[1492 – 1795] Conquest and Colony: Spanish Rule in Santo Domingo

We begin our journey in 1492, a year that forever altered the destiny of this sun-drenched island, then known by its Taíno inhabitants by names like Quisqueya or Ayiti. Imagine the scene: three Spanish caravels, mere specks against the vast Atlantic, appearing like phantoms on the horizon. For the Taíno people, living in their villages of thatched *bohíos*, fishing in turquoise waters, and cultivating yuca, this was an arrival from another world. Christopher Columbus, captaining this expedition and convinced he'd found a westward route to Asia, claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, renaming it La Española – "The Spanish Isle." The air, he noted in his journal, was "like April in Andalusia," and the people, he observed, were gentle and generous. Yet, it was the glint of gold ornaments they wore, and tales of more in the island's interior, that would seal their fate and ignite three centuries of Spanish rule. The first Spanish settlement, La Navidad, hastily built on the north coast from the timbers of the wrecked flagship, the Santa María, was a fragile, ill-fated toehold. When Columbus returned in 1493, leading a much larger colonizing fleet of 17 ships carrying around 1,200 to 1,500 men – soldiers, artisans, farmers, and priests, eager for wealth and new lives – he found La Navidad razed to the ground, its garrison of 39 men dead, a consequence of their own rapacious behavior towards the Taíno. The dream of peaceful trade quickly soured, giving way to a brutal reality of conquest. The true architect of Spanish dominion was Nicolás de Ovando, who arrived in 1502 with an imposing fleet of 30 ships and 2,500 colonists. Ovando was a man of cold, ruthless efficiency. Under his governance, the *encomienda* system was systematically imposed. Spanish settlers, or *encomenderos*, were granted tracts of land and, more importantly, the right to compel labor from the Indigenous Taíno population. In theory, the *encomenderos* were to provide protection and instruction in Christianity. In practice, it was a brutal system of forced labor, essentially slavery. The Taíno, whose numbers some scholars estimate to have been several hundred thousand, perhaps even up to a million, before European contact, were driven into gold mines and agricultural fields. Their sophisticated social structure, led by *caciques* (chiefs) like the proud Caonabó or the respected Anacaona (who was deceitfully captured and publicly hanged by Ovando’s orders in Xaragua), crumbled under the onslaught. More devastating than Spanish swords or arquebuses were the invisible invaders: European diseases. Smallpox, measles, and influenza, against which the Taíno had no immunity, swept through their communities with horrifying speed. Within a single generation, their population plummeted by an estimated 80 to 90 percent. Imagine the vibrant villages falling silent, the carefully tended *conucos* (cultivated plots) becoming overgrown. Heroic but doomed resistance flared, most notably led by the Taíno cacique Enriquillo. From 1519 to 1533, he waged a successful guerrilla war from the rugged Bahoruco mountains, eventually forcing the Spanish to negotiate a truce – a rare Indigenous victory, though it could not reverse the demographic catastrophe. Yet, amidst this destruction, a new Spanish world was being forged. After a hurricane destroyed an earlier site, Ovando refounded Santo Domingo in 1502 on the western bank of the Ozama River. This was not merely a fort; it was envisioned as the capital of the new Spanish empire in the Indies. It quickly became the "City of Firsts" in the Americas. Stone, a symbol of permanence, rose from the tropical earth. Construction began on the Catedral Primada de América, the first cathedral in the New World, its coral limestone walls slowly taking shape, its bells eventually pealing across the burgeoning city. The first university, Santo Tomás de Aquino, and the first hospital, San Nicolás de Bari, followed. The Alcázar de Colón, a grand palace built for Columbus's son, Diego, then Viceroy, overlooked the river, its Mudejar-Gothic architecture a testament to Spanish ambition. The city was laid out on a grid pattern, a model for countless colonial towns that would sprout across two continents. On its cobblestone streets, Spanish gentlemen in imported velvets and stiff ruffs, and ladies in voluminous skirts, created a stark visual contrast to the few remaining Taíno and the growing number of African laborers. The surface gold that had so enticed the early Spaniards soon dwindled. A new source of wealth was desperately needed. They found it in "white gold": sugar. Sugarcane, brought from the Canary Islands, flourished in Hispaniola's fertile soil and humid climate. By the 1520s, the landscape began to transform. Large plantations, known as *ingenios*, equipped with grinding mills (some water-powered, *ingenios reales*, others animal-powered, *trapiches*), became the new economic engines. These were complex, almost industrial enterprises, demanding vast amounts of labor. With the Taíno population virtually wiped out, the Spanish turned to Africa. The horrific transatlantic slave trade began to funnel thousands of enslaved Africans to Hispaniola. Chained, branded, and subjected to unimaginable brutality, they toiled from sunrise to sunset in the sugarcane fields and boiling houses. The sweet, cloying scent of molasses hung heavy in the air, a stark contrast to the bitter reality of their lives. By 1545, there were an estimated 12,000 enslaved Africans in Hispaniola, far outnumbering the dwindling Taíno and even the roughly 5,000 Spaniards. A rigid, race-based caste system became deeply entrenched: Peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain) at the apex, followed by Creoles (Spaniards born in the Americas), then various gradations of *mestizos* (mixed Spanish-Indigenous) and *mulattoes* (mixed Spanish-African), with Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans at the very bottom of the social pyramid. Ironically, Hispaniola’s early prominence led to its later decline. As vast, silver-rich empires were conquered in Mexico (Aztecs) and Peru (Incas), Spanish attention, investment, and settlers flowed towards these more lucrative mainland territories. Hispaniola, the "Mother of the Americas," was gradually relegated to a strategic but economically stagnant backwater by the mid-16th century. Fewer ships called at its ports. The royal treasury’s focus shifted. This neglect left the colony vulnerable. In 1586, the English privateer Sir Francis Drake, a celebrated hero in England but a terrifying pirate to the Spanish, attacked and sacked Santo Domingo. He occupied the city for a month, plundering its wealth, burning parts of it, and even using the Cathedral as his headquarters, demanding a hefty ransom. The psychological blow was immense. To combat rampant contraband trade on the island's northern and western coasts – where isolated Spanish settlers bartered hides, ginger, and tobacco with English, French, and Dutch smugglers – King Philip III and Governor Antonio de Osorio made a drastic decision. Between 1605 and 1606, they ordered the forced depopulation of these regions, relocating the inhabitants closer to Santo Domingo. These *Devastaciones de Osorio* were economically ruinous. Towns were destroyed, fertile lands abandoned, and vast herds of cattle set loose, turning wild. This act inadvertently opened the western third of Hispaniola to French buccaneers and settlers, who began to establish a foothold that would eventually become the fabulously wealthy (and brutally exploitative) French colony of Saint-Domingue. Throughout the 17th and much of the 18th century, Spanish Santo Domingo languished. The economy largely revolved around cattle ranching on large, sparsely populated estates called *hatos*, and subsistence agriculture. Contraband trade remained a lifeline. A distinctly Creole society emerged, its culture, dialect, and identity slowly diverging from that of distant Spain. While the elite clung to vestiges of European fashion and social norms, daily life for most became simpler, more rustic. The Catholic Church, however, remained a central and powerful institution, its rhythms and festivals deeply ingrained in colonial life. The world outside was in turmoil. The Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the brewing French Revolution spread radical ideas of liberty, equality, and self-determination. These currents would inevitably reach Hispaniola. As the 18th century drew to a close, a pivotal event marked the end of this long chapter. In 1795, as a consequence of wars in Europe, Spain signed the Treaty of Basel, ceding its colony of Santo Domingo – the oldest European settlement in the Americas – to France. After 303 years, the Spanish flag was lowered. An era had ended, but the profound imprint of Spanish language, religion, architecture, social structures, and the complex legacy of encounter, conquest, and creolization would endure, shaping the future of the land that would one day become the Dominican Republic. A new, even more tumultuous period was dawning.