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The Dominican Republic History
What
do
you know about the Dominican Republic history?
I
know that reading about the
Dominican Republic history it is not absolutely necessary to travel
there.
Don't
you think that it would be so much better if
you know a little about the country you will be visiting? If you don't
want to read the entire
history, then you have the choice to read this
summary. Remember that knowledge is power.
The
point of origin in
the Dominican Republic history can be viewed when the Spanish
discovered the island La Española
(the island consist of the Dominican Republic and
Haiti) in December 1492. The man leading the
expedition was named Christopher Columbus.
In that time,
the island
was already populated by the Taínos Indians which
greeted the Spanish in a very friendly manner. At the time there was
approximately 600,000 of them. By the way, the word Taínos meant
“good” in their language and the
island was named was
Quisqueya.
After
his arrival, Christopher Columbus named
the island
La Española and after he saw the way the peaceful natives behaved,
he got enticed by the island even more. In his chronicles he talked
about the high mountains, great valleys and beautiful
natural
resources the island had. After exploring part of the island he noticed
the gold deposits in the river which got his attention even more. On
Christmas Eve, 1492, the Santa Maria ship crashed
on a reef a couples of miles east of Cap Haitien.

Continuing with the
Dominican Republic history, after salvaging what they could they were
forced to create a small settlement called “el fortín de
navidad”. He left a small crew of his people there before
returning to Spain when he came back he found that the settlement has
been destroyed by the Indians. The cause was that the crew he left
started abusing the Indians until they got tired of it.
The capital of Dominican
Republic is Santo Domingo, and was
created in 1496. It is the oldest European settlement in the Western
Hemisphere. Spain gave the territory to France in 1795, and Haitian
under Toussaint L'Ouverture conquered it in 1801. In 1808, the people
revolted and captured Santo Domingo the next year, setting up the first
republic.
Then,
Spain regained
title to the colony in 1814. In 1821 the rule of Spain was overthrown,
but in 1822 the colony was conquered again by the Haitian. In 1844 the
Haitian were thrown out, and the Dominican Republic was established,
headed by Pedro Santana. Uprisings and Haitian
attacks led Santana to make the country a province of Spain from 1861
to 1865.
After a couple of years a
man named Rafael Trujillo took control of
the Dominican republic. He ruled the Dominican
republic for 31 years
(1930-1961) with
the blessing of the United States government. He committed many crimes
and tortured a lot of people. He was assassinated in 1961 by gunmen
hired by the CIA after committing many mistakes like the massacre in
the border of Dominican Republic and Haiti. After
Trujillo's assassination, his vice-president at the time, Dr.
Joaquín Balaguer, took control of the presidency. A Little
time after that Juan Bosch was elected by the people to be president.
After that chaos started
to reign once again as unsatisfied people started blaming the
government for their life conditions and a rebel army started to be
formed. Seeing this the president of the United States, Lyndon B.
Johnson sent a military force to reestablish
order. A little afterward the president Juan Bosch abandoned the
presidency.
In the next years, many
presidents came to power. The corruption of the government
and the lack of interest to improve the working conditions of the poor
citizens kept being one of the main concerns year after year. In 1996
Leonel Fernandez was elected president of Dominican
Republic in the hope of that his reforms would finally help the people
to achieve what they always wanted.
In 2000, even when the
country was experiencing the greatest economic growth in their history,
Leonel Fernandez was voted out under the suspicion of corruption. In
2004, he returned again to the presidency. Hopefully the reelection of
Leonel Fernandez will help the country to increase again the economy,
and also for the workers to achieve a better way of life.
I hope you have enjoyed
reading this summary of the Dominican Republic History!
Return
from
Dominican Republic History to Punta Cana All Inclusive Resorts

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