Captaincy General of Santo Domingo

Captaincy General of Santo Domingo Capitanía General de Santo Domingo (Spanish)
1492–1865
Motto: Plus ultra "Further Beyond"
Anthem: Marcha Real "Royal March" (1775–1821)
Left: Flag of Spain (18th century): first national flag of Spain; Right: Flag of the Province of Santo Domingo; Bottom: Flag Cross of Burgundy Roman Catholicism (official)
Monarch
• 1492–1504	Isabella I of Castile (first)
• 1861–1865	Isabella II (last)
Governor
• 1492–1499	Christopher Columbus (first)
• 1864–1865	José de la Gándara y Navarro (last)
Legislature	Council of the Indies Ministry of Overseas (Spain)
Historical era	Colonial era
• Captaincy created	5 December 1492
• Santo Domingo annexed to France	22 July 1795
• Santo Domingo returned to Spain	9 July 1809
• Unrecognized independence	1 December 1821
• Reincorporated into Spain	18 March 1861
• Disestablished	15 July 1865
Currency	Spanish colonial real
Succeeded by Era de Francia Spanish West Indies Dominican Republic
Today part of	Dominican Republic Haiti

Part of a series on the
History of the Dominican Republic
Pre-Spanish Hispaniola (–1492)
Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (1492–1795)
Taíno genocide Battle of Vega Real Battle of Santo Domingo Devastations of Osorio Siege of Santo Domingo Battle of Sabana Real Peace of Ryswick Treaty of Aranjuez Peace of Basel
French Santo Domingo (1795–1809)
Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo
España Boba (1809–1821)
Republic of Spanish Haiti (1821–1822)
Unification of Hispaniola
Republic of Haiti (1820–1849)
Dominican War of Independence
First Republic (1844–1861)
Spanish occupation (1861–1865)
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Second Republic (1865–1916)
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The Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (Spanish: Capitanía General de Santo Domingo pronounced [kapitaˈni.a xeneˈɾal de ˈsanto ðoˈmiŋɡo] ^ⓘ) was the first Captaincy in the New World, established by Spain in 1492 on the island of Hispaniola. The Captaincy, under the jurisdiction of the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo, was granted administrative powers over the Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and most of its mainland coasts, making Santo Domingo the principal political entity of the early colonial period.^[1]

Due to its strategic location, the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo served as headquarters for Spanish conquistadors on their way to the mainland and was important in the establishment of other European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. It is the site of the first European city in the Americas, Santo Domingo, and of the oldest castle, fortress, cathedral, and monastery in the region. The colony was a meeting point of European explorers, soldiers, and settlers who brought with them the culture, architecture, laws, and traditions of the Old World.

The colony remained a military stronghold of the Spanish Empire for over a century, successfully resisting English, Dutch and French attacks until the early 18th century. After French buccaneers took over part of the west coast, settlers from France arrived and decades of armed conflict ensued. Spain finally ceded the western third of Hispaniola to France in the 1697 Peace of Ryswick, thus establishing the basis for the future nations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Prior to the arrival of

On his first voyage the navigator Christopher Columbus, arrived in 1492 under the Spanish Crown as he landed on a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española ("the Spanish Island"), later Latinized to Hispaniola. He established a settlement in the northern part of the island, which later came under attack by the people of the area. The native Taínos' egalitarian social system clashed with the Europeans' feudalist system, which had more rigid class structures. The Europeans believed the Taínos to be misled, and they began to treat the tribes with violence and hatred.

After the sinking of the

The first major

Another rebel also fought back, the native Taino Enriquillo led a group who fled to the mountains and attacked the Spanish repeatedly for fourteen years. The Spanish ultimately offered him a peace treaty and gave Enriquillo and his followers their own city in 1534. By 1545, there were an estimated 7,000 maroons beyond Spanish control on Hispaniola. The Bahoruco Mountains in the south-west were their main area of concentration, although Africans had escaped to other areas of the island as well.

By the 1540s, French, English and Dutch pirates had become active in the Caribbean Sea. In 1541, Spain authorized the construction of Santo Domingo's fortified wall, and decided to restrict sea travel to enormous, well-armed convoys. In another move, which would destroy Hispaniola's sugar industry, Havana, more strategically located in relation to the Gulf Stream, was selected as the designated stopping point for the merchant flotas, which had a royal monopoly on commerce with the Americas. With the conquest of the Spanish Main, Hispaniola slowly declined. Many Spanish colonists left for the silver mines of the American mainland, while new immigrants from Spain bypassed the island. Agriculture dwindled, new imports of slaves ceased, and white colonists, free blacks, and slaves alike lived in poverty, weakening the racial hierarchy and aiding intermixing, resulting in a population of predominantly mixed Spaniard, Taíno, and African descent. Except for the city of Santo Domingo, which managed to maintain some legal exports, Dominican ports were forced to rely on contraband trade, which, along with livestock, became the sole source of livelihood for the island dwellers.

In 1586,

In 1655 the west of Hispaniola was reoccupied by the English and French. In 1660 the English appointed a Frenchman as governor who proclaimed French sovereignty and defeated several English attempts to reclaim the island.[24] In 1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by King Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name Saint-Domingue. By 1670 a Welsh privateer named Henry Morgan invited the pirates on the island of Tortuga to set sail under him. They were hired by the French as a striking force that allowed France to have a much stronger hold on the Caribbean region. Consequently, the pirates never really controlled the island and kept Tortuga as a neutral hideout. The capital of the French Colony of Saint-Domingue was moved from Tortuga to Port-de-Paix on the mainland of Hispaniola in 1676.

In 1680, new Acts of

The

Santo Domingo's exports soared and the island's agricultural productivity rose, which was assisted by the involvement of Spain in the Seven Years' War, allowing privateers operating out of Santo Domingo to once again patrol surrounding waters for enemy merchantmen.^[28] Dominican privateers targeted British, Dutch, French and Danish ships throughout the eighteenth century.^[29] Dominicans constituted one of the many diverse units which fought under Bernardo de Gálvez during the Spanish recapture of Florida from Britain during the American Revolutionary War.^[30][31]

Dominican privateers had already been active in the Guerra del Asiento decades prior, and they sharply reduced the amount of enemy trade operating in West Indian waters.^[28] The prizes they took were carried back to Santo Domingo, where their cargoes were sold to the colony's inhabitants or to foreign merchants doing business there. During this period, Spanish privateers from Santo Domingo sailed into enemy ports looking for ships to plunder, thus disrupting commerce between Spain's enemies in the Atlantic. As a result of these developments, Spanish privateers frequently sailed back into Santo Domingo with their holds filled with captured plunder which were sold in Hispaniola's ports, with profits accruing to individual sea raiders. The revenue acquired in these acts of piracy was invested in the economic expansion of the colony and led to repopulation from Europe.^[32] The enslaved population of the colony also rose dramatically, as numerous captive Africans were taken from enemy slave ships in West Indian waters.^[28] The author of Idea del valor de la Isla Española emphasized the activities of Dominican privateer Lorenzo Daniel (also known as Lorencín Daniel), and noted that in his career as a privateer, Daniel captured more than 60 enemy ships, including "those used for trade as well as war”.^[a]

The population of Santo Domingo grew to approximately 125,000 in the year 1791. Of this number, 40,000 were white landowners, about 70,000 were mulatto freedmen, and some 15,000 were black slaves.^[34] This contrasted sharply with neighboring Saint-Domingue (Haiti), which had an enslaved population of over 500,000, representing 90% of the French colony's population, and overall seven times as numerous as the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo.^[35] The French had become the wealthiest colonists in the Western Hemisphere due to the exploitation of their massive slave population. As restrictions on colonial trade were relaxed, the colonial French elites of St. Domingue offered the principal market for Santo Domingo's exports of beef, hides, mahogany and tobacco. The 'Spanish' settlers, whose blood by now was mixed with that of Taínos, Africans, and Canary Guanches, proclaimed: 'It does not matter if the French are richer than us, we are still the true inheritors of this island. In our veins runs the blood of the heroic conquistadores who won this island of ours with sword and blood.'.^[36][37]

With the outbreak of the

Although the Spanish and Dominican soldiers had been successful in the island during their battles against the French,[38] such had not been the case in the European front, as Spain and Portugal lost the War of the Pyrenees, and on July 22, 1795, the French Republic and Spanish crown signed the Treaty of Basel. Frenchmen were to return to their side of the Pyrenees in Europe and Spanish Santo Domingo was to be ceded to France. This period called the Era de Francia, lasted until 1809 until being recaptured by the Dominican general Juan Sánchez Ramírez in the reconquest of Santo Domingo.^{[citation needed]}

The St. Thomas Aquinas University, today the

The university was closed in 1801 under the French, but reopened in 1815 as a secular institution.[39]

The

It was elevated to Metropolitan Archdiocese on February 12, 1546, through the bull Super universas orbis ecclesiae of Pope Paul III, being its first archbishop Alonso de Fuenmayor. The Diocese of Puerto Rico, the Diocese of Venezuela (with headquarters in Coro, founded in 1531; today the Archdiocese of Caracas), the Diocese of Cuba (with headquarters in Santiago de Cuba, initially founded in Baracoa in 1518; today Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba), the Diocese of Honduras (based in Comayagua, initially founded in Trujillo in 1531; today Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa) and the territorial abbey of Jamaica (suppressed in 1655).

The presence of precious metals such as gold boosted migration of thousands of Spaniards to Hispaniola seeking easy wealth. In the year 1510, there were 10,000 Spaniards in the

Families stopped migrating to the colony, so the lack of Spanish females led to

. Hidalgos nobles were the most benefited of those Spanish who emigrated to America because they received royal properties (such as cattle, lands, and slaves) and tax exemptions. These people achieved a privileged position, and most of them avoided mixing with natives or Africans.

The Spanish of the highest rank who migrated to America in the sixteenth century was the noblewoman Doña María de Toledo, granddaughter of the 1st Duke of Alba, niece of the 2nd Duke of Alba, and grandniece of King Ferdinand of Aragon; she was married to Diego Columbus, Admiral and Viceroy of the Indies.^{[citation needed]}

Government and Laws

The

Viceroyalty of New Spain

upon the creation of the latter two decades later.

The audiencia president was at the same time governor and captain general of the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, which granted him broad administrative powers and autonomy over the Spanish possessions of the Caribbean and most of its mainland coasts. This combined with the judicial oversight that the audiencia judges had over the region meant that the Santo Domingo Audiencia was the principal political entity of this region during the colonial period.

— We order that in the City of Santo Domingo on the Island of Hispaniola reside our Royal Audiencia and Chancellory, as it has been established, with a president, who shall be governor and captain general; four judges of civil cases, who shall also serve as judges of criminal cases; a crown attorney; a bailiff; and a lieutenant of the Gran Chancellor; and the other necessary ministers and officials, which will have for district all of the Lesser Antilles, and the coast of Tierra Firme, and in them the Governments of Venezuela, New Andalusia, Riohacha, which is of the Government of Santa Marta; and in Guayana or Province of El Dorado, the regions which it now has and no more; dividing territory in the south with the four Audiencias of the New Kingdom of Granada, Tierra Firme [Panama], Guatemala and New Spain, along the coasts which run along the west of North Sea, with the Provinces of Florida, and with the rest in the North Sea; and that the president-governor-captain general can order and will order what is necessary in military matters and relating to the good governance and defense of said Island of Santo Domingo.

Native rights

In 1501

African slaves

to the island in the years to come. Native chiefs were responsible for keeping track of the laborers in their community. The encomienda system did not grant people land, but it indirectly aided in the conquistadors and settlers' acquisition of land with the intent of establishing new towns and populations. As initially defined, the encomendero and his heirs expected to hold these grants in perpetuity.

The encomiendas became very corrupt and harsh. In the neighborhood of La Concepción, north of Santo Domingo, the

Tainos planning to stage a rebellion.^[44] Upon hearing this, the adelantado captured the caciques

involved and had most of them hanged.

Later, a chieftain named Guarionex laid havoc to the countryside before an army of about 3,090 routed the Ciguana people under his leadership.^[45] Although expecting Spanish protection from warring tribes, the islanders sought to join the Spanish forces. They helped the Spaniards deal with their ignorance of the surrounding environment.^[46] The change of requiring the encomendado to be returned to the crown after two generations was frequently overlooked, as the colonists did not want to give up the labor or power.

Gallery

• 
  Contemporary map showing the border situation on Hispaniola following the Treaty of Aranjuez
• 

See also

• List of colonial governors of Santo Domingo
• Timeline of Santo Domingo
• History of the Dominican Republic
• Spanish colonization of the Americas
• Annexation of the Dominican Republic to Spain
• French Colony of Saint-Domingue

Notes

1. ^ During the war of 1762, a packet boat, a brigantine, six sloops, two schooners, and a coastal vessel were brought into port and it was Dominican corsairs, Lorenzo Daniel, Juan Bautista San Marcos, Juan Cueto, and Domingo Alberto Serrano who brought them in.^[33]

References

1. ^ Spain (1680). Recopilación de las Leyes de Indias. Titulo Quince. De las Audiencias y Chancillerias Reales de las Indias. Madrid. Spanish-language facsimile of the original.
2. ISBN 978-1-4633-1368-5
   . Retrieved 4 June 2012.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Floyd, Troy (1973). The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492–1526. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
4. ISBN 0-8078-4707-0
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5. ISBN 978-0-8239-3627-4
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7. ^ Peter Bakewell, "A History of Latin America to 1825: 3rd Edition", pg 114 Wiley Blackwell, 2010. Retrieved 4/11/2016.
8. ^ Columbus, Ferdinand (1959). The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand. New Brunswick: Rutgers, The State University. pp. 191–214.
9. ^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (1942), Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., p. 590.
10. ISBN 978-0-7661-9438-0. Retrieved 4 June 2012.^{[permanent dead link}
    ‍]
11. ISBN 978-1-4051-9427-3
    . Retrieved 4 June 2012.
12. ^ Meining 1986:9
13. ISBN 0714841579
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14. ^ Palm, Erwin Walter (1955). Los Monumentos Arquitectónicos de La Española, Con una introducción a América. 2 vols. Ciudad Trujillo: Universidad de Santo Domingo.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
15. ^ Banco Popular. Santo Domingo Colonial: Sus Principales Monumentos. Santo Domingo: Banco Popular, 1998
16. ^ Sharpe, Peter (26 October 1998). "Sugar Cane: Past and Present". Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
17. ^ Jose Franco, Maroons and Slave Rebellions in the Spanish Territories, in "Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas", ed. by Richard Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 35.
18. ^ "Dominican Republic – THE FIRST COLONY". Library of Congress. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
19. ISBN 9780874368376
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22. ^ Marley, David (2005). Historic Cities of the Americas: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Volume 2. ABC-CLIO. p. 94.
23. ^ The Buccaneers In The West Indies In The XVII Century – Chapter IV
24. ^ The Buccaneers In The West Indies In The XVII Century – Chapter IV
25. ^ "Hispaniola Article". Britannica.com. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
26. ^ "Dominican Republic 2014". Retrieved 24 April 2014.
27. ^ Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. p. 422.
28. ^ ^{a b c} Hazard, Samuel (1873). Santo Domingo, Past And Present; With A Glance At Haytl. p. 100.
29. ^ "Corsairs of Santo Domingo a socio-economic study, 1718–1779" (PDF).
30. ISBN 9780313341540
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31. ISBN 9780826327949
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32. ^ Ricourt, Milagros (2016). The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and Nation in Hispaniola. Rutgers University Press. p. 57.
33. ^ Bosch, Juan (2016). Social Composition of the Dominican Republic. Routledge. p. 101.
34. ^ Valverde, Antonio Sánchez (1862). idea del valor de la isla española.
35. ^ "Dominican Republic – THE FIRST COLONY". Retrieved 16 August 2016.
36. ^ Peasants and Religion: A Socioeconomic Study of Dios Olivorio and the Palma Sola Religion in the Dominican Republic. p. 565.
37. ^ "Dominican Republic—The First Colony". U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
38. ^ ^{a b c} Scheina, Robert L. (2003). Latin America's Wars: Volume 1. Potomac Books.
39. ^ "Las Universidades" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2 May 2015.
40. ISBN 9789945406108. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 3 September 2014. "Aunque, siguiendo a Herrera, Sánchez Valverde diga que después de lo que escribió Oviedo aumentó el número de ingenios, parece que el punto más alto de la expansión de la industria azucarera se consiguió precisamente cuando Oviedo escribía sobre ella en 1547. Ya entonces había comenzado el abandono de la isla por parte de sus pobladores, que se iban hacia México y Perú en busca de una riqueza que no hallaban en la Española".
41. ^ Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis Élie. Description topographique et politique de la partie espagnole de l'isle Saint-Domingue. Philadelphia. pp. 55–59.
42. ^ "The Visigoths in Spain" (aspx). Spain Then and Now. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
43. ISBN 9781448113224
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44. ISBN 9781113147608. Archived
    from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
45. ISBN 9781113147608. Archived
    from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
46. ISBN 9781113147608. Archived
    from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2010.

Further reading

• "Santo Domingo".
  hdl:2027/mdp.39015082485213
  .