Information AboutHispaniola |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HISPANIOLA | |
| divided regions | |
| greater antilles | |
| islands of haiti | |
| islands of the dominican republic | |
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Hispaniola (from Spanish , ''La Española'') is the second-largest and most populous Island of the Antilles , lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. Christopher Columbus arrived there on December 5 , 1492 , and on his second voyage in 1493 founded the first Spanish Colony in the New World on it. It was the only island visited on all four voyages. Haiti occupies the western third and the Dominican Republic the eastern two-thirds of the island. An indigenous name for Hispaniola is ''Ayiti'' ("land of the high mountains"), referring to the high peaks in the Hispaniolan mountain ranges. In modern times it refers exclusively to the Republic of Haiti being adopted by Haitian revolutionary, Jean-Jacques Dessalines . Another term is ''Quisqueya'' (or ''Kiskeya''), supposedly meaning "mother of the earth". It poetically refers to the Dominican Republic in the country's National Anthem , '' Quisqueyanos Valientes ''. The Spanish re-named the island ''Santo Domingo'', and the corresponding term '' Saint-Domingue '' was taken up by the French. The Arawak name, ''Ayiti'' or variants thereof, was reintroduced in 1804 as the name for independent Haiti. The name ''Haiti'' originally referred to the entire island, not just the western portion, and in fact the present-day Dominican Republic was known briefly as Spanish Haiti. ''Bohio'' is a supposed third indigenous name for the island. HISTORY European colonization Christopher Columbus arrived in Ayiti during his first voyage to America in 1492. On his return the following year, Columbus quickly founded the first permanent European settlement in America. The island was inhabited by the Tainos , one of the Indigenous Arawak peoples. The Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct Fort Navidad on what is now Môle Saint-Nicolas , Haiti, in December 1492 . European colonization of the island began in earnest the following year, when 1,300 men arrived from Spain under the watch of Bartolomeo Columbus . In 1496 the town of ''Nueva Isabela'' was founded. After being destroyed by a hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite site of the Ozama River and called Santo Domingo . It is the oldest permanent European settlement in The Americas . The Taino population of the island was rapidly decimated, owing to a combination of disease and harsh treatment by Spanish overlords. In 1501 , the colony began to import African slaves, believing them more capable of performing physical labor. As Spain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola waned, and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th Century , the island and its smaller neighbors (notably Tortuga ) 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. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the east in both wealth and population. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," it became the richest colony in the West Indies. In 1791 , a major slave revolt erupted in Saint-Domingue, led by Toussaint Louverture . |
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