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Summary: History of the Dominican Republic
Title: History of the Dominican Republic
Section: Essays on history
Type: abstract
Plan Introduction 1 Pre Columbian Hispaniola 2 Colonial Rule 2.1 Colonial Hispaniola 2.2 Partition of the Island and the XVIII century
3 French Occupation 4 Haitian Occupation 5 From Independence to the beginning of the XX century 5.1 Independence from Haiti 5.2 Spanish annexation 5.3 The Second Republic 5.4 Ulises Ayrault and the influence of the United States
Before the arrival of Europeans, the island of Haiti, on which the Dominican Republic is located, experienced several waves of migration of Indians from the mainland.
Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492, on his first voyage.
Until 1795, the island was a Spanish colony, and later passed to France, which by that time had owned the western part of the island (now the Republic of Haiti) for almost a hundred years.
During the Haitian Revolution, the entire island was incorporated into the Haitian Republic.
In 1821, after a long period of uncertainty, the east of the island was again occupied by Haiti, and in 1844 the independent Dominican Republic was proclaimed.
From 1861 to 1865, on the initiative of President Pedro Santana, the Dominican Republic was part of Spain, but then again gained independence.
From 1916 to 1924, the country was occupied by the United States.
A significant part of the Dominican history of the XX century is occupied by the dictatorial rule of Rafael Trujillo, who died in 1961.
In 1966, the country experienced a civil war, after which a period of democratic civil government began, which continues to this day.
1. Pre Columbian Hispaniola The island of Haiti (Hispaniola) was inhabited, like other Caribbean islands, by Arawaks who migrated from the mainland.
The first inhabitants of the island sailed from the delta of the Orinoco River.
Around 600, a wave of Taino Indians came to the island, subjugating the local population.
They did not know how to process metal and were divided into clans ruled by caciques.
The last wave of Arawak migrants, the Caribs, began moving to the islands of the Lesser Antilles around 1100, and by the time the Spaniards arrived, the Caribs were regularly attacking the Taino settlements in the east of the island.
2. Colonial rule 2.1.
Colonial Hispaniola The first expedition of Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492, which gave it the name "Hispaniola".
The Taino, led by Cacique Guacanagarix, welcomed the Spaniards, mistaking them for supernatural beings.
Columbus made an alliance with Guacanagarix, and after the collapse of Santa Maria on December 25, 1492, he decided to build a fort on the island and leave a small garrison there to confirm Spain's claims to the island.
Fort La Navidad (named after Christmas, since it was founded on the day of the holiday), on the territory of modern Haiti, existed for less than a year, as the garrison came into conflict with the local population, and Cacique Caonabo, an opponent of Guacanagarix, destroyed the fort and killed the entire remaining garrison by that time.
In 1493, Columbus, who discovered the burned fort and found out that his garrison was attacking the Indians, decided not to renew the settlement, but to establish a new one, La Isabela, in honor of Queen Isabella, in the east of the island, on the territory of the modern Dominican Republic.
It became the first Spanish colony in America.
In 1496, Columbus ' brother, Bartolomeo Columbus, founded the city of Santo Domingo de Guzman on the southern coast of the island.
The first governor of Hispaniola was Christopher Columbus himself, then in 1499 he was replaced by Francisco de Bobadilla.
In 1502, Nicholas de Ovando became the governor, who set the goal of complete colonization of the island.
During the colonization, the Indian population of the island was enslaved and sent to forced labor in the gold fields.
By 1535, their number had decreased from 400 thousand to about 60 thousand.
It is known that in 1519, the cacique Enriquillo rebelled against the Spaniards, leaving with his supporters in the mountains.
The uprising lasted until 1533 and ended with a truce, according to which the Taino received the right to own property and personal freedom, and Enriquillo and his supporters were allowed to build their own city.
In 1501, the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella allowed the import of slaves from the west coast of Africa to America.
In Hispaniola, the slave trade began in 1503.
The importation of black slaves had a huge impact on the further history and culture of the island.
84 % of the population of the Dominican Republic are their descendants.
In 1516, the first sugar factory in America was opened in Hispaniola[1], and sugar cane quickly became the main agricultural crop of the island.
In turn, the expansion of sugar plantations made it necessary to further increase the import of slaves.
The plantation owners formed the white elite of the island.
Poorer white colonists were engaged in hunting.
The first major uprising of slaves, Muslims of the Wolof people, took place on the island in 1522.
The rebels destroyed the plantation of Diego Colon, the son of Christopher Columbus, and many managed to escape to the mountains, where they formed independent communities.
By the 1530s, the departure of runaway slaves to the mountains, where they organized communities of so called cimarrons (Spanish simaggup, fugitive), became such a serious problem that movement on the island became dangerous, and Spaniards outside the plantations could move only under the protection of armed detachments.
At the same time, in the 1530s, the English, French and Dutch presence in the Caribbean Sea significantly increased.
Pirates constantly threatened the shores of the island, so in 1541 Spain began building a wall around Santo Domingo, and also allowed merchant ships to sail only as part of convoys.
In 1561, Havana, more conveniently located, was designated a mandatory stopping point for all Spanish merchant ships.
Since Spain at that time had a monopoly on trade in the Caribbean Sea, this meant a significant deterioration in the economic situation of Hispaniola and a significant blow to its sugar industry.
In addition, in 1564, an earthquake destroyed the two largest cities of the inner part of the island Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros and Concepcion de la Vega.
The decline of Hispaniola was also promoted by the conquests of Spain on the American continent.
Many residents of the island moved to Mexico and Peru, the influx of emigrants to the island decreased.
With the exception of Santo Domingo, all the ports of the island had no income from legal trade and depended solely on smuggling.
In 1586, the English pirate Francis Drake captured Santo Domingo and held it until he received a significant ransom from the Spanish authorities.
2.2. The division of the island and the XVIII century In 1605, Spain, dissatisfied with the fact that the ports of the island conduct contraband trade with European powers and violate the Spanish monopoly, undertook the forced relocation (Spanish devastaciones) of the inhabitants of the northern and western parts of the island closer to Santo Domingo, which led to the death of a significant part of this population from hunger and disease.
The devastation of the coast was taken advantage of by English and French privateers who settled on the island of Tortuga since 1629.
In 1655, Cromwellian England sent a fleet under the command of William Penn to capture Santo Domingo.
The fleet, however, met resistance, and, instead of conquering Hispaniola, captured Jamaica.
Although Spain twice devastated Tortuga, since 1640 the latter was controlled directly by France, which appointed a governor there.
The French colony from Tortuga gradually expanded to the western coast of Hispaniola, and in 1697, Spain, under the terms of the Treaty of Reiswick, transferred the western part of the island to France (Saint Domengue, now Haiti)[2].
The eastern part of the island, which is now occupied by the Dominican Republic, remained with Spain.
Since 1700, the Bourbon dynasty ruled in Spain, which began to carry out economic reforms.
In particular, restrictions on the trade of the Spanish colonies in America with Spain and among themselves were significantly relaxed.
The last convoys were sent to Spain in 1737; after that, the trade monopoly was abolished.
As a result of the reforms, trade in Santo Domingo has revived.
Emigrants from the Canary Islands moved to the eastern part of the island.
They settled in the north of the island and were engaged in tobacco cultivation.
By 1790, the population of Santo Domingo had grown, according to estimates, to 125 thousand — twenty times in fifty years.
Nevertheless, eastern Hispaniola remained an underdeveloped and abandoned colony, especially compared to the prosperous western part of the island[3].
The latter also served as the main market for beef, tobacco and wood produced in the east of the island.
3. French occupation In 1791, the Haitian Revolution began, which swept the western part of the island.
Many wealthy families fled, but the majority of the population of the eastern part remained on the island, even though they lost the main market for their goods.
Spain tried, taking advantage of the uprising, to seize the entire western part of the island, or at least to increase its territory.
However, the Spanish troops were defeated by the forces of Toussaint Louverture, and in 1795, according to the Peace of Basel, Spain ceded its part of the island to France.
In 1797, Toussaint Louverture established control over the island, and in 1801 he arrived in Santo Domingo, declaring the abolition of slavery on behalf of the French Republic.
Napoleon's army managed to capture the island for several months, but in October 1802 an uprising began, which ended in November 1803 with the expulsion of French troops.
On January 1, 1804, the Republic of Haiti was proclaimed an independent republic in the western part of the island.
In the eastern part of it, a French garrison remained, even after the expulsion of French troops from Haiti, slavery was restored, and Spanish colonial planters began to return.
In 1805, the Governor General (Head of state) Haiti, Jean Jacques Dessalines declared himself emperor, after which he invaded the eastern part of the island with his troops, reached Santo Domingo, after which he was defeated by a French naval squadron.
During the retreat, the Haitians sacked the cities of Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros and Moca, slaughtering most of their population.
This predetermined the deep hostility between the inhabitants of Haiti and the Dominican Republic for years to come.
France held the eastern part of the island of Haiti until 1808, when on November 7, in the battle of Palo Incado, the troops were defeated by the rebellious Spanish population.
On July 9, 1809, after a siege, the rebels took Santo Domingo, which put an end to the French occupation of the island and formally returned it to the jurisdiction of the Spanish crown.
Spain showed no interest in returning the former colony, and the eastern part of the island of Haiti did not have a central government for some time.
The southeast of the island was ruled by large families of planters, the rest of the territory was lawless.
On November 30, 1821, the Spanish governor Jose Nunes da Caceres declared the independence of the colony from Spain and proclaimed an independent state of Spanish Haiti (Spanish: Haiti Espacol).
He expressed a desire to annex the newly created state to Greater Colombia, but this plan did not come to fruition, since nine weeks later Spanish Haiti was occupied by Haitian troops.
4. Haitian occupation The Haitian occupation lasted for 22 years and was a period of military rule.
During the occupation, land was seized on a large scale, unsuccessful attempts were made to cultivate and export cereals, military service was introduced, the use of the Spanish language was restricted, and some local traditions, such as cockfights, were fought.
this period deepened the differences between Dominicans and Haitians.
However, during the same period, slavery was finally abolished in the eastern part of the island of Haiti.
The Haitian Constitution prohibited whites from owning land, and most of the planters lost their property.
Many emigrated to Cuba, Puerto Rico or Greater Colombia, their lands were often ceded to Haitian officials.
The Haitians associated the Roman Catholic Church with the French colonizers, so they confiscated all church property, deported foreign priests, and the relations of those who remained with the Vatican were difficult.
The University of Santo Domingo, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, was forced to close because there were not enough students or professors.
In 1825, France recognized the independence of Haiti, conditional on the payment of compensation for confiscated property in the amount of 150 million francs (later the amount was reduced to 60 million francs).
As a result, taxes were significantly increased in the eastern part of the island.
Funds for the maintenance of the Haitian army were allocated in insufficient volume, so the army confiscated food supplies from the peasants.
Emancipated slaves refused to grow cereals, as prescribed by the code adopted by the President of Haiti, Jean Philippe Boyer.
Moreover, in rural areas, the power of Haitians was insufficient to establish any order at all.
The negative consequences of the occupation were most acutely felt in Santo Domingo, and it was there that the independence movement began.
5. From Independence to the beginning of the XX century 5.1.
Independence from Haiti In 1838, Juan Pablo Duarte, Ramon Mathias Melia and Francisco del Rosario Sanchez founded a secret society, which they called Spanish.
La Trinitaria.
The goal of the society was to gain independence from Haiti in the eastern part of the island.
In 1843, they supported a movement in Haiti that aimed to overthrow Boyer.
The new president of Haiti, Charles Riviere Erard, seeing the danger that the Trinitarians posed to Haiti, imprisoned and expelled leading members of society from the country.
At the same time, Buenaventura Baez, a timber merchant and a member of the National Assembly of Haiti, was negotiating the establishment of a French protectorate.
Trying to get ahead of him, the Trinitarians rebelled and declared independence from Haiti on February 27, 1844.
They were supported by Pedro Santana, a planter who commanded an army of Peons who worked on his estates.
The first Constitution of the Dominican Republic was adopted on November 6, 1844.
It proclaimed a presidential form of government and was generally liberal.
However, Pedro Santana insisted on the adoption of article 210, which gave the president the rights of a dictator until the end of the War of independence.
Since Santana became the president of the Dominican Republic, he used the constant threat of a Haitian invasion (Haitian troops did regularly invade the eastern part of the island from 1844 to 1856) to activate this article of the constitution and deal with his political opponents, the main of whom was Duarte.
Although all the invasions were successfully repelled, Article 210 was in effect all the time, and Santana was actually the dictator of the Dominican Republic.
The threat of an invasion of Haiti was taken so seriously that proposals were made to various colonial empires, including Great Britain, France, the United States and Spain, to annex the Dominican Republic.
There were no good roads in the east of the island, so communication between the various regions of the Dominican Republic was difficult, and the regions developed in isolation from each other.
In the south, the main branch of the economy was animal husbandry and wood production.
Semi feudal relations were preserved here, the hacienda was the economic and social unit, and the majority of the population lived below the poverty line.
In the Sibao Valley, the most fertile area in the east of the island, farmers grew cereals, as well as tobacco, which was exported.
Tobacco cultivation required less land than animal husbandry, so small peasant farms dominated here.
They were significantly dependent on trade, as their products were delivered to the nearest ports.
Santana, a planter and a native of the south, significantly enriched himself at the expense of the peasants of the Cibao Valley, since he issued a large amount of unsecured money and was able to buy their harvest significantly below its real value.
This caused discontent, and in 1848 he was forced to resign.
He was succeeded by Vice President Manuel Jimenez.
However, in 1849, there was another invasion of Haitian troops, Santana led the army, and after repelling the attack, he led troops into Santo Domingo and deposed Jimenez.
At his insistence, the Congress chose Bonaventure Baez as president.
Baez, however, refused to play the role of Santana's puppet, as the latter had hoped.
In 1853, Santana was elected president for the second time, sending Baez into exile.
In 1856, after repelling the last Haitian invasion, he signed a contract with an American company, leasing part of the Samana Peninsula to it.
This extremely unpopular measure forced him to resign again, after which Baes returned to the country and took power into his own hands.
The country was in a difficult financial situation, and Baez ordered the printing of 18 million unsecured pesos, bought the tobacco crop of 1857 with them and sold it abroad with great profit for himself and his inner circle.
The peasants of Sibao were devastated and raised an uprising that turned into a civil war.
The rebels turned to Santana with a request to lead them.
A few years later, the war ended with the victory of the party of Santana, who captured Santo Domingo and assumed presidential powers.
5.2. Spanish annexation Pedro Santana inherited a country on the verge of economic collapse.
After the failure of negotiations with the United States and France on the annexation of the country, Santana began negotiations with Queen Isabella II of Spain on the return of the island to the status of a Spanish colony.
While the Civil War was going on in the United States, and the Monroe doctrine was not actually in effect, Spanish Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell advocated a new colonial policy.
In particular, the result of this policy was the war in Morocco, which ended with the conquest of Tetouan.
In March 1861, the Dominican Republic was officially incorporated into Spain.
This did not meet the understanding of the majority of the population, and on August 16, 1863, the war for the restoration of Dominica began national independence.
The rebels established a provisional government in Santiago.
Spanish troops took the city, but the rebels fled into the mountains to the poorly demarcated Haitian border.
Haitian President Fabre Geffrard provided the rebels with weapons and even gave them a unit of the Presidential Guard of Haiti (French Tirailleurs) to reinforce them.
Santana first took the post of captain general of the new Spanish province, but it soon became clear that the Spanish authorities considered it undesirable to leave him in power, and in 1862 he resigned.
The provisional government formed by the rebels sentenced Santana to death, and he died under unclear circumstances in 1864 (the main version of his death was suicide).
The Spanish authorities have taken a number of measures, including restrictions on trade, began discrimination against mulattoes.
Rumors spread about the imminent restoration of slavery.
The new archbishop has launched a campaign against extramarital affairs, which were common in the Dominican Republic.
All this contributed to the extremely low popularity of the Spanish authorities.
The Spanish army suffered heavy losses from yellow fever and was unable to fight outside the cities.
In the end, the local authorities considered the situation hopeless and advised Queen Isabella to end the Spanish occupation of the island.
At this point, however, the rebels were disorganized and could not present agreed demands.
The first president of the provisional government, Pepillo Salcedo (an ally of Baez) he was deposed in September 1864 by General Gaspar Polanco, who, in turn, was deposed three months later by General Antonio Pimentel.
In February 1865, the rebels held a national assembly, which drafted a new constitution, but the government did not have sufficient power in the regions where partisan commanders (caudillos) operated independently of it and from each other.
In March 1865, when the civil war in the United States had already ended, and Spain was still unable to successfully negotiate with the provisional government, Queen Isabella simply annulled an earlier decree of annexation, thereby de facto restoring the independence of the Dominican Republic.
The last Spanish troops left the country in July of the same year[4].
5.3. The Second Republic After the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, the Dominican Republic was in a terrible state.
Many cities were destroyed, and the country was divided into spheres of influence of several dozen caudillos.
Jose Maria Cabral controlled most of the province of Barajona and the southwest of the country, with the support of mahogany exporters.
The cattle farmer Cesareo Guillermo joined a coalition with the former generals of Santana and controlled the southeast of the country.
Gregorio Luperon operated in the north of the country.
Between the time when the Spanish troops were withdrawn and 1879, the government changed 21 times, and at least 50 military rebellions occurred[5].
During these conflicts, two parties emerged.
Partido Rojo (literally "red party") represented the interests of the southern latifundists and mahogany merchants, as well as artisans and workers of Santo Domingo.
This party was headed by Baes, who was looking for an opportunity to annex the Dominican Republic to one of the major foreign countries.
Partido Azul (literally "blue party"), which was led by Luperon, was nationalist and liberal and represented the interests of tobacco manufacturers and merchants of the provinces of Cibao and Puerta Plata.
During the wars, the weak, corrupt and small national army could not compete with the often outnumbered militias organized and led by local caudillos who appointed themselves provincial governors.
These militias usually consisted of poor peasants and landless agricultural workers, and in times of peace often turned to banditry.
Within a month of the restoration of independence, Cabral's troops were the first to enter Santo Domingo and depose Pimentel.
A few weeks later, Guillermo raised a rebellion, as a result of which Cabral resigned, and Baez became president of the republic, who took office in October.
The following spring, forces loyal to Luperon overthrew Baez, but then began to fight among themselves, and in 1867, as a result of a military coup, Cabral returned to the presidency.
He included several members of the" blue "party in the cabinet, as a result of which the" reds " left it, returning Baez to power.
In 1869, Baes agreed with the United States on the annexation of the Dominican Republic[6].
With the support of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, who was interested in opening a naval base in Saman, the treaty was drawn up and submitted to the US Congress for approval.
In 1871, however, the treaty was not approved by the Senate[7].
In 1874, the governor of Puerto Plata, a representative of the Partido Rojo, Ignacio Maria Gonzalez Santin, staged a military mutiny, but two years later he was ousted by representatives of the opposite party.
In February 1876, Ulises Espaillat was appointed president with the support of Luperon, but ten months later, troops loyal to Baez brought the latter to power.
A year later, Gonzalez returned to power as a result of a new uprising, in September 1878 he was deposed by Guillermo, and in December 1879 by Luperon.
At this point, the country's economic situation improved due to an increase in tobacco exports to Germany, and Luperon, who ruled from his hometown of Puerto Plata, was able to put into effect a new constitution.
It established a two year presidential term and direct elections.
In addition, Luperon was able to destroy the semi official system of bribes and begin construction of the first railway in the country — from the city of La Vega to the port of Sanchez in the Bay of Samana.
In 1868, the Ten Year War began in Cuba, and planters in search of new, safer territories for growing cane, turned to the Dominican Republic.
Many settled on the plain in the south east of the country and, with the support of Luperon, built the first sugar factories in the country.
Then Italians, Germans, Puerto Ricans and Americans began to settle there.
later formed the core of the Dominican bourgeoisie.
Disruptions in production associated with the Ten Year War, the Franco Prussian War and the American Civil War contributed to the fact that the Dominican Republic became the largest exporter of sugar.
Over the next 20 years, sugar became the largest export crop, surpassing tobacco.
By 1897, about 500 kilometers of private railways were built for the needs of escorts[8].
In 1884, the decline in sugar prices led to a stabilization of wages, and labor on the plantations had to be imported from the Windward Islands (primarily the Virgin Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and Antigua).
These English speaking black migrants were discriminated against, but most of them subsequently stayed in the country, finding work in the construction of railways and in the docks.
5.4. Ulises Ayrault and the influence of the USA References: Peter Sharpe, Sugar Cane: Past and Present The history of Haiti and the Haitian revolution The first colony Dominican Republic Frank Moya Pons, Dominican Republic: A National History Pg.
222 (Hispaniola Books: New Rochelle, N.Y., 1995) Ian Bell,The Dominican Republic Pg.
59 (Westview Pres: Boulder, Co., 1981) *Dennis Hidalgo, Charles Sumner and the Annexation of the Dominican Republic, Itinerario (Volume XXI, 2/1997): 51.
(Published by the Centre for the History of European Expansion of Leiden University, The Netherlands).
Emilio Betances, State and Society in the Dominican Republic p. 32 (Westview Press: Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford, 1995) Source: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of the Dominican Republic
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