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Dominican Republic THE FIRST COLONY
The island of Hispaniola (La Isla Española) was the
first New
World colony settled by Spain. As such, it served as the
logistical base for the conquest of most of the Western
Hemisphere. Christopher Columbus first sighted the island
in 1492
toward the end of his first voyage to "the Indies."
Columbus and
his crew found the island inhabited by a large population
of
friendly Taino Indians (Arawaks), who made the explorers
welcome.
The land was fertile, but of greater importance to the
Spaniards
was the discovery that gold could be obtained either by
barter
with the natives, who adorned themselves with golden
jewelry, or
by extraction from alluvial deposits on the island.
After several attempts to plant colonies along the
north
coast of Hispaniola, Spain's first permanent settlement in
the
New World was established on the southern coast at the
present
site of Santo Domingo. Under Spanish sovereignty, the
entire
island bore the name Santo Domingo. Indications of the
presence
of gold--the life's blood of the nascent mercantilist
system--and
a population of tractable natives who could be used as
laborers
combined to attract many Spanish newcomers during the
early
years. Most were adventurers who, at least initially, were
more
interested in acquiring sudden wealth than they were in
settling
the land. Their relations with the Taino Indians, whom
they
ruthlessly maltreated, deteriorated from the beginning.
Aroused
by continued seizures of their food supplies, other
exactions,
and abuse of their women, the formerly peaceful Indians
rebelled-
-only to be crushed decisively in 1495.
Columbus, who ruled the colony as royal governor until
1499,
attempted to put an end to the more serious abuses to
which the
Indians were subjected by prohibiting foraging expeditions
against them and by regulating the informal taxation
imposed by
the settlers. Being limited to this milder form of
exploitation
engendered active opposition among the settlers. To meet
their
demands, Columbus devised the repartimiento system
of land
settlement and native labor under which a settler, without
assuming any obligation to the authorities, could be
granted in
perpetuity a large tract of land together with the
services of
the Indians living on it.
The repartimiento system did nothing to improve
the
lot of the Indians, and the Spanish crown changed it by
instituting the system of encomienda in 1503. Under
the
encomienda system, all land became in theory the
property
of the crown, and the Indians thus were considered tenants
on
royal land. The crown's right to service from the tenants
could
be transferred in trust to individual Spanish settlers
(encomenderos) by formal grant and the regular
payment of
tribute. The encomenderos were entitled to certain
days of
labor from the Indians, who became their charges.
Encomenderos thus assumed the responsibility of
providing
for the physical well-being of the Indians and for their
instruction in Christianity. An encomienda
theoretically
did not involve ownership of land; in practice, however,
possession was gained through other means.
The hard work demanded of the Indians and the
privations that
they suffered demonstrated the unrealistic nature of the
encomienda system, which effectively operated on a
honor
system as a result of the absence of enforcement efforts
by
Spanish authorities. The Indian population died off
rapidly from
exhaustion, starvation, disease, and other causes. By 1548
the
Taino population, estimated at 1 million in 1492, had been
reduced to approximately 500. The consequences were
profound. The
need for a new labor force to meet the growing demands of
sugarcane cultivation prompted the importation of African
slaves
beginning in 1503. By 1520, black African labor was used
almost
exclusively.
The early grants of land without obligation under the
repartimiento system resulted in a rapid
decentralization
of power. Each landowner possessed virtually sovereign
authority.
Power was diffused because of the tendency of the capital
city,
Santo Domingo (which also served as the seat of government
for
the entire Spanish Indies), to orient itself toward the
continental Americas, which provided gold for the crown,
and
toward Spain, which provided administrators, supplies, and
immigrants for the colonies. Local government was doomed
to
ineffectiveness because there was little contact between
the
capital and the hinterland; for practical purposes, the
countryside fell under the sway of the large landowners.
Throughout Dominican history, this sociopolitical order
was a
major factor in the development of some of the distinctive
characteristics of the nation's political culture such as
paternalism, personalism, and the tendency toward strong,
even
authoritarian, leadership
(see Dominican Republic - The System of Dominican Politics
, ch. 4).
As early as the 1490s, the landowners demonstrated
their
power by successfully conspiring against Columbus. His
successor,
Francisco de Bobadilla, was appointed chief justice and
royal
commissioner by the Spanish crown in 1499. Bobadilla sent
Columbus back to Spain in irons, but Queen Isabella soon
ordered
him released. Bobadilla proved an inept administrator, and
he was
replaced in 1503 by the more efficient Nicolás de Ovando,
who
assumed the titles of governor and supreme justice.
Because of
his success in initiating reforms desired by the
crown--the
encomienda system among them--de Ovando received
the title
of Founder of Spain's Empire in the Indies.
In 1509 Columbus's son, Diego Columbus, was appointed
governor of the colony of Santo Domingo. Diego's ambition
and the
splendid surroundings he provided for himself aroused the
suspicions of the crown. As a resulted, in 1511 of the
crown
established the audiencia, a new political
institution
intended to check the power of the governor. The first
audiencia was simply a tribunal composed of three
judges
whose jurisdiction extended over all the West Indies. In
this
region, it formed the highest court of appeal. Employment
of the
audiencia eventually spread throughout Spanish
America.
The tribunal's influence grew, and in 1524 it was
designated
the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo, with jurisdiction in
the
Caribbean, the Atlantic coast of Central America and
Mexico, and
the northern coast of South America, including all of what
is now
Venezuela and part of present-day Colombia. As a court
representing the crown, the audiencia was given
expanded
powers that encompassed administrative, legislative, and
consultative functions; the number of judges increased
correspondingly. In criminal cases the audiencia's
decisions were final, but important civil suits could be
appealed
to the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies (Real y
Supremo
Consejo de las Indias) in Spain.
The Council of the Indies, created by Charles V in
1524, was
the Spanish crown's main agency for directing colonial
affairs.
During most of its existence, the council exercised almost
absolute power in making laws, administering justice,
controlling
finance and trade, supervising the church, and directing
armies.
The arm of the Council of the Indies that dealt with
all
matters concerning commerce between Spain and its colonies
in the
Americas was the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación),
organized
in 1503. Control of commerce in general, and of tax
collection in
particular, was facilitated by the designation of monopoly
seaports on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. During most
of the
colonial period, overseas trade consisted largely of
annual
convoys between monopoly ports. Trade between the colonies
and
countries other than Spain was prohibited. The crown also
restricted trade among the colonies. These restrictions
hampered
economic activity in the New World and encouraged
contraband
traffic.
The Roman Catholic Church became the primary agent in
spreading Spanish culture in the Americas. The
ecclesiastical
organization developed for Santo Domingo and later
extended
throughout Spanish America reflected a union of church and
state
actually closer than that prevailing in Spain itself. The
Royal
Patronage of the Indies (Real Patronato de las Indias, or,
as it
was called later, the Patronato Real) served as the
organizational agent of this affiliation of the church and
the
Spanish crown.
Santo Domingo's prestige began to decline in the first
part
of the sixteenth century with the conquest of Mexico by
Hernán
Cortés in 1521 and the discovery there, and later in Peru,
of
great wealth in gold and silver. These events coincided
with the
exhaustion of the alluvial deposits of gold and the dying
off of
the Indian labor force in Santo Domingo. Large numbers of
colonists left for Mexico and Peru; new immigrants from
Spain
largely bypassed Santo Domingo for the greater wealth to
be found
in lands to the west. The population of Santo Domingo
dwindled,
agriculture languished, and Spain soon became preoccupied
with
its richer and vaster mainland colonies.
The stagnation that prevailed in Santo Domingo for the
next
250 years was interrupted on several occasions by armed
engagements, as the French and the English attempted to
weaken
Spain's economic and political dominance in the New World.
In
1586 the English admiral, Sir Francis Drake, captured the
city of
Santo Domingo and collected a ransom for its return to
Spanish
control. In 1655 Oliver Cromwell dispatched an English
fleet,
commanded by Sir William Penn, to take Santo Domingo.
After
meeting heavy resistance, the English sailed farther west
and
took Jamaica instead.
The withdrawal of the colonial government from the
northern
coastal region opened the way for French buccaneers, who
had a
base on Tortuga Island (Ile de la Tortue), off the
northwest
coast of present-day Haiti, to settle on Hispaniola in the
mid-
seventeenth century. Although the Spanish destroyed the
buccaneers' settlements several times, the determined
French
would not be deterred or expelled. The creation of the
French
West India Company in 1664 signalled France's intention to
colonize western Hispaniola. Intermittent warfare went on
between
French and Spanish settlers over the next three decades;
however,
Spain, hard-pressed by warfare in Europe, could not
maintain a
garrison in Santo Domingo sufficient to secure the entire
island
against encroachment. In 1697, under the Treaty of
Ryswick, Spain
ceded the western third of the island to France. The exact
boundary of this territory (Saint-Domingue--now Haiti) was
not
established at the time of cession and remained in
question until
1929
(see
fig. 1).
During the first years of the eighteenth century,
landowners
in the Spanish colony did little with their huge holdings,
and
the sugar plantations along the southern coast were
abandoned
because of harassment by pirates. Foreign trade all but
ceased,
and almost all domestic commerce took place in the capital
city.
The Bourbon dynasty replaced the Habsburgs in Spain in
1700.
The new regime introduced innovations--especially economic
reforms--that gradually began to revive trade in Santo
Domingo.
The crown progressively relaxed the rigid controls and
restrictions on commerce between the mother country and
the
colonies and among the colonies. The last convoys sailed
in 1737;
the monopoly port system was abolished shortly thereafter.
By the
middle of the century, both immigration and the
importation of
slaves had increased.
In 1765 the Caribbean islands received authorization
for
almost unlimited trade with Spanish ports; permission for
the
Spanish colonies in the Americas to trade among themselves
followed in 1774. Duties on many commodities were greatly
reduced
or were removed altogether. By 1790 traders from any port
in
Spain could buy and sell anywhere in Spanish America, and
by 1800
Spain had opened colonial trade to all neutral vessels.
As a result of the stimulus provided by the trade
reforms,
the population of the colony of Santo Domingo increased
from
about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790. Of
this
number, about 40,000 were white landowners, about 25,000
were
black or mulatto freedmen, and some 60,000 were slaves.
The
composition of Santo Domingo's population contrasted
sharply with
that of the neighboring French colony of Saint-Domingue,
where
some 30,000 whites and 27,000 freedmen extracted labor
from at
least 500,000 black slaves. To the Spanish colonists,
Saint-
Domingue represented a powder keg, the eventual explosion
of
which would echo throughout the island.
Data as of December 1989
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