The recorded history of the Dominican Republic began in 1492 when the Genoa-born navigator Christopher Columbus, working for the Crown of Castile, 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 called the eastern part of the island Quisqueya (Kiskeya), meaning "mother of all lands." Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, the Taíno population in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island drastically decreased through genocide. With fewer than 50,000 remaining, the survivors intermixed with Spaniards, Africans, and others, forming the present-day tripartite Dominican population. 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.
Juan Pablo Duarte y Díez was a Dominican military leader, writer, activist, and nationalist politician who was the foremost of the founding fathers of the Dominican Republic and bears the title of Father of the Nation. As one of the most celebrated figures in Dominican history, Duarte is considered a folk hero and revolutionary visionary in the modern Dominican Republic, who along with military generals Ramón Matías Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, organized and promoted La Trinitaria, a secret society that eventually led to the Dominican revolt and independence from Haitian rule in 1844 and the start of the Dominican War of Independence.
Cotuí is a city in the central region of the Dominican Republic and is one of the oldest cities of the New World. It is the capital of Sánchez Ramírez Province in the Cibao.
Francisco del Rosario Sánchez was a Dominican revolutionary, politician, and former president of the Dominican Republic. He is considered by Dominicans as the second prominent leader of the Dominican War of Independence, after Juan Pablo Duarte and before Matías Ramón Mella. Widely acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of the Dominican Republic, and the only martyr of the three, he is honored as a national hero. In addition, the Order of Merit of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella is named partially in his honor.
Pedro Santana y Familias, 1st Marquess of Las Carreras was a military commander and royalist politician who served as the president of the junta that had established the First Dominican Republic, a precursor to the position of the President of the Dominican Republic, and as the first President of the republic in the modern line of succession. A traditional royalist who was fond of the Monarchy of Spain and the Spanish Empire, he ruled as a governor-general, but effectively as an authoritarian dictator. During his life he enjoyed the title of "Libertador de la Patria." Aside from Juan Sánchez Ramírez, he was the only other Dominican head of state to serve as a governor to Santo Domingo.
Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo was the war for Spanish reestablishment in Santo Domingo, or better known as the Reconquista, and was fought between November 7, 1808, and July 9, 1809. In 1808, following Napoleon's invasion of Spain, the criollos of Santo Domingo revolted against French rule and their struggle culminated in 1809 with a return to the Spanish colonial rule for a period commonly termed España Boba.
The Battle of Palo Hincado was the first major battle of the Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo of the Spanish colonial Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, that was occupied by the French in the Spanish West Indies. The site is in the present-day Dominican Republic, on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean.
The Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo was the annexation and merger of then-independent Republic of Spanish Haiti into the Republic of Haiti, that lasted twenty-two years, from February 9, 1822, to February 27, 1844. The part of Hispaniola under Spanish administration was first ceded to France and merged with the French colony of Saint Domingue as a result of the Peace of Basel in 1795. However, with the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution the French lost the western part of the island, while remaining in control of the eastern part of the island until the Spanish recaptured Santo Domingo in 1809.
In the history of the Dominican Republic, the period of España Boba lasted from 9 July 1809 to 1 December 1821, during which the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo was under Spanish rule, but the Spanish government exercised minimal powers because its resources were attenuated by the Peninsular War and the various Spanish American wars of independence. The period ended when Dominican officials declared a short-lived independence on 30 November 1821. In February 1822, Haiti annexed former Santo Domingo, leading to an occupation that lasted until 1844.
In the history of the Dominican Republic, the period of Era de Francia occurred in 1795 when France acquired the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, annexed it into Saint-Domingue and briefly came to acquire the whole island of Hispaniola by the way of the Treaty of Basel, allowing Spain to cede the eastern province as a consequence of the French Revolutionary Wars.
The Reintegration of Santo Domingo was a brief period of Spanish reintegration of the Dominican Republic. In 1861, Dominican general Pedro Santana suggested retaking control of the Dominican Republic to Queen Isabella II of Spain, after a period of 17 years of Dominican sovereignty. The newly independent Dominican Republic was recovering economically from the recently ended Dominican War of Independence (1844–1856), when the Dominican Republic had won its independence against Haiti. The Spanish Crown and authorities, which scorned and rejected the peace treaties signed after the dismantling of some of its colonies in the Spanish West Indies some 50 years prior, welcomed his proposal and set to reestablish the Capitancy.
José Núñez de Cáceres y Albor was a Dominican revolutionary and writer. He is known for being the leader of the first Dominican independence movement against Spain in 1821. His revolutionary activities preceded the Dominican War of Independence.
Juan Sánchez Ramírez was a Dominican general who was the primary leader of the War of Reconquista. He is known for leading the troops in the Battle of Palo Hincado. The decisive Dominican victory resulted in the end of French rule in eastern Hispaniola in 1809. He was the first Dominican to serve as governor of Santo Domingo.
Rafael Conti Flores, also spelled "Conty" was a Colonel in the Spanish Army who was in charge of the Puerto Rican Militia in the town of Aguadilla. In 1790, he captured 11 enemy ships involved in smuggling stolen goods. In 1797, he helped defeat Sir Ralph Abercromby and defend Puerto Rico from a British invasion in Aguadilla. In 1809, he organized a military expedition fight with the aim of returning Hispaniola, which now comprises the nations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, back to Spanish rule.
Pablo Alí was a chief military commander of Haitian origin, who was in charge of the so-called Battalion 31 or Batallon de Morenos, freed slaves which joined the ranks of the Dominican army. Alí directed the battalion to participate in the Italian rebellion of 1810, during the government of Sánchez Ramírez. He was said to have been "most prominent, achieving great military distinction in Santo Domingo".
Dominican Republic–Haiti relations are the diplomatic relations between the nations of Dominican Republic and Haiti. Relations have long been hostile due to substantial ethnic and cultural differences, historic conflicts, territorial disputes, and sharing the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The living standards in the Dominican Republic are considerably higher than those in Haiti. The economy of the Dominican Republic is ten times larger than that of Haiti. The migration of impoverished Haitians and historical differences have contributed to long-standing conflicts.
The Beheadings of Moca was a massacre that took place in Santo Domingo in April 1805 when the invading Haitian army attacked civilians as ordered by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, during their retreat to Haiti after the failed attempt to end French rule in Santo Domingo. The event was narrated by survivor Gaspar Arredondo y Pichardo in his book Memoria de mi salida de la isla de Santo Domingo el 28 de abril de 1805 , which was written nearly 40 years after the massacre is said to have taken place. The broader invasion was part of a series of Haitian invasions into Santo Domingo, and occurred after the return from the Siege of Santo Domingo (1805). Haitian historian Jean Price-Mars wrote that the troops killed the inhabitants of the targeted settlements irrespective of race.
Jean-Louis Ferrand was a French general and military commander. He made some campaigns in France at the beginning of the French Revolution, and took part in the failed expedition into Saint-Domingue. Unwilling to accept defeat, he widthdrew to Santo Domingo. As governor, he dealt with intense conflicts with Haitian Emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who enacted a failed siege of the colony in 1805. By 1808, his rule, as well as other ongoing conflicts in Europe, triggered anti-French uprisings and a desire for a return to Spanish rule. These conflicts would erupt into the Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo, which ended in his suicide on November 7, 1808, in the Battle of Palo Hincado led by the Dominican Criollo leader, Juan Sánchez Ramírez.
Joseph-David de Barquier was a French commander from the French Revolution. He would later take part in the affairs of the island of Hispaniola. The two occupying colonies of Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo would each undergo their own revolutions against France: the Haitian Revolution and the Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo. As successor of Jean-Louis Ferrand, he continued the fight against Dominican insurgents under Juan Sánchez Ramírez in the latter conflict. But with the aid of British forces in Jamaica, the rebels defeated France, leaving de Barquier with no choice but to capitulate in 1809.
Colony of Santo Domingo 
United Kingdom 
France 
Gen. Juan Sánchez Ramírez 
Gen. Joseph-David de Barquier 