Dominican Republic

History and Demographics

The history of the Dominican Republic dates back to 1492, when Christopher     Columbus, a Spanish explorer, came to the island of Hispaniola, where the Taíno people were located. He demanded gold from them, and if they didn’t bring it to him, they were tortured. The Spanish controlled the whole island of Hispaniola until the end of the 17th century, when French pirates came, and claimed the western third of Hispaniola, which is now Haiti. In 1795, the Spanish gave up their remaining ⅔ of Hispaniola to the French after they lost to them in a war. While this was happening, a rebellion started led by Toussaint Louverture which led to Hispaniola gaining independence in 1809. The island was named, The Independent State of Haiti. Dominicans were unhappy with this, because they didn’t have their own independent country, so in 1830 Juan Pable Duarte organized a secret society to gain independence from Haiti. Finally in 1844, independence of the Dominican Republic was achieved because a civil war broke out in Haiti. From 1930-1961 the Dominican Republic had a dictator named Rafeal Trujillo, who drove the country in debt and took ⅗ of the countries GDP. After he was assassinated, a civil war broke out. The Dominican Republic overcame these problems. Today, the Dominican Republic is filled with multiple ethnicities. Majority of the population are indigenous people and of Spanish descent. This is because of the Spanish colonizers and the indigenous people in the Dominican Republic originally. A small number of people identify as black. This descents back to history, when they were brought to the country and worked as slaves. An even smaller amount identifies as white. Majority of white Dominicans have ancestry from the first European settlers. The Dominican Republic overcame a lot of adversity to achieve the country there is today.