Hispanola and Colonization

Christopher Columbus came to Hispanola which at the time was calledAyiti during his first voyage to America in 1492. He returned a yearlater and made it a permanent European settlement in America.The island was inhabited by the Tainos indians.At first they were tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct FortNavidad which is now Saint-Nicolas, Haiti.. European colonizationof the island began in earnest the following year, when 1,300 menarrived from Spain under the watch of Bartolomeo Columbus. In 1496 thetown of Nueva Isabela was founded. It was destroyed by a hurricane then rebuilt on the opposite site of the Ozama River and named SantoDomingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas The Taino population was rapidly decimated, on most partbecause of a combination ofdisease and harsh treatment by Spanishoverlords. Around 1501, the colony began to import African slaves,believing them more capable of performing physical labor. AsSpain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola declined and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th century, the island and its neighbours 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.n 1791, there was a major in Saint-Domingue, led by Toussaint
Louverture. In 1801, Toussaint Louverture unified the island It becamethe Dominican Republic which was given to France in 1795. Then and abolishing slavery He then unified French and Spanish Haiti. 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. Haiti is the second oldest country in the Americas after the United States and the oldest independent nation in Latin America. By 1808, after various degrees of instability, Santo Domingo reverted to Spanish rule. Two years later in 1810 the French finally left Santo Domingo.Spanish lieutenant governor Jose Nuerez de Ceceres declared the colony's independence as the state of Spanish Haiti (Haiti Espanol) on November 30, 1821, requesting admission to the Republic of Gran Colombia, but Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, unified the entire island.In 1838 secret society was founded called La Trinitaria to fight for the rights of the Spanish, eastern side of the island to be independent. Ramon Mantas Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sanchez( mestizo, people who were both Spanish and Armenian went on to be decisive in the fightfor independence and are now hailed as the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic.On February 27, 1844, the Trinitarios declared independence from Haiti,it was 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 In 1861, for numerous reasons, the Dominican Republic reverted back ta colonial state of Spain, the only Latin American nation to do so President Pedro Santana decided to return the Dominican Republic to Spain. Haitian authorities, fearful of the reestablishment of Spain ascolonial 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.The civil war, called the War of Restoration, was led by two men.Ulises Heureaux, who was also a three-time President of the Dominican Republic, and Gen. Gregorio Luperen. After two years of fighting, Spanish troops abandoned the island. About a decade later the president of the Dominican Republic sought to sell the island to the United States and become a state they were declined by congress.

(sorry about the format,had to work on it in word pad and it looks to have transfered weird)

Workscited
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=8487519