The Dominican Republic’s history is very unique, because of the many different rulers and several different countries ruling it. The constant change of rule and the political unrest is shown throughout the Julia Alvarez's In the Time of Butterflies. There are 3 major time periods of Dominican history are The colonial era, the Trujillo era, and the modern era.
The colonial era is what defined what the Dominican Republic is today. It was first found in 1492 by Christopher Columbus under the flag of Spain. Spain, then took over the land with no permission from the natives. When the Spanish took over there was no actual economy so they made one this economy flourished. They increased agriculture and mining, crafting cash crop plantations mainly sugar. However they later lost interest and moved to the Americas, for the silver and other valuable resources. Then France took over the eastern part of Hispaniola which is now modern day Haiti. With the Spanish gone and French in charge Hispaniola fell into a terrible poverty …show more content…
The west half of Hispaniola ruled by France began to have slave rebellions led by the African slaves from the sugar plantations. The rebellions were so successful that they started to overthrow the spanish side of the islands government. However the Spanish did not want this they wanted to stay part of their mother country Spain. Spain did not come to help their colony instead the Dominican Republic had to turn elsewhere for help. The British came to their aid and helped them push back the Haitians. “In 1809 the colony was reunited with Spain” (Encyclopedia Britannica). However it stayed under the control of the spanish until 1821. In 1821 the Dominicans were tired of the Spains neglect and decided that they would finally be independant. The Dominicans overthrew the Spanish governor and stayed independant from the Spanish for good. With their new independence came a new name, Independent State of Spanish Hati. (Encyclopedia