Captaincy General of Santo Domingo

Dominican Republic, 1493–1821. Draft, not yet reviewed

Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492 under the Spanish Crown and claimed the island for the Spanish Crown. Santo Domingo, settled from 1496, became the first European city in the Americas. An estimated 400,000 Tainos living on the island were soon enslaved to work in gold mines, and by 1508 their numbers had decreased to around 60,000 because of forced labor, hunger, disease, and mass killings. In the 1697 Peace of Ryswick, Spain ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France, establishing the basis for the future nations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Seat of power: Santo Domingo

No rulers documented for this era yet.

Culture

Before the Spanish arrived, the native Taíno people lived on the island, which they called Ayiti or Quisqueya. The island was divided into five Taíno chiefdoms.
The Alcázar de Colón palace was built between 1511 and 1514. It is the only known residence of a member of the Christopher Columbus family in the New World, and it was home to his first-born son, Diego Columbus.
In 1503 construction began on the Hospital San Nicolás de Bari, the first hospital in the Americas. Santo Domingo is the site of the first European city in the Americas and of the oldest castle, fortress, cathedral, and monastery in the region.

Picture

The Alcázar de Colón in Santo Domingo is the first fortified European palace built in the Americas.

Image: Caribeanvybz, CC BY-SA 4.0, file

Sources

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.