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Hispaniola

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Early map of Hispaniola

Hispaniola (from Spanish, La Española) is the second-largest and most populist island of the Antilles, lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. Christopher Columbus arrived there on December 5, 1492, and on his second voyage in 1493 founded the first Spanish colony in the New World on it. It was the only island visited on all four voyages.

Haiti occupies the western third and the Dominican Republic the eastern two-thirds of the island.

An indigenous name for Hispaniola is Ayiti ("land of the high mountains"), referring to the high peaks in the Hispaniolan mountain ranges. In modern times it refers exclusively to the Republic of Haiti being adopted by Haitian revolutionary, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Another term is Quisqueya (or Kiskeya), supposedly meaning "mother of the earth". It poetically refers to the Dominican Republic in the country's national anthem, Quisqueyanos valientes. The Spanish re-named the island Santo Domingo, and the corresponding term Saint-Domingue was taken up by the French. The Arawak name, Ayiti or variants thereof, was reintroduced in 1804 as the name for independent Haiti. The name Haiti originally referred to the entire island, not just the western portion, and in fact the present-day Dominican Republic was known briefly as Spanish Haiti. Bohio is a supposed third indigenous name for the island.

Topography map of Hispaniola
country population
(2005-07-01 est.) 		area
(km²) 		density
(per km²)
Haiti 8,528,000 27,750 255
Dominican Republic 8,895,000 48,730 179
17,423,000 76,480 206

History

European colonization

Christopher Columbus arrived in Ayiti during his first voyage to America in 1492. On his return the following year, Columbus quickly founded the first permanent European settlement in America.

The island was inhabited by the Tainos, one of the Indigenous Arawak peoples. The Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct Fort Navidad on what is now Môle Saint-Nicolas, Haiti, in December 1492. European colonization of the island began in earnest the following year, when 1,300 men arrived from Spain under the watch of Bartolomeo Columbus. In 1496 the town of Nueva Isabela was founded. After being destroyed by a hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite site of the Ozama River and called Santo Domingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas. The Taino population of the island was rapidly decimated, owing to a combination of disease and harsh treatment by Spanish overlords. In 1501, the colony began to import African slaves, believing them more capable of performing physical labor.

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture

As Spain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola waned, and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th century, the island and its smaller neighbors (notably Tortuga) became regular stopping points for Caribbean pirates. In 1606, the king of Spain ordered all inhabitants of Hispaniola to move close to Santo Domingo, to avoid interaction with pirates. Rather than secure the island, however, this resulted in French, English and Dutch pirates establishing bases on the now-abandoned north and west coasts of the island.

In 1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name Saint-Domingue. In the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally ceded the western third of the island to France. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the east in both wealth and population. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," it became the richest colony in the West Indies.

In 1791, a major slave revolt erupted in Saint-Domingue, led by Toussaint Louverture. In 1801, Toussaint Louverture unified the island.[1] It became the Dominican Republic which was ceded to France in 1795.[2], and abolished slavery[3] He then unified French and Spanish Haiti.[2] In 1804, following a failed attempt by Napoleonic troops to reestablish slavery on the island, the Republic of Haiti was proclaimed, with Jean-Jacques Dessalines its first head of state. By 1808, after various degrees of instability, Santo Domingo reverted to Spanish rule. Two years later in 1810 the French finally left Santo Domingo.[4]

File:Juan pablo duarte.jpg.jpg
Juan Pablo Duarte y Diez

Spanish lieutenant governor José Núñez de Cáceres declared the colony's independence as the state of Spanish Haiti (Haití Español) on November 30, 1821, requesting admission to the Republic of Gran Colombia, but Haitian liberation forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, unified the entire island, ending 300 years of colonial domination and slavery just nine weeks later.[5] In 1838 Juan Pablo Duarte, founded a secret society called La Trinitaria that sought pure and simple independence of the eastern part of the island without any foreign intervention.[6] Ramón Matías Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez (the latter one being a mestizo), in spite of not being among the founding members, went on to be decisive in the fight for independence and are now hailed (along with Duarte) as the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic.[6] On February 27, 1844, the Trinitarios declared independence from Haiti, backed by Pedro Santana, a wealthy cattle-rancher from El Seibo. The Dominican Republic's first Constitution was adopted on November 6, 1844 which was modeled after the US constitution.[7]

In 1861, for numerous reasons, the Dominican Republic reverted back to a colonial state of Spain, the only Latin American nation to do so.[8] President Pedro Santana decided to return the Dominican Republic to Spain. Haitian authorities, fearful of the reestablishment of Spain as colonial power, gave refuge and logistics to revolutionaries to re-establish the independent nation of the Dominican Republic, which they felt was the lesser of two evils.[8]

The civil war, called the War of Restoration, was led by two black men of Haitian descent: Ulises Heureaux, who was also a three-time President of the Dominican Republic, and Gen. Gregorio Luperón.[9]

File:Heureaux2.gif
Ulises 'Lilís' Heureaux

The Restoration War started on August 16, 1863 and, after two years of fighting, Spanish troops abandoned the island.[8]

About a decade later the Dominican Republic sought to sell itself to the United States and become a colony.[5] The Dominican Republic's offer sought for the United States to take it over as a colony for $1.5 million but the United States Congress refused.[5] In support of the idea, President Grant thought that former American slaves could go to the Dominican Republic and live in peace and not be harassed by Southern whites.[10]

U.S. Treaty for Control

In 1906, the Dominican Republic and the United States entered into a 50-year treaty [7] under which the former gave control of its administration and customs to the United States. In exchange, the United States agreed to help reduce the immense foreign debt that the Dominican Republic had established.[7] Starting in 1914, the United States, due to extreme political internal instability in the Dominican Republic due to its inability to elect a president, expressed concern and stated that a leader must be elected.[11] As a result, Ramón Báez Machado was elected provisional president in the Dominican Republic.[11] By 1916, the U.S. took complete control of the Dominican Republic, having grown tired of its role of mediator, due to the stepping down of Ramón Báez Machado and the rise of Desiderio Arias (who refused to take power). The results were immediate with the budget balanced, debt reduced, and economic growth renewed.[11] The U.S. troops came from Haiti, which was in danger from large European powers such as Germany, who stated that they would take over Haiti due to debts owed. The U.S. had used this argument previously to send in U.S. Marines to occupy Haiti.[11][5]

1930 to 1980

The Dominican Republic was ruled by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (who was himself 1/4 Haitian) from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.[12] Trujillo ruled with iron hand persecuting anyone who opposed his regime. He also renamed many towns and provinces after himself and his family, including the capital city Santo Domingo. In 1937 Rafael Trujillo ordered the Army to kill all Haitians on the Dominican side of the border; an estimated 17,000 to 35,000 Haitians were killed in a single day.[12][13][5] This massacre was alleged to have been an attempt to seize money and property from Haitians living on the border.[14] As a result of this act of genocide the Dominican Republic was forced to pay Haiti $750,000.00.[8][15] Currently there is a lawsuit for reparations for damages from this genocide.[16] The Dominican government headed by Trujillo for a time was supported by the USA (because of his anti-communist stance and a mutually friendly relationship between the Dominican Republic and the USA), the Catholic Church and the Dominican elite; even after the death of Dominican dissidents and over 17,000 Haitians.[13]

Both nations faced a great deal of political instability in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The United States occupied both countries and temporarily took over their customs duties. Later, both came under the rule of dictators - the Duvaliers in Haiti and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. In recent decades, they have taken divergent paths, however, as the Dominican Republic has achieved significantly greater levels of political stability and economic growth than its neighbor.

Geography

Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba), with an area of 76,480 km². The island of Cuba lies 80 km to the northwest across the Windward Passage; to the southwest lies Jamaica, separated by the Jamaica Channel. Puerto Rico lies east of Hispaniola across the Mona Passage. The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands lie to the north.

Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico are collectively known as the Greater Antilles. The Greater Antilles are made up of continental rock, as distinct from the Lesser Antilles, which are mostly young volcanic or coral islands.

The Island has five major mountain ranges: The Central Range, known in the Dominican Republic as the Cordillera Central, span the central part of the island, extending from the south coast of the Dominican Republic into northwestern Haiti, where they are known as the Massif du Nord. This mountain range boasts the highest peak in the Antilles, Pico Duarte at 3,087 meters (10,128 feet) above sea level. The Cordillera Septentrional runs parallel to the Central Range across the northern end of the Dominican Republic, extending into the Atlantic Ocean as the Samaná Peninsula. The highest point in the Cordillera Septentrional is Pico Diego de Ocampo. The Cordillera Central and Cordillera Septentrional are separated by the lowlands of the Cibao Valley and the Atlantic coastal plains, which extend westward into Haiti as the Plaine du Nord (Northern Plain). The lowest of the ranges is the Cordillera Oriental, in the eastern part of the country.

The Sierra de Neiba rises in the southwest of the Dominican Republic, and continues northwest into Haiti, parallel to the Cordillera Central, as the Montagnes Noires, Chaîne des Matheux and the Montagnes du Trou d'Eau. The Plateau Central lies between the Massif du Nord and the Montagnes Noires, and the Plaine de l'Artibonite lies between the Montagnes Noires and the Chaîne des Matheux, opening westward toward the Gulf of Gonâve.

The southern range begins in the southwestern most Dominican Republic as the Sierra de Bahoruco, and extends west into Haiti as the Massif de la Selle and the Massif de la Hotte, which form the mountainous spine of Haiti's southern peninsula. Pic de la Selle is the highest peak in the southern range and is the highest point in Haiti, at 2,680 meters (8,793 feet) above sea level. A depression runs parallel to the southern range, between the southern range and the Chaîne des Matheux-Sierra de Neiba. It is known as the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac in Haiti, and Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince lies at its western end. The depression is home to a chain of salty lakes, including the Saumatre Lagoon in Haiti and Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic.

Ecology

The climate of Hispaniola is generally humid and tropical. The island has four distinct ecoregions. The Hispaniolan moist forests ecoregion covers approximately 50% of the island, especially the northern and eastern portions, predominantly in the lowlands but extending up to 2100 meters elevation. The Hispaniolan dry forests ecoregion occupies approximately 20% of the island, lying in the rain shadow of the mountains in the southern and western portion of the island and in the Cibao valley in the center-north of the island. The Hispaniolan pine forests occupy the mountainous 15% of the island, above 850 meters elevation. The Enriquillo wetlands are a flooded grasslands and savannas ecoregion that surround a chain of lakes and lagoons that includes Lake Enriquillo, Rincón Lagoon, and Lake Caballero in the Dominican Republic and Saumatre Lagoon and Trou Caïman in Haiti.


References

  1. ^ Geggus, D. "Making sense of the Haitian revolution". Retrieved 2007-06-03. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ a b "Toussaint Chronology". Retrieved 2007-06-03. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Corbett, Bob (1995-10-27). "Chronology of Haitian History". Retrieved 2007-06-03. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ "Chronology of Haitian History". Retrieved 2007-08-10.
  5. ^ a b c d e Guitar, Lynne. "History of the Dominican Republic". Hispaniola.com. Retrieved 2007-05-29. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ a b Pons, Moya. The Dominican Republic, A National History. [citation needed]. pp. 147–149. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ a b c "Dominican Republic". Encarta Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  8. ^ a b c d Sagas, Ernesto (October 14–15, 1994). "An Apparent Contradiction? - Popular Perceptions of Haiti and the Foreign Policy of the Dominican Republic". Sixth Annual Conference of the Haitian Studies Association, Boston, MA. Webster University. Retrieved 2007-06-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  9. ^ Hutchinson, Sydney (2006). "Dominican Republic - background". Merengue típico. Retrieved 2007-05-29. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ "Ulysses S. Grant". American Experience. Public Broadcasting Service. 2006. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  11. ^ a b c d "Dominican Republic: Occupation by the United States, 1916-1924". U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2007-05-29. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ a b "Rafael Trujillo: Killer File". Moreorless.com. Retrieved 2007-05-29. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ a b Forrest, Dave. "The Dominican Dictator: Rafael Trujillo". James Logan High School. Retrieved 2007-05-29. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ "Posting - : Temwayaj Kout Kouto, 1937: Eyewitnesses to the Genocide (fwd)". haiti@lists.webster.edu. Retrieved 2007-08-10.
  15. ^ "Historical and Cultural Connections: La République d'Haïti and La República Dominicana". Retrieved 2007-08-10.
  16. ^ "DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Trujillo's Victims Seek Justice, Nearly Five Decades On". Retrieved 2007-08-10.
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19°00′N 70°40′W / 19.000°N 70.667°W / 19.000; -70.667

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