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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.

Dominican Republic Travel Map A map from ITM is an all-in-one travel resource, and perfect for today's travelers! These attractive and information-rich maps cover an entire country/region in splendid detail. Useful information such as elevation, major transportation routes, and national parks is clearly displayed. Of particular use to travelers is the tremendous attention paid to road designation and the extensive labeling of physical features such as mountain ranges, valleys and peaks.  Each map comes with an inset of a major city, national park, or area of historical significance. To round out these tremendous products, each map has an area of text giving the reader an overview of the country's history. From cartography, to text, to a few unique photographs, ITM maps are a traveler's best friend!

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!

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