Dominican Republic

The other half of Hispaniola, independent from Haiti rather than from a European power. Santo Domingo was the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, founded in 1496, and its cathedral and university are the oldest in the hemisphere - and the Taino population was destroyed within a generation. Spain neglected the colony after the mainland conquests, France took it briefly, and Haiti occupied it from 1822 to 1844, which is why independence day marks separation from Haiti and why the relationship remains the country's central foreign question. Spain was invited back in 1861 and expelled again in 1865. The United States occupied the country from 1916 to 1924 and again in 1965. Rafael Trujillo ruled from 1930 to 1961, renaming the capital after himself, and ordered the Parsley Massacre of 1937, in which soldiers killed perhaps fifteen thousand Haitians near the border, reportedly testing them on their pronunciation of perejil. The Mirabal sisters were murdered in 1960 and are commemorated by the international day against violence against women. Sugar gave way to tourism and free-trade manufacturing. Baseball is the national sport and its principal export of talent. The country has about eleven million people and is the most visited in the Caribbean. Pico Duarte is the highest peak in the region. Merengue and bachata both originated here and are recognised by Unesco. The colonial city of Santo Domingo is a World Heritage site. Gold from the Pueblo Viejo mine is now a leading export. The country has produced more major league baseball players than any nation outside the United States.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history