History of the Dominican Republic
This History was written, revised and edited by Dr. Lynne Guitar, one of the foremost historians of the Dominican Republic and updated by Ladybird, as it only went up to 2008.
Ta?nos
Ta?no Indians
For at least 5,000 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans, the island, which he named Hispaniola , was inhabited by Amer-Indians. Anthropologists have traced multiple waves of indigenous immigration from two principle places. Some of the early Amer-Indians came from Central America (probably Yucatan and/or Belize) and some came from South America, descendants of the Arawakan Indians in Amazonia, many of whom passed through the Orinocco Valley in Venezuela. It is from the blending of these waves of indigenous immigrants that the Ta?no Indians , the people who welcomed Columbus on his arrival, are believed to have originated.
The word Ta?no meant 'good' or 'noble' in their language, which they showed Columbus and his Spanish crew with their peaceful and generous hospitality. Early Spanish chroniclers document they saw no Ta?no Indians fighting amongst themselves. By the end of the 15th century, the Ta?no were well organized into five political units called cazicazgos and were considered to have been of the verge of civilization and central government. Recent estimates indicate there were probably several million Ta?no living on the island at this time.
When Columbus crossed the Atlantic with his crew of Spaniards, he made stops on what is now known as the islands of the Bahamas and Cuba before landing on the island he named Hispaniola - the Ta?no called it Quisqueya, Hait?, or Boh?o. But it was Hispaniola that got the Spaniards excited for several reasons.
Columbus' journal is full of descriptions indicating how beautiful the island paradise was, including high, forested mountains and large river valleys. He described the Ta?no as very peaceful, generous and cooperative with the Europeans, and as a result, the Europeans saw the Ta?no as easy targets to conquer. In addition, they saw the Ta?no had gold ornaments and jewelry from the deposits of gold found in Hispaniola's rivers. So after a month or so of feasting and exploring the northern coast of Hispaniola, Columbus hurried back to Spain to announce his successful discovery - but he had lost his flagship and had to leave many of his crewmen behind.
Spanish, French and Haitian Conquests
On Christmas Eve 1492, after returning from two days of partying with their Ta?no hosts, Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria , ran afoul on a reef a few miles east of present-day Cap Haitien, after the entire crew had fallen asleep. With the help of the Ta?no, they were able to salvage all of the ship's valuables, but the ship itself was lost. Before departing, Columbus was forced to create a small settlement and leave behind a group of 39 of his crewmen. He named this settlement Navidad.
Within a short time after Columbus' departure, the Spanish settlers began fighting amongst themselves, with some even killing one another. They offended the Ta?no by forcibly taking their wives or sisters and forcing them to work as their servants. After several months of this abuse, a chief by the name of Caonab? attacked the settlement and killed the Spanish settlers. When Columbus returned to the island with a large expedition the following spring, he was shocked to find the settlement burned to the ground and empty.
The first permanent European settlement, Isabella, was founded in 1493, on the north coast of the island, not far from where Puerto Plata is now. From there the Spaniards could exploit the gold in the Cibao Valley, a short distance away, in the interior of the country. The Spaniards brought horses and dogs, and combined with their armor and iron weapons, as well as their invisible allies, disease germs against which the Ta?no had no immunities, the Ta?no were unable to resist for long. An expeditionary force was sent to capture Caonab? and another to put down a unified force of thousands of warriors at the site today known as Santo Cerro, after which the Ta?no were forced into hard labor, panning for gold under conditions that were repressive and deplorable.
Columbus' brother, Bartholomew, was appointed governor while Christopher continued his explorations in the Caribbean region. After the discovery of gold in the south, Bartholomew founded the city of Santo Domingo in 1496. The Spaniards were jealous of the Columbus brothers' (Italian) leadership and so began accusing them of mismanagement when reporting back to Spain. These complaints had them relieved of their positions and both men were brought back to Spain in chains. Once there, it became evident that most of the accusations against them had been grossly exaggerated and Queen Isabella ordered their release.
Their successor as governor of the new colony, Nicolas Ovando, of Spain, decided to take action to "pacify" the Ta?no once and for all. He arranged for the widely respected Ta?no queen, Anacoana, the widow of Caonab?, to organize a feast, supposedly intended to welcome the new governor to the island. When 80-plus of the island's chiefs were assembled in Anacaona's large wooden caney ('palace') near the site of today's Port au Prince, in Hait?, the Spanish soldiers surrounded it and set it on fire. Those who were not killed immediately were brutally tortured to death. After a mock trial, Anacaona was also hanged. Ovando ordered a similar campaign to kill all the Ta?no chiefs in the eastern part of the island. With few remaining Ta?no leaders, future resistance from the Ta?no was virtually eliminated.
Unlike Europeans, Africans, and Asians (who had exchanged diseases for centuries along with commercial goods), the remaining Ta?no did not have immunities to the diseases that the Spaniards and their animals carried to the Americas. Forced into brute labor and unable to take time to engage in agricultural activities in order to feed themselves, famine accelerated the death rate. To escape from the Spaniards, some Ta?no adopted the tactic of abandoning their villages and burning their crops. They fled to less hospitable regions of the island, forming cimarr?n ('runaway') colonies , or fled to other islands and even to the mainland. Smallpox was introduced to the island in 1518 and the Ta?no deathrate accelerated. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, there were fewer than 50,000 Ta?no remaining in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island.
Within another generation, the survivors had nearly all become biologically mixed with Spaniards, Africans, or other mixed-blood people--had become the tripartite people today known as Dominicans. Some modern historians have classified the acts of the Spaniards against the Ta?no as genocide.
In the first decade of the 1500s, one of the Ta?no chiefs, Hatüey, escaped to Cuba, where he became involved in organizing armed resistance to the Spanish invaders. After a brave but uneven struggle, he was captured and tortured to death. The most successful resistance against the Spaniards took place from 1519 to 1534 , after the Ta?no population had been almost completely decimated. This occurred when several thousand Ta?no escaped their captivity and followed their leader Enriquillo to the mountains of Bahoruco, in the south-central part of the country, near the present border with Haiti. It was here, after raiding Spanish plantations and defeating Spanish patrols for 14 years, that the very first truce between an Amer-Indian chief and a European monarch was negotiated. Enriquillo and his followers were all pardoned and given their own town and charter.
By 1515 the Spaniards realized that the gold deposits of Hispaniola were becoming exhausted. Shortly thereafter, Cortèz and his small retinue of soldiers made their astonishing conquest of Mexico, with its fabulous riches of silver. Almost overnight the colony, which was usually called Santo Domingo after its capital city, was abandoned and only a few thousand "Spanish" settlers remained behind (many of whom were the offspring of Spanish fathers and Ta?no mothers). Columbus' introduction of cattle and pigs to the island had multiplied rapidly, so the remaining inhabitants turned their attention to raising livestock to supply Spanish ships passing by the island en route to the richer colonies on the American mainland. Hispaniola's importance as a colony became increasingly minimized.
By the middle of the 17th century, the island of Tortuga, located to the west of Cap Haitien, had been settled by smugglers, run-away indentured servants, and members of crews of various European ships. In addition to capturing livestock on Hispaniola to sell for their leather, Tortuga became the headquarters for the Pirates of the Caribbean, who predominantly raided Spanish treasure ships. This area became the recruiting grounds for expeditions mounted by many notorious pirates, including the famous British pirate Henry Morgan.
continued,,,,
This History was written, revised and edited by Dr. Lynne Guitar, one of the foremost historians of the Dominican Republic and updated by Ladybird, as it only went up to 2008.
Ta?nos
Ta?no Indians
For at least 5,000 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans, the island, which he named Hispaniola , was inhabited by Amer-Indians. Anthropologists have traced multiple waves of indigenous immigration from two principle places. Some of the early Amer-Indians came from Central America (probably Yucatan and/or Belize) and some came from South America, descendants of the Arawakan Indians in Amazonia, many of whom passed through the Orinocco Valley in Venezuela. It is from the blending of these waves of indigenous immigrants that the Ta?no Indians , the people who welcomed Columbus on his arrival, are believed to have originated.
The word Ta?no meant 'good' or 'noble' in their language, which they showed Columbus and his Spanish crew with their peaceful and generous hospitality. Early Spanish chroniclers document they saw no Ta?no Indians fighting amongst themselves. By the end of the 15th century, the Ta?no were well organized into five political units called cazicazgos and were considered to have been of the verge of civilization and central government. Recent estimates indicate there were probably several million Ta?no living on the island at this time.
When Columbus crossed the Atlantic with his crew of Spaniards, he made stops on what is now known as the islands of the Bahamas and Cuba before landing on the island he named Hispaniola - the Ta?no called it Quisqueya, Hait?, or Boh?o. But it was Hispaniola that got the Spaniards excited for several reasons.
Columbus' journal is full of descriptions indicating how beautiful the island paradise was, including high, forested mountains and large river valleys. He described the Ta?no as very peaceful, generous and cooperative with the Europeans, and as a result, the Europeans saw the Ta?no as easy targets to conquer. In addition, they saw the Ta?no had gold ornaments and jewelry from the deposits of gold found in Hispaniola's rivers. So after a month or so of feasting and exploring the northern coast of Hispaniola, Columbus hurried back to Spain to announce his successful discovery - but he had lost his flagship and had to leave many of his crewmen behind.
Spanish, French and Haitian Conquests
On Christmas Eve 1492, after returning from two days of partying with their Ta?no hosts, Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria , ran afoul on a reef a few miles east of present-day Cap Haitien, after the entire crew had fallen asleep. With the help of the Ta?no, they were able to salvage all of the ship's valuables, but the ship itself was lost. Before departing, Columbus was forced to create a small settlement and leave behind a group of 39 of his crewmen. He named this settlement Navidad.
Within a short time after Columbus' departure, the Spanish settlers began fighting amongst themselves, with some even killing one another. They offended the Ta?no by forcibly taking their wives or sisters and forcing them to work as their servants. After several months of this abuse, a chief by the name of Caonab? attacked the settlement and killed the Spanish settlers. When Columbus returned to the island with a large expedition the following spring, he was shocked to find the settlement burned to the ground and empty.
The first permanent European settlement, Isabella, was founded in 1493, on the north coast of the island, not far from where Puerto Plata is now. From there the Spaniards could exploit the gold in the Cibao Valley, a short distance away, in the interior of the country. The Spaniards brought horses and dogs, and combined with their armor and iron weapons, as well as their invisible allies, disease germs against which the Ta?no had no immunities, the Ta?no were unable to resist for long. An expeditionary force was sent to capture Caonab? and another to put down a unified force of thousands of warriors at the site today known as Santo Cerro, after which the Ta?no were forced into hard labor, panning for gold under conditions that were repressive and deplorable.
Columbus' brother, Bartholomew, was appointed governor while Christopher continued his explorations in the Caribbean region. After the discovery of gold in the south, Bartholomew founded the city of Santo Domingo in 1496. The Spaniards were jealous of the Columbus brothers' (Italian) leadership and so began accusing them of mismanagement when reporting back to Spain. These complaints had them relieved of their positions and both men were brought back to Spain in chains. Once there, it became evident that most of the accusations against them had been grossly exaggerated and Queen Isabella ordered their release.
Their successor as governor of the new colony, Nicolas Ovando, of Spain, decided to take action to "pacify" the Ta?no once and for all. He arranged for the widely respected Ta?no queen, Anacoana, the widow of Caonab?, to organize a feast, supposedly intended to welcome the new governor to the island. When 80-plus of the island's chiefs were assembled in Anacaona's large wooden caney ('palace') near the site of today's Port au Prince, in Hait?, the Spanish soldiers surrounded it and set it on fire. Those who were not killed immediately were brutally tortured to death. After a mock trial, Anacaona was also hanged. Ovando ordered a similar campaign to kill all the Ta?no chiefs in the eastern part of the island. With few remaining Ta?no leaders, future resistance from the Ta?no was virtually eliminated.
Unlike Europeans, Africans, and Asians (who had exchanged diseases for centuries along with commercial goods), the remaining Ta?no did not have immunities to the diseases that the Spaniards and their animals carried to the Americas. Forced into brute labor and unable to take time to engage in agricultural activities in order to feed themselves, famine accelerated the death rate. To escape from the Spaniards, some Ta?no adopted the tactic of abandoning their villages and burning their crops. They fled to less hospitable regions of the island, forming cimarr?n ('runaway') colonies , or fled to other islands and even to the mainland. Smallpox was introduced to the island in 1518 and the Ta?no deathrate accelerated. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, there were fewer than 50,000 Ta?no remaining in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island.
Within another generation, the survivors had nearly all become biologically mixed with Spaniards, Africans, or other mixed-blood people--had become the tripartite people today known as Dominicans. Some modern historians have classified the acts of the Spaniards against the Ta?no as genocide.
In the first decade of the 1500s, one of the Ta?no chiefs, Hatüey, escaped to Cuba, where he became involved in organizing armed resistance to the Spanish invaders. After a brave but uneven struggle, he was captured and tortured to death. The most successful resistance against the Spaniards took place from 1519 to 1534 , after the Ta?no population had been almost completely decimated. This occurred when several thousand Ta?no escaped their captivity and followed their leader Enriquillo to the mountains of Bahoruco, in the south-central part of the country, near the present border with Haiti. It was here, after raiding Spanish plantations and defeating Spanish patrols for 14 years, that the very first truce between an Amer-Indian chief and a European monarch was negotiated. Enriquillo and his followers were all pardoned and given their own town and charter.
By 1515 the Spaniards realized that the gold deposits of Hispaniola were becoming exhausted. Shortly thereafter, Cortèz and his small retinue of soldiers made their astonishing conquest of Mexico, with its fabulous riches of silver. Almost overnight the colony, which was usually called Santo Domingo after its capital city, was abandoned and only a few thousand "Spanish" settlers remained behind (many of whom were the offspring of Spanish fathers and Ta?no mothers). Columbus' introduction of cattle and pigs to the island had multiplied rapidly, so the remaining inhabitants turned their attention to raising livestock to supply Spanish ships passing by the island en route to the richer colonies on the American mainland. Hispaniola's importance as a colony became increasingly minimized.
By the middle of the 17th century, the island of Tortuga, located to the west of Cap Haitien, had been settled by smugglers, run-away indentured servants, and members of crews of various European ships. In addition to capturing livestock on Hispaniola to sell for their leather, Tortuga became the headquarters for the Pirates of the Caribbean, who predominantly raided Spanish treasure ships. This area became the recruiting grounds for expeditions mounted by many notorious pirates, including the famous British pirate Henry Morgan.
continued,,,,
