon settlement in Santo Domingo, was subjugated by the Spanish in 1666. In the 17th century, the French began occupying the unpopulated western third of Hispaniola. In 1625, French and English pirates arrived on the western side of the island. The pirates were attacked in 1629 by Spanish forces commanded by
Don Fadrique de Toledo, who fortified the island, and expelled the French and English. In 1654, the Spanish
re-captured the west side the island. In 1655 the west of Hispaniola was reoccupied by the English and French. In 1660 the English appointed a Frenchman as governor who proclaimed French sovereignty and defeated several English attempts to reclaim the island. In 1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by King
Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name
Saint-Domingue. By 1670 a Welsh privateer named
Henry Morgan invited the pirates on the island of Tortuga to set sail under him. They were hired by the French as a striking force that allowed France to have a much stronger hold on the Caribbean region. Consequently, the pirates never really controlled the island and kept Tortuga as a neutral hideout. The capital of the French Colony of Saint-Domingue was moved from Tortuga to
Port-de-Paix on the mainland of
Hispaniola in 1676. In 1680, new Acts of
Parliament forbade sailing under foreign flags (in opposition to former practice). This was a major legal blow to the Caribbean pirates. Settlements were made in the
Treaty of Ratisbon of 1684, signed by the European powers, that put an end to piracy. Most of the pirates after this time were hired out into the Royal services to suppress their former buccaneer allies. In the 1697
Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally ceded the western third of the island to France. It was an important port in the Americas for goods and products flowing to and from France and Europe. Intermittent clashes between French and Spanish colonists followed, even after the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick recognized the de facto occupations of France and Spain around the globe. Periodic confrontations also continued despite a 1731 agreement that partially defined a border between the two colonies along the Massacre and Pedernales rivers. In 1777, the
Treaty of Aranjuez established a definitive border between what Spain called Santo Domingo and what the French named Saint-Domingue, thus ending 150 years of local conflicts and imperial ambitions to extend control over the island.
Economic revival The
House of Bourbon replaced the
House of Habsburg in Spain in 1700 and introduced economic reforms that gradually began to revive trade in Santo Domingo. The crown progressively relaxed the rigid controls and restrictions on commerce between Spain and the colonies and among the colonies. The last
flotas sailed in 1737; the monopoly port system was abolished shortly thereafter. Many Spaniards and Hispaniola-born Creoles also then became pirates and privateers. By the middle of the century, the population was bolstered by emigration from the
Canary Islands, resettling the northern part of the colony and planting tobacco in the
Cibao Valley, and importation of slaves was renewed.
Age of Piracy Santo Domingo's exports soared and the island's agricultural productivity rose, which was assisted by the involvement of
Spain in the
Seven Years' War, allowing
privateers operating out of Santo Domingo to once again patrol surrounding waters for enemy
merchantmen. Dominican privateers targeted British, Dutch, French and Danish ships throughout the eighteenth century. Dominicans constituted one of the many diverse units which fought under
Bernardo de Gálvez during the Spanish recapture of
Florida from Britain during the
American Revolutionary War. Dominican privateers had already been active in the
Guerra del Asiento decades prior, and they sharply reduced the amount of enemy trade operating in
West Indian waters. The enslaved population of the colony also rose dramatically, as numerous captive Africans were taken from enemy
slave ships in West Indian waters. This contrasted sharply with neighboring
Saint-Domingue (Haiti), which had an enslaved population of over 500,000, representing 90% of the French colony's population, and overall seven times as numerous as the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo. The French had become the wealthiest colonists in the Western Hemisphere due to the exploitation of their massive slave population. As restrictions on colonial trade were relaxed, the colonial
French elites of St. Domingue offered the principal market for Santo Domingo's exports of beef, hides, mahogany and tobacco. The 'Spanish' settlers, whose blood by now was mixed with that of Taínos, Africans, and Canary Guanches, proclaimed: 'It does not matter if the French are richer than us, we are still the true inheritors of this island. In our veins runs the blood of the heroic
conquistadores who won this island of ours with sword and blood.'.
Later years , who led the
Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo With the outbreak of the
Haitian Revolution, the rich urban families linked to the colonial bureaucracy left the island, while most of the rural cattle ranchers remained, even though they lost their principal market. Nevertheless, the
Spanish crown saw in the unrest an opportunity to seize all, or part, of the western region of the island in an alliance of convenience with the rebellious slaves. The Spanish governor of Santo Domingo purchased the allegiance of mulatto and black rebel leaders and their personal armies. In July 1793, Spanish forces, including former slaves, crossed the border and pushed back the disheveled French forces before them. Although the Spanish and Dominican soldiers had been successful in the island during their battles against the French, such had not been the case in the European front, as Spain and Portugal lost the
War of the Pyrenees, and on July 22, 1795, the French Republic and Spanish crown signed the
Treaty of Basel. Frenchmen were to return to their side of the Pyrenees in Europe and Spanish Santo Domingo was to be ceded to France. This period called the
Era de Francia, lasted until 1809 until being recaptured by the Dominican general
Juan Sánchez Ramírez in the
reconquest of Santo Domingo. ==Cities and towns==