This is a country overflowing with fascinating history, museums and exciting cultural experiences like music, art and festivals, plus special Dominican touches such as cigars, rum, chocolate, coffee, merengue, amber and larimar. The Dominican Republic makes up two-thirds (48,442 km2) of the island of Hispaniola, one of the largest Caribbean islands which also includes Haiti. From the first Spanish occupation to the current day, the history of Hispaniola and of the Dominican Republic is filled with conflict and struggle; the country is slowly rebuilding itself through elections and a promising tourism industry that promises a brighter tomorrow for this beautiful destination.

FIRST ARRIVALS
Before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, the indigenous Taínos (meaning ‘Friendly People’) lived on the island now known as Hispaniola. Taínos gave the world sweet potatoes, peanuts, guava, pineapple and tobacco. Sadly, Taínos themselves were wiped out by Spanish diseases and slavery and of the 400, 000 Taínos that lived on Hispaniola at the time of European arrival, fewer than 1000 were still alive 30 years later. None exist today.

INDEPENDENCE & OCCUPATION
Two colonies grew on Hispaniola; one Spanish and the other French and both brought thousands of African slaves to work the land. After a 70-year struggle, the French colony gained independence in 1804. Haiti, the Taíno name for the island, was the first majority-black republic in the New World.

Not long after, in 1821 colonists in Santo Domingo declared their independence from Spain. Haiti, which had long aspired to unify the island, promptly invaded its neighbour and occupied it for more than two decades. But Dominicans never accepted Haitian rule and on February 27, 1844, Juan Pablo Duarte who is considered the father of the country led a bloodless coup and reclaimed Dominican autonomy. Fearing an invasion and still feeling threatened by Haiti in 1861, the Dominican Republic once again submitted to Spanish rule. But ordinary Dominicans did not support the move and, after four years of armed resistance, succeeded in expelling Spanish troops in what is known as the War of Restoration. (Restauración is a common street name throughout the DR, and there are a number of monuments to the war, including a prominent one in Santiago.) On March 3, 1865, the Queen of Spain signed a decree annulling the Spanish takeover and withdrew her soldiers from the island.

The young country endured one problematic military leader after the other. In 1916 US President Woodrow Wilson sent the marines to the Dominican Republic who ended up occupying the country for eight years; an occupation that succeeded in the stabilisation of the Dominican Republic.

THE RISE OF THE CAUDILL
A former security guard who eventually became the chief of the Dominican national police, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, elbowed his way into the presidency in February 1930 and dominated the country until he was assassinated in 1961. He implemented a brutal system of repression, killing and imprisoning political opponents. Despite being partly black himself, Trujillo was deeply racist and xenophobic. In October 1937 he ordered the extermination of Haitians along the international border and in a matter of days, around 20,000 Haitians were hacked to death with machetes knives and their bodies just dumped into the ocean.

By 1934 he was the richest man on the island due to using his government to create a personal fortune; he and his wife established and controlled a whole host of monopolies. Even now, and perhaps somewhat strangely, many Dominicans remember Trujillo’s rule with a certain amount of fondness and nostalgia, as the economy did move on considerably in this time. Factories were opened, infrastructure and public works projects were carried out, bridges and highways were built and peasants were given state land to cultivate.

CAUDILLO REDUX
Joaquín Balaguer was Trujillo’s puppet president at the time of his assassination. Another US occupation and unrest followed Trujillo’s death, but Balaguer eventually regained the presidency, to which he clung onto pretty fiercely for the next 12 years. Like Trujillo, Balaguer remained a major political force long after he gave up official control and in 1986 he became president again, despite frail health and blindness. He was as ­repressive as ever and his economic policies sent the peso tumbling.

Dominicans who witnessed their savings evaporate protested and were met with violence from the national police resulting in many fleeing to the USA. By the end of 1990, 900, 000 people, which equates to around 12% of the population, had moved to New York.

After rigging the 1990 and 1994 elections, the military had grown weary of Balaguer’s rule and he agreed to cut his last term short, hold elections and, most importantly, not run as a candidate. But, it wouldn’t be his last campaign and he ran for the final time in 2000 at the age of 92, winning 23% of the vote. Thousands mourned his death two years later, despite the fact that he prolonged the Trujillo-style dictatorship for decades. His most lasting legacy may be the Faro a Colón, an enormously expensive monument to the discovery of the Americas that drained Santo Domingo of electricity whenever the lighthouse was turned on.

BREAKING WITH THE PAST
The Dominican people made their desire for change clear when they elected Leonel Fernández, a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, as president in the 1996 presidential election; he edged out three-time candidate José Francisco Peña Gómez. Shocking the nation, Fernández retired two-dozen generals, encouraged his defence minister to submit to questioning by the civilian attorney general and fired the defence minister for refusing to obey orders– all in a single week! In the four years of his presidency, he oversaw strong economic growth, privatisation and lowered inflation, reduction in unemployment and lower rates of illiteracy – although endemic corruption remained rife.

Hipólito Mejía, a former tobacco farmer, succeeded Fernández in 2000 and immediately cut spending and increased fuel prices – not what he promised, nor made him popular. The faltering US economy and World Trade Center attacks ate into Dominican exports as well as cash remittances and foreign tourism. Corruption scandals involving the civil service, unchecked spiralling spending, electricity shortages and several bank failures, which cost the government in the form of huge bailouts for depositors, all spelled doom for Mejías’ re-election chances.

Familiar faces appear again and again in Dominican politics and Fernandez returned to the national stage by defeating Mejía in the 2004 presidential elections. Though he’s widely considered competent and even forward thinking, it’s not uncommon to hear people talk about him rather unenthusiastically as a typical politician with special interests. The more cynical claim that the Fernandez administration is allied with corrupt business and government officials who perpetuate a patronage system different from Trujillo’s rule in name only. In 2007 the faltering US economy, the devastation wrought by Tropical Storm Noel, the threat of avian bird flu and continued tension with Haiti provided challenges to Fernandez’s re-election campaign.