Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
The withdrawal of the colonial government from the northern
coastal region opened the way for French buccaneers, who
had a base on Tortuga Island (lie de la Tortue), off the northwest
coast of present-day Haiti, to settle on Hispaniola in the
mid-seventeenth century. The creation of the French West
India Company in 1664 signaled France's intention to colonize
western Hispaniola. Intermittent warfare went on between
French and Spanish settlers over the next three decades; Spain,
however, was hard-pressed by warfare in Europe and could not
maintain a garrison in Santo Domingo sufficient to protect the
entire island against encroachment. In 1697, under the Treaty
of Ryswick, Spain ceded the western third of the island to
France. The exact boundary of this territory (Saint-
Domingue—modern Haiti) was not established at the time of
cession and remained in question until 1929.
During the first years of the eighteenth century, landowners
in the Spanish colony did little with their huge holdings, and
the sugar plantations along the southern coast were abandoned
because of harassment by pirates. Foreign trade all but
ceased, and almost all domestic commerce took place in the
capital city.
The Bourbon dynasty replaced the Habsburgs in Spain in
1700. The new regime introduced innovations—especially economic
reforms—that gradually began to revive trade in Santo
Domingo. The crown progressively relaxed the rigid controls
and restrictions on commerce between the mother country
and the colonies and among the colonies. By the middle of the
century, both immigration and the importation of slaves had
increased.
In 1765 the Caribbean islands received authorization for
almost unlimited trade with Spanish ports; permission for the
Spanish colonies in America to trade among themselves followed
in 1774. Soon duties on many commodities were greatly
reduced or removed altogether. By 1790 traders from any port
in Spain could buy and sell anywhere in Spanish America, and
by 1800 Spain had opened colonial trade to all neutral vessels.
As a result of the stimulus provided by the trade reforms, the
population of the colony of Santo Domingo increased from
about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 100,000 in 1790, with
roughly equal numbers of whites, free coloreds, and slaves. The
size and composition of Santo Domingo's population contrasted
sharply, however, with that of the neighboring and far
more prosperous French colony of Saint-Domingue, where
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