Everything about Hispaniola totally explained
Hispaniola (from
Spanish,
La Española) is the second-largest and most populous
island of the
Antilles, lying between the islands of
Cuba to the west, and
Puerto Rico to the east. It is located directly within the
hurricane belt. The
Republic of Haiti occupies the western third and the
Dominican Republic the eastern two-thirds of the island.
Christopher Columbus arrived in Hispaniola on
December 5,
1492, and on his second voyage in 1493 founded the first
Spanish colony in the
New World on it.
Names of the island
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and
Bartolomé de las Casas documented that the island was called
Haití ("Mountainous Land") by the
Taíno inhabitants.
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera added another name,
Quizqueia (now "Quisqueya"). The term "Quizqueia" had been used only by d'Anghiera and the word has been verified to not have an
Arawak structure.
Even if Haití is a Taíno name used by the three historians, it seems that it wasn't the Taíno name of the island. Haití was the Taíno name of a region in northeastern Dominican Republic (now known as
Los Haitises). In the oldest map of the island, made by Andrés de Morales, that region is named
Montes de Haití ("Haiti Mountains"). Las Casas wrote that the whole island took the name from that region; d'Anghiera said that the name of one part was given to the whole island.
.
The three historians wrote always
Haití because at that time they didn't use the letter "J" (just like Haina - Jaina), and the last "i" was stressed.
. It isn't correct to use
Ayiti; that's a modern word taken from the
Haitian Creole language.
When Columbus took possession of the island, he named it as
La Española, meaning "The Spanish (Island)". When d'Anghiera wrote in
Latin about this island, he translated the name as
Hispaniola, a new word. Because Anghiera's literary work was translated into
English and
French in a short period of time, the name "Hispaniola" is the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries regarding the island in scientific and cartographic works.
The terms
Saint-Domingue and
Santo Domingo are sometimes still applied when referring to the whole island when both names factually refer to their respective countries.
History
Christopher Columbus arrived on the island during his first voyage to
America in 1492. During his arrival he founded the settlement of
La Navidad on the north coast of present day
Haiti. On his return the subsequent year, following the disbandment of La Navidad, Columbus quickly founded a second settlement farther east in present day
Dominican Republic,
La Isabela, which became the first permanent European settlement in the Americas.
The island was inhabited by the
Tainos, one of the indigenous
Arawak peoples. The Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct Fort Navidad on what is now
Môle Saint-Nicolas, Haiti, in
December 1492. European colonization of the island began earnestly the following year, when 1,300 men arrived from
Spain under the watch of
Bartolomeo Columbus. In
1496 the town of
Nueva Isabela was founded. After being destroyed by a
hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite side of the Ozama River and called
Santo Domingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in
the Americas. The
Taino population of the island was rapidly decimated, owing to a combination of disease and harsh treatment by Spanish overlords. In
1501, the colony began to import
African slaves, believing them more capable of performing physical labor.
As Spain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola waned, and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th century, the island and its smaller neighbors (notably
Tortuga) became regular stopping points for
Caribbean pirates. In
1606, the
king of Spain ordered all inhabitants of Hispaniola to move close to Santo Domingo, to avoid interaction with pirates. Rather than secure the island, however, this resulted in French, English and Dutch pirates establishing bases on the now-abandoned north and west coasts of the island.
In
1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by
King Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name
Saint-Domingue. In the
1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally ceded the western third of the island to
France. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the east in both
wealth and
population. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," it became the richest and most prosperous colony in the West Indies, and became the most important port in the New World for goods and products flowing to and from Europe.
Geography
Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the
Caribbean (after
Cuba), with an area of 76,480 km². The island of Cuba lies 80 km to the northwest across the
Windward Passage; to the southwest lies
Jamaica, separated by the
Jamaica Channel.
Puerto Rico lies east of Hispaniola across the
Mona Passage. The
Bahamas and
Turks and Caicos Islands lie to the north.
Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico are collectively known as the
Greater Antilles. The Greater Antilles are made up of
continental rock, as distinct from the
Lesser Antilles, which are mostly young
volcanic or coral islands.
The island has five major mountain ranges: The Central Range, known in the Dominican Republic as the
Cordillera Central, spans the central part of the island, extending from the south coast of the Dominican Republic into northwestern Haiti, where it's known as the
Massif du Nord. This mountain range boasts the highest peak in the Antilles,
Pico Duarte at 3,087 meters (10,128 ft) above
sea level. The
Cordillera Septentrional runs parallel to the Central Range across the northern end of the Dominican Republic, extending into the
Atlantic Ocean as the
Samaná Peninsula. The
Cordillera Central and
Cordillera Septentrional are separated by the lowlands of the
Cibao Valley and the Atlantic coastal plains, which extend westward into Haiti as the
Plaine du Nord (Northern Plain). The lowest of the ranges is the
Cordillera Oriental, in the eastern part of the country.
The
Sierra de Neiba rises in the southwest of the Dominican Republic, and continues northwest into Haiti, parallel to the
Cordillera Central, as the
Montagnes Noires,
Chaîne des Matheux and the
Montagnes du Trou d'Eau.
The Plateau Central lies between the
Massif du Nord and the
Montagnes Noires, and the
Plaine de l'Artibonite lies between the
Montagnes Noires and the
Chaîne des Matheux, opening westward toward the
Gulf of Gonâve.
The southern range begins in the southwestern most Dominican Republic as the Sierra de Bahoruco, and extends west into Haiti as the Massif de la Selle and the Massif de la Hotte, which form the mountainous spine of Haiti's southern peninsula.
Pic de la Selle is the highest peak in the southern range and the second highest peak in the Antilles and consequently the highest point in Haiti, at 2,680 meters (8,793 ft) above sea level. A depression runs parallel to the southern range, between the southern range and the
Chaîne des Matheux-
Sierra de Neiba. It is known as the
Plaine du Cul-de-Sac in Haiti, and Haiti's capital
Port-au-Prince lies at its western end. The depression is home to a chain of salty lakes, including
Lake Azuei in Haiti and
Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic.
Ecology
The climate of Hispaniola is generally
humid and
tropical. The island has four distinct
ecoregions. The
Hispaniolan moist forests ecoregion covers approximately 50% of the island, especially the northern and eastern portions, predominantly in the lowlands but extending up to 2100 meters elevation. The
Hispaniolan dry forests ecoregion occupies approximately 20% of the island, lying in the
rain shadow of the mountains in the southern and western portion of the island and in the
Cibao valley in the center-north of the island. The
Hispaniolan pine forests occupy the mountainous 15% of the island, above 850 meters elevation. The
Enriquillo wetlands are a
flooded grasslands and savannas ecoregion that surround a chain of lakes and lagoons that includes
Lake Enriquillo,
Rincón Lagoon, and
Lake Caballero in the Dominican Republic and
Lake Azuei and
Trou Caïman in Haiti.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hispaniola'.
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