Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
ethnic group in Hispaniola around A.D. 1200, and the Caribs
arrived just before the Spanish landed at Mole Saint-Nicolas in
1492.
Christopher Columbus received a friendly reception from
the Indians when he disembarked on Hispaniola in what is
today Haiti, near Cap-Haitien. However, when Columbus
returned on his second voyage in 1493, he found that his first
settlement, Navidad, had been destroyed and its inhabitants
slain. Undeterred, Columbus established a second settlement,
Isabela, farther to the east, and continued his mission to spread
Roman Catholicism, claim new lands for Spain, and discover
gold.
Hispaniola, or Santo Domingo, as it became known under
Spanish dominion, became the first outpost of the Spanish
Empire. When the quest for gold failed, the island became
important as a seat of colonial administration and a starting
point for other conquests. It was in Santo Domingo that the system
of allotments of land (repartimiento) was introduced,
whereby Spanish-born persons residing in the New World (peninsulares)
received large grants of land and the right to compel
labor from the Indians who lived there.
Christopher Columbus was the first administrator of Santo
Domingo. He and his brother, Bartolome Columbus, fell out of
favor with the settlers and the Indians as a result of their harsh
demands and discipline. They also lost favor with the crown for
failure to maintain control of the colony, bring gold back to
Spain, or discover a new route to Asia. Both brothers were
briefly held in a Spanish prison. The colony's new governor,
Nicolas de Ovando, laid the groundwork for the island's development.
During his tenure, the repartimiento system gave way to
a system in which all the land was considered to be the property
of the crown (encomienda) . This new system granted stewardship
of land to the crown's agents (encomenderos) , who were
entitled to employ (or, in practice, to enslave) Indian labor.
The Indians were the first and greatest victims of colonial
rule. Although the exact size of the indigenous population of
the time is not known, contemporary observers have estimated
it to be between several thousand and several million. By most
accounts, however, there were between 60,000 and 600,000
Indians on the island. Within fifty years, almost all had been
killed outright, died as a result of overwork in the mines, or
succumbed to diseases to which they were not immune.
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