History of Haiti - Spanish Hispaniola (1492-1625)

Spanish Hispaniola (1492-1625)

Christopher Columbus established a small settlement called La Navidad, near the modern town of Cap Haitien, built from the timbers of his wrecked ship Santa María, during his first voyage in December 1492. When he returned in 1493 on his second voyage he found the settlement had been destroyed and all 39 settlers killed. Colombus continued east and founded a new settlement at La Isabela on the territory of the present day Dominican Republic in 1493. The capital of the colony was moved to Santo Domingo in 1496, on the south west coast of the island also in the territory of the present day Dominican Republic. The Spanish returned to western Hispaniola in 1502, establishing a settlement at Yaguana, near modern day Léogane. A second settlement was established on the north coast in 1504 called Puerto Real near modern Fort Liberte - which in 1578 was relocated to a nearby site and renamed Bayaha.

Following the arrival of Europeans, La Hispaniola's indigenous population suffered near-extinction, in possibly the worst case of depopulation in the Americas. A commonly accepted hypothesis attributes the high mortality of this colony in part to Old World diseases to which the natives had no immunity. A small number of Taínos were able to survive and set up villages elsewhere. Spanish interest in Hispaniola began to wane in the 1520s, as more lucrative gold and silver deposits were found in Mexico and South America. Thereafter, the population of Spanish Hispaniola grew at a slow pace.

The settlement of Yacanagua was burnt to the ground three times in its just over a century long existence as a Spanish settlement, first by French pirates in 1543, again on 27 May 1592 by a 110 strong landing party from a 4 ship English naval squadron led by Christopher Newport in his flagship Golden Dragon, who destroyed all 150 houses in the settlement, and finally by the Spanish themselves in 1605, for reasons set out below.

In 1595 the Spanish, frustrated by the twenty year rebellion of their Dutch subjects, closed their home ports to rebel shipping from the Netherlands, cutting them off from the critical salt supplies necessary for their herring industry. The Dutch responded by sourcing new salt supplies from Spanish America where colonists were more than happy to trade. So large numbers of Dutch traders/pirates joined their English and French brethren trading on the remote coasts of Hispaniola. In 1605, Spain was infuriated that Spanish settlements on the northern and western coasts of the island persisted in carrying out large scale and illegal trade with the Dutch, who were at that time fighting a war of independence against Spain in Europe, and the English, a very recent enemy state, and so decided to forcibly resettle their inhabitants closer to the city of Santo Domingo. This action, known as the Devastaciones de Osorio, proved disastrous; more than half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease, over 100,000 cattle were abandoned, and many slaves escaped. Five of the existing thirteen settlements on the island were brutally razed by Spanish troops including the two settlements on the territory of present day Haiti, La Yaguana, and Bayaja. Many of the inhabitants fought, escaped to the jungle, or fled to the safety of passing Dutch ships This Spanish action was counterproductive as English, Dutch, and French pirates were now free to establish bases on the island's abandoned northern and western coasts, where wild cattle were now plentiful and free.