page_title: History of the Dominican Republic
section_title: Seventeenth century
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Dominican Republic / Spanish colony: 1492–1795 / Seventeenth century
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Titel catalogus Leupe (NA): Gezicht in vogelvlucht op de "stadt S. Domingo int eijlant Espanola" van de zeezijde. Vogelvlucht van de stad Santo Domingo. D: Stadt S: Domingo Int Eijlant E:spanola geleegen op 18 1/2 graedt. Bijzonderheden: de kaart maakt deel uit van de Atlas Vingboons. English: Title in the Leupe catalogue (NA): Gezicht in vogelvlucht op de "stadt S. Domingo int eijlant Espanola" van de zeezijde. Bird's eye view of the city of Santo Domingo. D: Stadt S: Domingo Int Eijlant E:spanola geleegen op 18 1/2 graedt. Notes: the chart forms part of the Vingboons Atlas.
context_page_description: The recorded history of the Dominican Republic began when the Genoa-born navigator Christopher Columbus, working for the Spanish Crown, happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who variously called their island Ayiti, Bohio, or Quisqueya. Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. What would become the Dominican Republic was the Spanish Captaincy General of Santo Domingo until 1821, except for a time as a French colony from 1795 to 1809. It was then part of a unified Hispaniola with Haiti from 1822 until 1844. In 1844, Dominican independence was proclaimed and the republic, which was often known as Santo Domingo until the early 20th century, maintained its independence except for a short Spanish occupation from 1861 to 1865 and occupation by the United States from 1916 to 1924.
context_section_description: In 1605, Spain was infuriated that Spanish settlements on the northern and western coasts of the island were carrying out large scale and illegal trade with the Dutch, who were at that time fighting a war of independence against Spain in Europe, and the English, a very recent enemy state, and so decided to forcibly resettle their inhabitants closer to the city of Santo Domingo. This action, known as the Devastaciones de Osorio, proved disastrous; more than half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease, over 100,000 cattle were abandoned, and many slaves escaped.  Five of the existing thirteen settlements on the island were brutally razed by Spanish troops – many of the inhabitants fought, escaped to the jungle, or fled to the safety of passing Dutch ships. The settlements of La Yaguana, and Bayaja, on the west and north coasts respectively of modern-day Haiti were burned, as were the settlements of Monte Cristi and Puerto Plata on the north coast and San Juan de la Maguana in the southwestern area of the modern-day Dominican Republic.
  The withdrawal of the colonial government from the northern coastal region opened the way for French buccaneers, who had a base on Tortuga Island, 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.
  In 1655, Oliver Cromwell dispatched a fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir William Penn, to conquer Santo Domingo. A Spanish defending force of perhaps 400–600 men, mostly militia, repulsed a landing force of 9,000 men. Yet although the English had failed to overrun the island, they nevertheless seized nearby Jamaica, and other foreign strongholds subsequently began multiplying throughout the West Indies. Madrid sought to contest such encroachments by using Santo Domingo as an advance military base, but Spanish power was by now too depleted to expel the rival colonies. The city itself was furthermore subjected to a smallpox epidemic, cacao blight, and hurricane in 1666; another storm two years later; a second epidemic in 1669; a third hurricane in September 1672; plus an earthquake in May 1673 that killed two dozen residents.
  During this seventeenth "century of misery", the Spanish on Hispaniola continued to persecute maroons living peacefully in the island's interior mountains and valleys. With little to show for it, this policy of armed harassment added more public expense to a weak colonial economy, and the financial recovery of the Spanish colony in the eighteenth century led to increased slave insurrections and marronage.
caption: Painting by Johannes Vingboons of Santo Domingo, c. 1665
exif: {}