Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492, which the native Taíno people had inhabited since the 7th century. The Captaincy General of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European colonization of the Americas in the Americas, the oldest continuously inhabited city, and the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World. After more than three hundred years of Spanish rule the Dominican people Republic of Spanish Haiti. The leader of the independence movement José Núñez de Cáceres, intended the Dominican nation to unite with the country of Gran Colombia, but no longer under Spains custody the newly independent Dominicans were Unification of Hispaniola. Independence came 22 years later after victory in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844. Over the next 72 years the Dominican Republic experienced mostly civil war and a Spanish occupation of the Dominican Republic (but Spain had not come to take away its independence) before permanently ousting Spanish rule during the Dominican Restoration War of 1863–1865. A United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–24) lasted eight years between 1916 and 1924, and a subsequent calm and prosperous six-year period under Horacio Vásquez was followed by the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo until 1961. A civil war in 1965, the countrys last, was ended by United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) and was followed by the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer (1966–1978 & 1986–1996), the rules of Antonio Guzmán Fernández (1972–1978) & Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982–1986). Since 1996, the Dominican Republic has moved toward representative democracy and has been led by Leonel Fernández for most of the time since 1996. Danilo Medina, the Dominican Republics current president, succeeded Fernandez in 2012, winning 51% of the electoral vote over his opponent ex-president Hipólito Mejía.. How many years was the Dominican Republic led by Leonel Fernández?