Colony of Santo Domingo
Encyclopedia
The Captaincy General of Santo Domingo was the first Spanish colony in the New World
, and later became the Dominican Republic
. Originally known as "La Española", the colony was organized as the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo in 1511. After years of struggles with the French, the Spanish remained in control permanently of the eastern two-thirds of the island. It played a significant role in the establishment Spanish colonies in the New World for being a hub for Spanish Conquistadores on their way for the conquest of The Americas.
reached the island on his first voyage, on December 5, 1492, naming it La Española. Believing that the Europe
ans were in someway supernatural, the Taíno
s welcomed them with all the honors available. This was a totally different society from the one the Europeans came from. Guacanagarí
, the chief who hosted Christopher Columbus
and his men, treated them kindly and provided them with everything they desired. Yet the Taínos' allegedly "egalitarian" system clashed with the Europeans' feudalist system, with more rigid class structures. This led the Europeans to believe the Taínos to be either weak or misleading, and they began to treat the tribes with more violence. Columbus tried to temper this when he and his men departed from Quisqueya
—as the Taínos called the island—and they left on a good note.
Columbus had cemented a firm alliance with Guacanagarix, who was a powerful chief on the island. After the shipwrecking of the Santa María
, Columbus decided to establish a small fort with a garrison of men that could help him lay claim to this possession. The fort was called La Navidad
, since the events of the shipwrecking and the founding of the fort occurred on Christmas Day. The garrison, in spite of all the wealth and beauty on the island, was wracked by divisions that evolved into conflict amongst these first Europeans. The more rapacious ones began to terrorize the Taíno, Ciguayo and Macorix tribesmen up to the point of trying to take their women.
Viewed as weak by the Spaniards and even some of his own people, Guacanagarix tried to come to an accommodation with the Spaniards, who saw his appeasement as the actions of someone who submitted. They treated him with contempt and even took some of his wives. The powerful cacique of the Maguana, Caonabo, could brook no further affronts and attacked the Europeans, destroying La Navidad. Guacanagarix was dismayed by this turn of events but did not try too hard to aid these guamikena, probably hoping that the troublesome outsiders would never return. However, they did return.
In 1493, Christopher Columbus came back to the island on his second voyage and founded the first Spanish colony in the New World, the city of Isabella. In 1496, his brother Bartholomew Columbus established the settlement of Santo Domingo de Guzmán
on the southern coast, which became the new capital. An estimated 400,000 Tainos living on the island were soon enslaved to work in gold mines. As a consequence of oppression, forced labor, hunger, disease, and mass killings, it is estimated that by 1508 that number had been reduced to around 500,000. By 1535, only 60,000 were still alive.
During this period, the Spanish leadership changed hands several times. When Columbus departed on another exploration, Francisco de Bobadilla
became governor. Settlers' charges against Columbus of mismanagement added to the tumultuous political situation. In 1502, Nicolás de Ovando
replaced de Bobadilla as governor, with an ambitious plan to expand Spanish influence in the region. It was he who dealt most brutally with the Taínos.
One rebel, however, successfully fought back. Enriquillo
, leading a group of those who had fled to the mountains, attacked the Spanish repeatedly for fourteen years. Finally, the Spanish offered him a peace treaty. In addition, they gave Enriquillo and his followers their own city in 1534. The city did not last long, however; several years after its establishment, a slave rebellion burned it to the ground, killing anyone who stayed behind.
and Isabella, first granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves, which began arriving to the island in 1503. These African importees arrived with an ancient culture that has had an influence second only to that of Europe on the racial, political and cultural character of the modern Dominican Republic. 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. Poorer colonists subsisted by hunting the herds of wild cattle that roamed throughout the island and selling their hides.
The first major slave revolt in the Americas occurred in Santo Domingo
during 1522, when enslaved Muslims of the Wolof
nation led an uprising in the sugar plantation of admiral Don Diego Colon
, son of Christopher Columbus
. Many of these insurgents managed to escape to the mountains where they formed independent maroon
communities.
descended from tainos mix with runaway Africans,who reach the cacique.
bands had become so numerous that in rural areas the Spaniards could only safely travel outside their plantations in large armed groups. By the 1540s, the Caribbean Sea
had become overrun with English, French and Dutch pirates. 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. In 1564, the island's main inland cities Santiago de los Caballeros
and Concepción de la Vega
were destroyed by an earthquake.
and Peru
, 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 Taino, Spaniard 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. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake captured the city of Santo Domingo
, collecting a ransom for its return to Spanish rule.
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, proved disastrous; more than half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease. French and English buccaneers took advantage of Spain's retreat into a corner of Hispaniola to settle the island of Tortuga in 1629, which France
established direct control over in 1640, reorganizing it into an official colony and expanding to the north coast of Hispaniola itself. Spain
ceded the western end of the island to France
in 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick. In 1655, Oliver Cromwell
dispatched a fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir William Penn, to conquer the colony. After being defeated at Santo Domingo
on April 30, the English retreated, taking the island of Jamaica
instead.
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. 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. The population of Santo Domingo grew from about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790. Of this number, about 40,000 were white landowners, about 25,000 were black or mulatto freedmen, and some 60,000 were slaves. However, it remained poor and neglected, particularly in contrast with neighboring French
Saint-Domingue, which became the wealthiest colony in the New World. As restrictions on colonial trade were relaxed, the colonial elites of St. Domingue offered the principal market for Santo Domingo's exports of beef, hides, mahogany and tobacco.
With the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution
, the rich urban families linked to the colonial bureaucracy fled the island, while most of the rural hateros (cattle ranchers) remained, even though they lost their principal market. Spain saw in the unrest an opportunity to seize all, or part, of the western third of the island in an alliance of convenience with the British and the rebellious slaves. They were defeated by the forces of the black Jacobin
General Toussaint L'Ouverture
, and in 1795, France gained control of the whole island under the Treaties of Basel
. In 1801, L'Ouverture arrived in Santo Domingo, proclaiming the abolition of slavery on behalf of the French Republic. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon dispatched an army to subdue the island. Even after their defeat by the Haitians, a small French garrison remained in the former Spanish colony. Slavery was reestablished and many of the émigré Spanish colonists returned. In 1805, after crowning himself Emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines
invaded, reaching Santo Domingo
before retreating in the face of a French naval squadron. In their retreat through the Cibao
, the Haitians sacked the towns of Santiago de los Caballeros
and Moca
, slaughtering most of their residents and helping to lay the foundation for two centuries of animosity between the two countries.
The French held on in the eastern part of the island, until defeated by the Spanish inhabitants at the Battle of Palo Hincado
on November 7, 1808 and the final capitulation after the siege of Santo Domingo, on July 11, 1809, with help from the English Royal Navy. Spanish colonial rule would continue until 1821.
—'The Era of Foolish Spain'. The great ranching families such as the Santanas came to be the leaders in the south east, and the law of the "machete" ruled for a time. Then on November 9, 1821 the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo was toppled by a group led by Spanish lieutenant governor Núñez de Cáceres, the colony's former administrator, and the rebels proclaimed independence from Spain on November 30, 1821. The new nation was known as República del Haití Español (Republic of Spanish Haiti). On December 1, 1821 a constitutive act was ordered to petition the union of Spanish Haiti with Simon Bolivar
's Gran Colombia
. Yet Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, occupied the whole island
just nine weeks later. This was the beginning of a 20 year occupation by Haitian forces.
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
, and later became the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. Originally known as "La Española", the colony was organized as the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo in 1511. After years of struggles with the French, the Spanish remained in control permanently of the eastern two-thirds of the island. It played a significant role in the establishment Spanish colonies in the New World for being a hub for Spanish Conquistadores on their way for the conquest of The Americas.
Arrival of the Europeans
Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
reached the island on his first voyage, on December 5, 1492, naming it La Española. Believing that the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
ans were in someway supernatural, the Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...
s welcomed them with all the honors available. This was a totally different society from the one the Europeans came from. Guacanagarí
Guacanagari
Guacanagaríx was one of the five caciques of Hispaniola at the time of its discovery in 1492 by the Spanish. He was the chief of the cacicazgo of Marien, which occupied northwest of the island. Guacanagaríx received Christopher Columbus after the Santa María was wrecked during his first voyage to...
, the chief who hosted Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
and his men, treated them kindly and provided them with everything they desired. Yet the Taínos' allegedly "egalitarian" system clashed with the Europeans' feudalist system, with more rigid class structures. This led the Europeans to believe the Taínos to be either weak or misleading, and they began to treat the tribes with more violence. Columbus tried to temper this when he and his men departed from Quisqueya
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
—as the Taínos called the island—and they left on a good note.
Columbus had cemented a firm alliance with Guacanagarix, who was a powerful chief on the island. After the shipwrecking of the Santa María
Santa María (ship)
La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción , was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage. Her master and owner was Juan de la Cosa.-History:...
, Columbus decided to establish a small fort with a garrison of men that could help him lay claim to this possession. The fort was called La Navidad
La Navidad
La Navidad was a settlement that Christopher Columbus and his men established in present day Haiti in 1492 from the remains of the Spanish ship, the Santa María...
, since the events of the shipwrecking and the founding of the fort occurred on Christmas Day. The garrison, in spite of all the wealth and beauty on the island, was wracked by divisions that evolved into conflict amongst these first Europeans. The more rapacious ones began to terrorize the Taíno, Ciguayo and Macorix tribesmen up to the point of trying to take their women.
Viewed as weak by the Spaniards and even some of his own people, Guacanagarix tried to come to an accommodation with the Spaniards, who saw his appeasement as the actions of someone who submitted. They treated him with contempt and even took some of his wives. The powerful cacique of the Maguana, Caonabo, could brook no further affronts and attacked the Europeans, destroying La Navidad. Guacanagarix was dismayed by this turn of events but did not try too hard to aid these guamikena, probably hoping that the troublesome outsiders would never return. However, they did return.
In 1493, Christopher Columbus came back to the island on his second voyage and founded the first Spanish colony in the New World, the city of Isabella. In 1496, his brother Bartholomew Columbus established the settlement of Santo Domingo de Guzmán
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
on the southern coast, which became the new capital. An estimated 400,000 Tainos living on the island were soon enslaved to work in gold mines. As a consequence of oppression, forced labor, hunger, disease, and mass killings, it is estimated that by 1508 that number had been reduced to around 500,000. By 1535, only 60,000 were still alive.
During this period, the Spanish leadership changed hands several times. When Columbus departed on another exploration, Francisco de Bobadilla
Francisco de Bobadilla
Francisco de Bobadilla was a Spanish colonial administrator. Member of the Order of Calatrava, in 1499, de Bobadilla was appointed to succeed Christopher Columbus as the second governor of the Indies, Spain's new territories in America, by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella...
became governor. Settlers' charges against Columbus of mismanagement added to the tumultuous political situation. In 1502, Nicolás de Ovando
Nicolás de Ovando
Fray Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was a Spanish soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcántara. He was Governor of the Indies from 1502 until 1509...
replaced de Bobadilla as governor, with an ambitious plan to expand Spanish influence in the region. It was he who dealt most brutally with the Taínos.
One rebel, however, successfully fought back. Enriquillo
Enriquillo
Enriquillo was a Taíno Cacique who rebelled against the Spaniards from 1519 to 1533. His father was killed while attending peace talks with the Spanish, along with eighty other regional chieftains under the direction of his aunt Anacaona in Jaragua. During the talks, Spanish soldiers set the...
, leading a group of those who had fled to the mountains, attacked the Spanish repeatedly for fourteen years. Finally, the Spanish offered him a peace treaty. In addition, they gave Enriquillo and his followers their own city in 1534. The city did not last long, however; several years after its establishment, a slave rebellion burned it to the ground, killing anyone who stayed behind.
African enslavement
In 1501, the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand IFerdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, jure uxoris King of Castile and then regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of...
and Isabella, first granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves, which began arriving to the island in 1503. These African importees arrived with an ancient culture that has had an influence second only to that of Europe on the racial, political and cultural character of the modern Dominican Republic. 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
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, 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
Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo
The Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo was the first court of the Spanish crown in America. It was created by Ferdinand V of Castile in his decree of 1511, but due to disagreements between the governor of Hispaniola, Diego Colon and the Crown, it was not implemented until it was reestablished by...
from their ranks. Poorer colonists subsisted by hunting the herds of wild cattle that roamed throughout the island and selling their hides.
The first major slave revolt in the Americas occurred in Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
during 1522, when enslaved Muslims of the Wolof
Wolof people
The Wolof are an ethnic group found in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania.In Senegal, the Wolof form an ethnic plurality with about 43.3% of the population are Wolofs...
nation led an uprising in the sugar plantation of admiral Don Diego Colon
Diego Colón
Diego Columbus was the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indies and 3rd Governor of the Indies. He was the firstborn son of Christopher Columbus and wife Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, and was born in 1479/1480 in Porto Santo, Portugal or 1474 in Lisbon, Portugal. He died February...
, son of Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
. Many of these insurgents managed to escape to the mountains where they formed independent maroon
Maroon (people)
Maroons were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together...
communities.
descended from tainos mix with runaway Africans,who reach the cacique.
1540-1821
While sugar cane dramatically increased Spain's earnings on the island, large numbers of the newly imported slaves fled into the nearly impassable mountain ranges in the island's interior, joining the growing communities of cimarrónes-literally, 'wild animals'. By the 1530s, cimarronMaroon (people)
Maroons were runaway slaves in the West Indies, Central America, South America, and North America, who formed independent settlements together...
bands had become so numerous that in rural areas the Spaniards could only safely travel outside their plantations in large armed groups. By the 1540s, the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....
had become overrun with English, French and Dutch pirates. 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
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
's sugar industry, Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, more strategically located in relation to the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...
, was selected as the designated stopping point for the merchant flotas
Spanish treasure fleet
The Spanish treasure fleets was a convoy system adopted by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to 1790...
, which had a royal monopoly on commerce with the Americas. In 1564, the island's main inland cities Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros is a city in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1495 during the first wave of European colonization of the New World, today Santiago is the second largest metropolis in the Dominican Republic, located in the north-central region of the Republic known as Cibao valley...
and Concepción de la Vega
Concepción de La Vega
La Vega, or Concepción de La Vega is the largest city and municipality of the central Dominican Republic and the third of the whole country...
were destroyed by an earthquake.
Colonial decline, French acquisition and the Haitian Revolution
With the conquest of the American mainland, Hispaniola quickly declined. Most Spanish colonists left for the silver-mines of MexicoMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, 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 Taino, Spaniard 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. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake captured the city of Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, collecting a ransom for its return to Spanish rule.
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, proved disastrous; more than half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease. French and English buccaneers took advantage of Spain's retreat into a corner of Hispaniola to settle the island of Tortuga in 1629, which France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
established direct control over in 1640, reorganizing it into an official colony and expanding to the north coast of Hispaniola itself. Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
ceded the western end of the island to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick. In 1655, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
dispatched a fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir William Penn, to conquer the colony. After being defeated at Santo Domingo
Siege of Santo Domingo (1655)
The Siege of Santo Domingo of 1655, was fought between April 23, 1655 to April 30, 1655 at the Spanish Colony of Santo Domingo. A force of 2,400 Spanish troops led by Governor Don Bernardino Meneses y Bracamonte, Count of Peñalba, successfully resisted a force of 13,120 troops and 34 ships of the...
on April 30, the English retreated, taking the island of Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
instead.
The House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
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. By the middle of the century, the population was bolstered by emigration from the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, resettling the northern part of the colony and planting tobacco in the Cibao Valley, and importation of slaves was renewed. The population of Santo Domingo grew from about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790. Of this number, about 40,000 were white landowners, about 25,000 were black or mulatto freedmen, and some 60,000 were slaves. However, it remained poor and neglected, particularly in contrast with neighboring French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Saint-Domingue, which became the wealthiest colony in the New World. As restrictions on colonial trade were relaxed, the colonial elites of St. Domingue offered the principal market for Santo Domingo's exports of beef, hides, mahogany and tobacco.
With the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
, the rich urban families linked to the colonial bureaucracy fled the island, while most of the rural hateros (cattle ranchers) remained, even though they lost their principal market. Spain saw in the unrest an opportunity to seize all, or part, of the western third of the island in an alliance of convenience with the British and the rebellious slaves. They were defeated by the forces of the black Jacobin
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
General Toussaint L'Ouverture
Toussaint L'Ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture , also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution. His military genius and political acumen led to the establishment of the independent black state of Haiti, transforming an entire society of slaves into a free,...
, and in 1795, France gained control of the whole island under the Treaties of Basel
Peace of Basel
The Peace of Basel of 1795 consists of three peace treaties involving France .* The first of the three treaties of 1795, France made peace with Prussia on 5 April; , * The Second was with Spain on 22 July, ending the War of the Pyrenees; and*...
. In 1801, L'Ouverture arrived in Santo Domingo, proclaiming the abolition of slavery on behalf of the French Republic. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon dispatched an army to subdue the island. Even after their defeat by the Haitians, a small French garrison remained in the former Spanish colony. Slavery was reestablished and many of the émigré Spanish colonists returned. In 1805, after crowning himself Emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1801 constitution. Initially regarded as Governor-General, Dessalines later named himself Emperor Jacques I of Haiti...
invaded, reaching Santo Domingo
Siege of Santo Domingo (1805)
The Siege of Santo Domingo of 1805 was a major battle of the James Franco-Haitian War and was fought on March, 1805 at Santo Domingo, Saint-Domingue. A force of some 2,000 French troops led by Gen. Louis Ferrand resisted a siege of three weeks by a force of 21,000 troops of the Haitian Army led by...
before retreating in the face of a French naval squadron. In their retreat through the Cibao
Cibao
Cibao, usually referred as "El Cibao", is a region of the Dominican Republic located at the northern part of the country.The Taíno word Cibao, meaning "place where rocks abound", was originally applied to the central mountain range, and used during the Spanish conquest to refer to the rich and...
, the Haitians sacked the towns of Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros
Santiago de los Caballeros is a city in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1495 during the first wave of European colonization of the New World, today Santiago is the second largest metropolis in the Dominican Republic, located in the north-central region of the Republic known as Cibao valley...
and Moca
Moca, Dominican Republic
Moca is the capital of Espaillat province in the Dominican Republic.Moca is located 11 miles/18 kilometers away from the country’s second biggest city, Santiago De Los Caballeros. Moca is also known for its many great crops and friendly people....
, slaughtering most of their residents and helping to lay the foundation for two centuries of animosity between the two countries.
The French held on in the eastern part of the island, until defeated by the Spanish inhabitants at the Battle of Palo Hincado
Battle of Palo Hincado
The Battle of Palo Hincado was the first major battle of the Spanish Reconquista of the colony of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. It was fought in the colony, on November 7, 1808, at Palo Hincado savanna, near El Seibo...
on November 7, 1808 and the final capitulation after the siege of Santo Domingo, on July 11, 1809, with help from the English Royal Navy. Spanish colonial rule would continue until 1821.
Independence of Santo Domingo
The Spanish authorities showed little interest in their restored colony, and the following period is recalled as La España BobaEspaña Boba
España Boba or "The Era of Foolish Spain" was a period of time, from 1809 to 1821, in which the Spanish imperial government exercised only nominal power over its colony in Santo Domingo...
—'The Era of Foolish Spain'. The great ranching families such as the Santanas came to be the leaders in the south east, and the law of the "machete" ruled for a time. Then on November 9, 1821 the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo was toppled by a group led by Spanish lieutenant governor Núñez de Cáceres, the colony's former administrator, and the rebels proclaimed independence from Spain on November 30, 1821. The new nation was known as República del Haití Español (Republic of Spanish Haiti). On December 1, 1821 a constitutive act was ordered to petition the union of Spanish Haiti with Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
's Gran Colombia
Gran Colombia
Gran Colombia is a name used today for the state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831. This short-lived republic included the territories of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, northern Peru and northwest Brazil. The...
. Yet Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, occupied the whole island
Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo
The Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo was Haiti's military invasion and ensuing 22-year occupation of the newly independent Republic of Spanish Haiti, formerly the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, what is present-day Dominican Republic, from February 9, 1822 until February 27, 1844.The...
just nine weeks later. This was the beginning of a 20 year occupation by Haitian forces.
See also
- List of colonial governors of Santo Domingo
- History of the Dominican RepublicHistory of the Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles.Successive waves of Arawak migrants, moving northward from the Orinoco delta in South America, settled the islands of the Caribbean. Around AD 600, the Taíno Indians, an Arawak culture,...
- Spanish colonization of the AmericasSpanish colonization of the AmericasColonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
- French Colony of Saint-DomingueSaint-DomingueThe labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...