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Dominican Republic - Early History

Even before Columbus's day the mythical Island of Antilia was marked on the maps out in the Atlantic west; and when the archipelago which Columbus first discovered came to be known as an archipelago, the name, in the plural form Antilles, was not unnaturally applied to it. Probably, too, it was with more than the glamour of discovery — enchanting as that must have been — that Columbus first looked upon the newfound lands. From time immemorial European imagination had been haunted by legends of Isles of the Gods, Isles of the Happy Dead — Fortunate Isles, in some weird sense, lying far out in the enchanted seas.

Columbus did not discover a lost or unknown land. There was already a flourishing civilization of native Americas. On pre-Columbian Hispaniola in 1492 it was estimated that there was a robust population of almost three million; by 1542, fifty years later, approximately two hundred remained. On December 6th, 1492 Christopher Columbus reached this land, which he called la Espanola, because it reminded him of Andalusia. In English histories the name is modified to Hispaniola. Thus began a totally new phase of life on the island of Hispaniola.

The primary group was the Arawak/Taino Indians. Arawak is the general group to which they belong, and describes especially the common language which this group of native Americans shared. They ranged from Venezuela through the Caribbean and Central America all the way to Florida. However, the particular group of Arawak-speaking people who lived on the island of Hispaniola were the Taino Indians.

The Antilles furnish every incentive of climate, food supply, rich resources, and easy communication for development of civilization; and at the time of the discovery of the Taino peoples, they were already advanced in the arts of agriculture, pottery-making, weaving, and stoneworking, combined with some knowledge of metals.

Furthermore, they had developed their social organization to such an extent that their chiefs, or caciques, with power in some cases hereditary, were the heads of veritable nations — all of Jamaica was under one ruler, Hispaniola had five, while the Ciboney of Cuba and the Borinqueno of Porto Rico were powerful peoples. The Spaniards were told that the so-called Taino Indians, who possessed the Pueblo Viejo culture, had migrated from Hispaniola to the eastern tip of Cuba only about 50 years before the arrival of Columbus.

Each Hispaniola society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a cacique. At the time of Columbus there were five different kingdoms on the island of Hispaniola. In Hispaniola, one of the five caciques3 dividing the power of the island was reputed a Carib. The Indians practiced polygamy. Most men had 2 or 3 wives, but the caciques had as many as 30. It was a great honor for a woman to be married to a cacique.

Living in the stone age, they knew none of the useful metals, but gold ornaments were used for adornment. Older men and married women wore short aprons of cotton or feathers; all other persons went entirely nude. Their favorite amusements were ball games and savage dances with weird, monotonous music; their religion was the worship of a great spirit and of subordinate deities represented by idols, called "zemis," carved of wood and stone in grotesque form, and of which some are still occasionally found in caverns or tombs. They dwelt in rude palm-thatched huts, the principal article of furniture being the hammock. Simple agriculture, hunting and fishing provided their means of livelihood. Unlike the fierce Caribs who inhabited some of the smaller Antilles, the Arawaks were of a gentle and meek disposition. They were inclined to idleness and sensuality. Columbus lauded their kindliness and generosity; the possession of these traits, however, did not prevent them from fighting bravely when exasperated. The Spanish conquerors of the islands succeeded early in virtually annihilating these nations, but their handiwork and the traditions which they have left still command respect. It was chiefly with tales of gold that the Spaniards' ears were pleasured. Columbus, writing to de Santangel, promised his sovereigns not only spices and dyes and Brazilwood from their new realm, fruits and cotton and slaves, but "gold as much as they need"; and this promise was all too well founded for the good of either Spaniard or native, since the spoil of western gold, more than aught else, resulted in the wars which eventually impoverished Spain; and thirst for sudden wealth was the chief cause of the early extermination of the native peoples of the Antilles.

"I ordered," says Columbus, "one Friar Ramon, who understood their language, to set down all their language and antiquities"; and it is to this Fray Ramon Pane, "a poor anchorite of the order of St. Jerome," as he tells us, that thanks are due for most of what is preserved of Tai'no mythology. The myths which he gathered are from the island of Haiti, or Hispaniola, but it is safe to assume that they represent cycles of tales shared by all the Taino peoples. They believe, says the friar, in an invisible and immortal Being, like Heaven, and they speak of the mother of this heaven-son, who was called, among other names, Atabei, "the First-inExistence." "They also know whence they came, the origin of the sun and moon, how the sea was made, and whither the dead go." The earliest Indians appeared, according to the legend, from two caverns of a certain mountain of Hispaniola — "most of the people that first inhabited the island came out of Cacibagiagua," while the others emerged from Amaiauva (it is altogether likely that the two caves represent two races or tribal stocks). Before the people came forth, a watchman, Marocael, guarded the entrances by night; but, once delaying his return into the caves until after dawn, the sun transformed him into a stone; while others, going a-fishing, were also caught by the sun and were changed into trees.

The Spaniards and Indians met where the ruins of the old city of Concepcion de la Vega now are, and the famous battle of the Royal Plain was fought on March 25, 1495. The natives are alleged by the Spanish historians to have numbered 100,000, while the Spaniards had but 200 men and 20 horses, besides the warriors of Guacanagari. In the battle, a bloody one, the Indians were completely beaten, their discomfiture being due principally to the superior arms of the Europeans and the fear inspired by the horses and by twenty blood-hounds brought into the fight by the Spaniards.

On the occasion of this battle the miracle of the Santo Cerro, or Holy Hill, is said to have occurred, when, according to the Spanish chroniclers, the Indians captured an eminence on which the Spaniards had erected a wooden cross, but were unable to destroy the cross with fire or hatchet, and were finally frightened away by the apparition of the Virgin Mary. This one crushing defeat definitely broke the Indians' power, for though there were subsequent outbreaks they were only sporadic and, with one exception, of comparatively little importance.