The pocket guide to Ciudad Trujillo and its historical sites

Abstract

Name. The island was called Haití (high mountains?) by the nativos. The chronicler Petrus Martyr also gives the ñame of Quisqueya. Columbus, enthralled by the beauty oí its northern shores with their climate reminding him of Spain, called it La Española (Latina d . Hispaniola). “Spanish Island”. In later colonial times the Spaniards referred to it as Santo Domingo, applying the ñame of its capital to the whole colony. Geographically the island is still known to the English-speaking world as Hispaniola, while politically the larger, eastern part became the Dominican Repubhc (1844), and the western third the French speaking Repubhc of Haití (1804), which succeeded the former French colony of Saint Domingue.