History of the Dominican Republic

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. The word Taíno meant 'good' or 'noble' in their language. By the end of the 15th century, the Ta?7363no were well organized into five political units called cazicazgos and were considered to have been of the verge of civilization and central government.

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. Columbus' brother, Bartholomew, was appointed governor while Christopher continued his explorations in the Caribbean region. After discovering gold in the south of the island, Bartholomew went there and established the city of Santo Domingo in the year 1496.

Around the year 1515 the Spaniards started to notice a decrease in the gold deposits in the island and turned their attention to the rich deposits of Silver discovered by Cortez in Mexico. Soon after this, Santo Domingo’s importance as a colony started to diminish.

By the middle of the 17th century, the island of Tortuga, located to the west of Cap Haitien, was settled by smugglers, run-away indentured servants, and members of crews of various European ships. Tortuga became the headquarters for the pirates of the Caribbean, who predominantly raided Spanish treasure ships.

The French, sent colonists to settle Tortuga and the northwestern coast of Hispaniola, which the Spaniards had totally abandoned by 1603. The western third of Hispaniola became a French colony called Saint Domingue in 1697, and over the next century, they developed into what became one of the richest colonies in the world. The wealth of the colony derived predominantly from sugar cane. Large plantations were worked by hundreds of thousands of African slaves that were brought to the island by the French colonists.

Following the events taking place in France during the French revolution, the growing tensions between the whites and mulattos (mixture of whites and African slaves) in Saint Domingue resulted in a revolt all throughout the French colony in 1791. This revolt was lead by a French black man named Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Since Spain had ceded the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo to France in 1795, in the Treaty of Basilea, Toussaint L'Ouverture and his followers claimed the entire island in 1801. In 1808 the people revolted and captured Santo Domingo the next year, setting up the first republic.

Spain regained title to the colony in 1814 and re-established slavery and also mounted expeditions into Haiti to capture and enslave black men. In 1821, the colonists of Santo Domingo led by Jos? Nu?ez de Caceres,?declared what was called an “ephemeral independence”.

In 1822, Haiti's president Jean-Pierre Boyer, fearful that the French would re-establish slavery as they had threatened to do, invaded the eastern part of the Hispaniola and incorporated Santo Domingo into the Republic of Haiti. The next 22 years the whole island of Hispaniola remained under Haitian control.?

During the late 1830's, an underground resistance group, La Trinitaria, was organized under the leadership of Juan Pablo Duarte. After multiple attacks on the Haitian army, Independence of the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola was officially declared on February 27, 1844, and the name Rep?blica Dominicana (Dominican Republic) was adopted, headed by Pedro Santana. Uprisings and Haitian attacks led Santana to make the country a province of Spain from 1861 to 1865.

President Buenaventura B?ez, faced with an economy in shambles, attempted to have the country annexed to the U.S. in 1870, but the U.S. Senate refused to ratify a treaty of annexation.

Over the next 70 years the Dominican Republic had multiple outbreaks of civil war and was characterized by political instability and economic chaos.

Disorder continued until the dictatorship of Ul?ses Heureaux; in 1916, when chaos broke out again, the U.S. sent in a contingent of marines, who remained until 1924.

A sergeant in the Dominican army trained by the marines, Rafa?l Leonides Trujillo Molina, overthrew the then appointed president, Horacio V?squez in 1930 and established a dictatorship that lasted until his assassination in 1961, 31 years later.

In 1962, Juan Bosch of the leftist Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), became the first democratically elected president in four decades.

In 1963, a military coup ousted Bosch and installed a civilian triumvirate. Leftists rebelled against the new regime in April 1965, and U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson sent in marines and troops. After a cease-fire in May, a compromise installed Hector Garcia-Godoy as provisional president.

A year later, former leader Dr. Joaqu?n Balaguer of the PRSC (Christian Socialist Revolutionary Party), was elected president once again, with U.S. help, in what was acknowledged by all observers to have been a rigged election. Balaguer remained in power for the next 12 years, winning re-election in both 1970 and 1974. In both instances the opposition parties maintained that the elections would again be rigged, so they did not even nominate candidates to participate in the electoral races.

In 1978 the army suspended the counting of ballots when Balaguer trailed in a fourth-term bid. After a warning from President Jimmy Carter, however, Balaguer accepted the victory of Antonio Guzm?n of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD).

Just before Guzm?n's 4-year term ended in 1982, he committed suicide, allegedly after becoming aware that close family members were involved in massive corruption and embezzlement of government funds.

Dr. Salvador Jorge Blanco, of the same political party, replaced Guzm?n as the country’s president. Jorge Blanco was, in the end, also marred by allegations of massive corruption and misappropriation of government funds. He was later found guilty of both and convicted to 20 years in prison.

Joaquin Balaguer was again re- elected president in May of 1986 and remained in office for the next ten years.

In 1996, Leonel Fern?ndez of the PLD party (Dominican Liberation Party), after an alliance with the PRSC party, which was led by Balaguer, secured more than 51% of the vote. Fern?ndez was praised for ending decades of isolationism and improving ties with other Caribbean countries, but he was greatly criticized for not fighting corruption or alleviating the poverty that affects 60% of the population.

In Aug. 2000 the center-left Hipólito Mejía (PRD) was elected president amid popular discontent over power outages in the recently privatized electric industry.?Even though Mejia’s rule started out very promising, with an increase of seven percent in the tourism and manufacturing industries, it was soon marred by political scandal as well as a global recession. In 2003 one of the Dominican Republic’s largest financial institution, Banco Internacional (Baninter), went into bankruptcy due to an enormous fraud orchestrated by the bank’s owners and administrators. After this, the Dominican Peso?to Dollar exchange rate fell to 50:1 from a previous 16:1, where it had stayed from 1996 to 2002.

In the following presidential elections, in May 2004 the Dominican people in an attempt to return to a more prosperous time opted to re elected President Fern?ndez despite having accused his administration of corruption and fraud. Fern?ndez instituted austerity measures to rescue the country from its economic crisis, and in the first half of 2006, the economy grew 11.7%.

On May 16, 2008, despite the increasing taxes , inflation and growing complaints from the Dominican population, president Leonel Fern?ndez was reelected, taking 53% of the vote. He defeated Miguel Vargas of the Dominican Revolutionary Party, who won 41%.