Native peoples Prior to European colonization the inhabitants of the island were the
Arawakan-speaking Taíno, a seafaring people who moved into Hispaniola from the north-east region of South America, displacing earlier inhabitants, c. AD 650. The native Tainos divided the island into several chiefdoms and engaged in farming, fishing, as well as hunting, and gathering. and many present-day Dominicans have significant Taíno ancestry.
European colonization Christopher Columbus arrived on the island in 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 in the southern coast of the island. The colony became a military base of Spanish conquistadors for the further
Spanish conquest of the Americas and the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World. For centuries the colony fought against British, Dutch, and French expeditions into the region until the 17th century when pirates working for the French Empire took over part of the west coast. After decades of armed conflicts, Spain ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France in the Treaty of Ryswick. In the 1700s Santo Domingo's exports soared and the island's agricultural productivity rose. The population was bolstered by European emigration from the
Canary Islands, resettling the northern part of the colony in the
Cibao Valley. During this period, the privateers of Santo Domingo sailed into enemy ports looking for ships to attack, thus disrupting commerce between Spain's enemies in the
Atlantic. Dominicans in the service of the
Spanish Crown captured British, Dutch, French and Danish ships in the
Caribbean Sea throughout the 18th century. From the start of the colonial period in the 1500s,
miscegenation (
mestizaje), intermixing of races particularly Spanish settlers, native Tainos, and imported Africans (free or enslaved), was very strong. In fact, colonial Santo Domingo had higher amount of mixing and lesser racial tensions in comparison to other colonies, even other Spanish colonies, this was due to the fact that for most of its colonial period, Santo Domingo was used as a military base where the majority of the Spanish settlers had an economy based on
Cattle ranching, which was a far less labor-intensive than the more common plantation slavery at the time. By the 1700s, the majority of the population was mixed race, forming the basis of the Dominican ethnicity as a distinct people well before independence was achieved.
Independence and Haiti in 1859. During the 1800s Dominicans were often at war, fighting the French, Haitians, Spanish, or amongst themselves, resulting in a society heavily influenced by military strongmen. Santo Domingo attained independence as the Dominican Republic in 1844. Dominican nationalists led an insurrection against the Haitians. On the morning of 27 February 1844, the gates of
Santo Domingo rang with the shots of the plotters, who had emerged from their meetings to openly challenge the Haitians. Their efforts were successful, and for the next ten years, Dominican military strongmen fought to preserve their country's independence from the Haitian government. After ousting the Haitian occupying force from the country, Dominican nationalists fought against a series of attempted Haitian invasions that served to consolidate their independence from 1844 to 1856. Under the command of
Faustin Soulouque Haitian soldiers tried to gain back control of lost territory, but this effort was to no avail as the Dominicans would go on to decisively win every battle henceforth. In March 1844, a 30,000-strong two-pronged attack by Haitians was successfully repelled by an under-equipped Dominican army under the command of the wealthy rancher Gen.
Pedro Santana. Four years later, Dominican fleets attacked Haitian towns, and land reinforcements in the south to force the determined
Haitian leader to concede. In the most thorough and intense encounter of all, Dominicans armed with swords sent Haitian troops into flight on all three fronts in 1855.
Post-colonial migrations In the late 19th century and early 20th century there was an increase in country's population as many immigrants came from other Caribbean islands, including the
Bahamas,
Turks,
Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Dominica,
Antigua,
St. Vincent,
Montserrat,
Tortola,
St. Croix,
St. Thomas,
Martinique, and
Guadeloupe. They worked on sugarcane plantations and docks and settled mainly in the coastal areas of the country. The immigration of Cocolos began in the late 1800s with the rise and development of the
sugar industry in the Dominican Republic. The first Turks and Caicos Islander immigrants began arriving in
Puerto Plata after the
Dominican War of Restoration, long before the modern sugar industry was established. When the railroad of Puerto Plata-Santiago was built in the late 19th century, many came from these islands to work on the railroad as well as others from
Saint Thomas, which was then a Danish colony, they also settled in large numbers in Puerto Plata. The majority of the immigrants that settled in the Dominican Republic in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century established their residence in Santo Domingo, Santiago, Moca and Puerto Plata.
Levantines (primarily from
Lebanon and
Syria) also settled in the country, working as agricultural laborers and merchants. Most immigrants intermixed with the local Dominican population, especially immigrants that came before 1980. During the 19th century
Puerto Plata was the most important port in the country (and even became provisional capital) and hosted the European and North American migration to the Dominican Republic. The majority were Germans traders and tobacco producers, most of them being from
Hamburg and
Bremen. There were also Englishmen, Dutch, Spaniards (mainly from
Catalonia), Puerto Ricans (at least 30,000 between 1880 and 1940), Cubans (at least 5,000 immigrated during the
Ten Years' War) and Italians. After the
Restoration War there was an inflow of Americans and French. Most immigrants during this period completely assimilated into the local Dominican population. More recently, there has been an increase of immigrants from Haiti, and to a lesser degree Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, among others due to the economic growth in Dominican Republic. ==Genetic ancestry and DNA testing==