History of the Dominican Republic
History of the Dominican Republic
History of the Dominican Republic
The history of the Dominican Republic has been more than adequately documented since Christopher Columbus arrived. Unfortunately, we have only some pieces of information about the life on the island before 1492. Archaeological finds have revealed the settlement of the island of Hispaniola, almost five thousand years old, though the missing relics of people living on the island are missing. The first inhabitants of the Stone Age were Ciboney. They got their name by deriving the expression for stone – ciba and for human – igney. They have arrived to the island from a region that we call Florida today. Later there were several waves of settlements – especially immigrants from Venezuela. In the eleventh century, the Tainos appeared and absorbed the other tribes.
The disembarkation of Christopher Columbus
On 1492 Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) arrived with three small caravels to the northern shores of the island and named it La Hispaniola. His cruise was motivated by an attempt to find his way back to India, where was the biggest market of gold and spice at that time. He thought he had actually discovered the way. Columbus left several men in the island La Hispaniola to take care about the settlement in the northern coast and he with several golden ornaments and jewels returned to Spain. The Spanish Royal Court was pleased with the prospect of inexhaustible supplies of gold and gave Columbus an order for the next trip. Columbus’s first settlement – La Isabela (nowadays Puerto Plata, named after the current Spanish Queen) was destroyed by raids of the Tainos – Indians. Christopher’s brother, Bartolomé, decided that a more favorable haven would be in the southern part of the island. In 1496 he founded Santo Domingo on the eastern bank of the Ozama River. Governor Nicolas de Ovanado later, in 1498, moved the city to the west bank and began to build here stone houses. Thus the first European city was born in the new world. In 1509, the Christopher’s son, Diego Colón, took the control over the city, and started to build buildings which many of them you can see even now. Santo Domingo became later an important transfer station for other explorers who has traveled from Spain to America.
Freedom fighter called Enriquillo
Eriquillo was an Indian from the Taino tribe he was the first Catolic on the island and his name Enriquillo would come after his baptism. This man has a special place in Dominican folklore and is considered the first freedom fighter in Latin America. However, reality and fantasy will already be flown since in the 1960s Manuel de Jesús Galván published a romantic novel about Enriquill. The story tells about Enriquillo, who got married in Alcázar de Colón with Taina woman Mencia. He got agitated when leader Andrés de Velenzuela tried to mislead his wife. He was flogged for his complaint, but his case went up to Audiences Real. The He didnt win his case and escaped to the Sierra de Bahoruco, under the threat of jail, where he and the party partisan of Taine continued to resist the Spanish Forces. Eventually, Hemando de San Martín negotiated peace, and Spanish King Karol I signed a treaty that granted the freedom and their own reservation to Tainos. Enriquillo, however, soon died of one of European diseases, perhaps smallpox. Today we can find a lake – named in his honor – Enriquillo Lake, the big statue like an idyllic monument commemorating his actions is located in the bank of this lake. Although the Taines were proclaimed as free people of the Kingdom of Spain in 1512, the whole population was devastated by brutal Spaniards in the 1930s and by European diseases. Their place was captured by slaves imported from Africa. The city of Santo Domingo suffered from frequent hurricanes, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries pirated attacks, and consequently faced with the need for reconstruction. They were replaced by slaves imported from Africa. The city of Santo Domingo suffered from frequent hurricanes, as well as continuing pirated attacked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus the reconstruction of the city became the must.
Buccaneers
As soon as it got popular that Spanish ships were transporting gold and silver to Spain, the water around the island literally infested by pirates. They attacked the ships transporting this precious boxes so often and with such a bravura that legends started to be told about their performance. Some of them did not limit themselves just to the seas. One of these corsairs was also Sir Francis Drake, who in 1586 rob Santo Domingo from the inland – where the city was not so well protected. As soon as he stole all that was possible, they set up a fire in the city and returned to England as a national hero. With the time, pirates, who were around the island managed to get out and the buccaneers either become smallholders or joined the other pirate groups around Jamaica.
The emergence of Haiti
Insufficient care of the Spaniards about their own colonies was used by the French and invaded the western part of the island. There they established a French colony called Domingue – which became the largest caribbean sugar cane producer. This colony lasted for a century until the Great French Revolution in France gave rise to a fiery debate about slavery. In 1791 the slaves made the first and last successful rebellion and their white French masters drove away. Their new, independent country got the name Haiti, which means “High Country” in the Taine language. Vying among blacks and mulats, as well as frequent fights among the rulers, have resulted in a drastic weakening of the country’s economy and its gradual decline into poverty over a century. Santo Domingo was, at that time, a “lowland” population, and was an easy prey for attackers from outside. Between 1801 and 1809, the city was under the domination of Haiti, France, England, and Spain. When Haitians reigned in 1822-43 again, it was at that time the growing fear and resentment give a born a future independence movement.
Independence of the Dominican Republic two times in a row
The Independence of the Dominican Republic was declared on 27 February 1844 and the three men who fought the Haiti – Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Ramón Mella became national heroes (Los Padres de la Patria). In Santo Doming, they defeated the Haitian army and established a new, independent Dominican Republic. However Dominicans have failed to maintain a unified government, and the country has continued to face frequent Haitian invasions. In November of that year, General Pedro Santana took over the government. His aim was to find an agreement with Spain and establish the protectorate so that Spain would protect the Dominican Republic. Although he eventually succeeded in achieving this re-colonization by Spain, this new agreement completely failed. The Spanish economy collapsed, also because they spent too much money to maintain peace with guerrillas scattered in the mountains. The oppression from the Spanish troops met with still increasing resistance, which ended up by so-called war “behind the restaurant”. The war culminated in 1865, when the Kingdom of Spain surrendered power claims and withdraw the troops and officials.
Juan Pablo Duarte – founding father of the Dominican nation
Anywhere you travel around the Dominican Republic – Calle (street) Duarte is usually the main street in the city, Pico Duarte is the highest mountain on the island (and throughout the Caribbean) and Autopista Duarte is the main highway from Santo Domingo to the north. Juan Pablo Duarte is worshiped throughout the territory of the Dominican Republic as a creator of independence in Haiti. Juan Pablo Duarte was born in Santo Domingo in 1813. In 1828 he was sent to Europe to study. The liberal thoughts he captured during his travels through England, France and Spain leaded in creating a nationalist policy against the Haitian occupation. He founded a secret association called La Trinitaria. La Trinitaria was divided into groups of three people. Each new member recruited three new members of the division. The three main leaders were – Duarte, Francisco de Rosario Sánchez and Ramón Mella. Their first attempt at the rebellion in 1843 was unsuccessful and the hard intervention of the troops drove Duarte into exile while Sánchez was hiding and Mella was arrested.
The conspiracy continued, and on February 27, 1844, Mella signaled the second attempt. Haitian troops in Santo Domingo were defeated – a provisional junta was established and the Dominican Republic was proclaimed to be an independent republic. Duarte returned to the Dominican Republic as a hero on March 14 and became a junta member. However, disilusioned, he left the politic scene very soon.
US intervention
Factionalism, a weak economy, and Haitian invasion have made impossible for the government and the newly established republic to stabilize. Governments alternated one after another, powerful rulers garnered their property and the Dominican Republic meanwhile went to ruin. Germany, which has been deeply involved in the tobacco market, has sent military ships several times to secure the Dominican debts. The United States, which were afraid of the growing influence of the Germany in the region, intervened in 1905 and decided to took over the administration of the Dominican Republic.
However, financial stability didn’t guarantee political stability. A series of short presidential periods, uprisings and demonstrations continued. All of this has led the United States to send its naval military forces to the Dominican Republic. In 1916 a fully military regime in the Dominican Republic was established. Although military forces were meeting the resistance of the population, schools, sewerage, roads and other infrastructure were built. The Guerrilla War continued and was boost up by the unfortunate consequences of the land reform because of which many farmers lost their land and property. After that farmers went to the mountains and joined the rebels. The US troops were withdrawn from the Dominican Republic in 1924, but the US bankruptcy administration continued on.
Trujillo’s dictatorship
The elections that took place in 1930 led to the presidential seat of the then commander of the Army of Raphael Trujillo. Trujillo ruled for another thirty years, during which he became one of the most feared and worst dictators in the history of the American continent. Whether he was the president himself or one of his puppets, Trujillo had always control over everything through a secret police. After the devastating hurricane, which hit most of Santo Domingo in 1930, the megaloman Trujillo built the city again and renamed it to Ciudad Trujillo. In 1936 he also renamed Pico Duarte – the highest mountain of the Caribbean on Pico Trujillo.
To his credit, he helped to modernization of the country’s infrastructure, the settlement of foreign debts, the termination of the US bankruptcy administration, and the introduction of the Peso – as the national currency. The most striking, however, was his eccentricity and brutality. In 1937, he had assembled and murdered 10,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Racist convictions have led to attempts to force out the black population. While immigration from Europe and Japan was supported, Haitians have been terrorized and forced to deport.
Political opponents have been liquidated regularly until finally, in 1960, when Trujillo began plotting the assassination of the President of Venezuela, Roma Betancourt, The Organization of American States (OAS) has imposed economic sanctions on Dominican Republic and voices calling for the situation change coming from both the country and abroad have grown. In 1961, Trujillo was assassinated by the CIA on his way to one of his mistresses.
The slow rise of democracy
The then president, Joaquin Balaguer, who became the president after Trujillo haven’t stay in power for a long period. In 1962, the election took place, winning the radical – Juan Bosch for the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), which was formed in exile. His electoral program included the implementation of the land reform, which consist to divide and return the land confiscated by Trujilto again to the original landowners, and other measures to solve unemployment and poverty in the Dominican Republic. The saving program, which was meant to keep state finances in place, has nevertheless met with strong distrust by the oligarchy, the Church and the US. The reason for this mistrust was also that Bosh with his leftist thoughts appeared only shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1959. It took only seven months for the military to break him out of the office.
There followed a number of governments that, unfortunately, without any result, attempted to stabilize the situation in the country. The country slowly led to the civil war. At this stage, in Dominican banks in 1965, 23,000 US troops arrived, later backed by other OAS powers. By 1966, when new elections were announced, several thousand Dominicans and Haitians lost their lives during the revolts. Election winner Joaquin Balaguer returned from exile and stood up at the head of his right-wing party – Partido Reformista Social Christiano (PRSC). Balaguer, who had been a member of Trujil’s administration since 1930, won the next election in 1970, 1974, 1986, 1990 and 1994. However, the election results were questioned over time as Balaguer’s rival José Francisko Pena Goméz from the 1994 PRD indicated it as a total fraud. Balaguer was forced to announce new elections in 1996, in which he had not been a candidate yet but nevertheless he managed to win the victory for his own candidate.
The eighties and nineties of the twentieth century have meant hard times for the Dominican people, as poverty has deepened due to the global financial crisis.
The structural adjustment program, prepared by the International Monetary Fund, brought strikes and violence to the Dominican Republic. High inflation, unemployment and corruption continued unabated.
The state-owned enterprises ware in chaos, sugar production collapsed, and only minimum part of the badget were invested in health and education. Balaguer was spending huge funds on building projects, such as the Columbus Lighthouse, – Faro de Colón, commemorating the five-hundred year anniversary of Columbus’s disembarkation.
In 2000, at the age of 93, Balaguer – very weak and blind – took part in the election last. Most of the votes were won in the first round by the PRD candidate – Hipólito Mejia, and the other candidates, after negotiating with Balaguer, surrendered. With the Mejia win and with Balaguer’s death in 2002 ended so definitively one big era in the history of the Dominican Republic.
