50 Fun Facts About Hispaniola

Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean, but which neighbouring island is the only one bigger?

Cuba covers about 104,000 square kilometres to Hispaniola's 76,000. Hispaniola has far more people, though: it is the most populous island in the West Indies.

Columbus's flagship Santa María ran aground off Hispaniola in 1492 on which holiday, later the name of his fort?

Christmas Day gave the fort its name: La Navidad was built from the timbers of the wreck. When Columbus sailed back the following November, he found it burned to the ground.

Which capital, founded by Bartholomew Columbus, is the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas?

Santo Domingo has been lived in without a break since 1496. It is also the site of the first cathedral, university, castle, monastery and fortress in the New World.

In which Robert Louis Stevenson adventure novel do the heroes sail from Bristol aboard a schooner named the Hispaniola?

Treasure Island first ran as a magazine serial in 1881 with the subtitle The Mutiny of the Hispaniola. The schooner is chartered by Squire Trelawney and commanded by Captain Smollett.

Which horror-film monster comes from Haitian folklore, in which a sorcerer called a bokor keeps it as a slave?

Zombie lore reached cinemas in White Zombie (1932), starring Bela Lugosi. The flesh-eating version came much later, largely from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead in 1968.

Failure to retake Saint-Domingue from rebel armies led Napoleon to sell which vast North American territory in 1803?

Louisiana changed hands for $15 million, nearly doubling the size of the young republic that bought it. The sale covered some 2.1 million square kilometres west of the Mississippi.

The coat of arms on the Dominican Republic's flag makes it the only national flag in the world to show what?

A Bible lies open on the shield, with a cross and the motto Dios, Patria, Libertad. The flag itself goes back to La Trinitaria, the revolutionary society founded in 1838.

Which sport rules the Dominican Republic, the biggest foreign supplier of players to its top North American league?

Baseball is the most popular sport there by a wide margin, and Ozzie Virgil became the first Dominican major leaguer in 1956. The national team won the World Baseball Classic in 2013.

Which kind of natural disaster struck close to Haiti's capital in January 2010, badly damaging even the National Palace?

Earthquake damage was extreme because the magnitude 7.0 shock was shallow and centred only about 25 km from Port-au-Prince. The government put the death toll above 200,000, a figure still disputed.

Which fast dance style, played on accordion, tambora drum and güira, is the Dominican Republic's national dance?

Merengue joined UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2016. It began as rural music in the northern Cibao valley, around the city of Santiago.

Which formerly enslaved general led the Haitian Revolution but died in a French mountain prison in 1803?

Toussaint Louverture was deported and jailed at the Fort de Joux, where he died months before independence was won. His 1801 constitution had named him governor-general for life.

Which mountain in the Cordillera Central, a little over 3,000 metres tall, is the highest peak in the Caribbean?

Pico Duarte is only a few metres taller than its twin summit, La Pelona, which stands about a kilometre and a half away. It gives Hispaniola the 16th-highest high point of any island in the world.

Which salt lake on Hispaniola, home to American crocodiles, lies more than 40 metres below sea level?

Lake Enriquillo is the lowest point of any island country, at 46 metres below sea level. It is named after a Taíno chief who rebelled against the Spaniards and hid in the mountains to its south.

Which English weather word did the Taíno people of Hispaniola pass on, along with canoe, hammock and barbecue?

Hurricane comes from the Taíno juracán, which reached English through Spanish. Savanna and maize were borrowed from the same islanders.

Which island off northern Haiti was a 1600s pirate haven whose raiders called themselves the Brethren of the Coast?

Tortuga drew mostly French and English adventurers, and Henry Morgan recruited crews there. Columbus named it in 1492 because its outline reminded him of a turtle's shell.

Which dictator ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 and renamed the capital after himself?

Rafael Trujillo, nicknamed El Jefe, kept the capital as Ciudad Trujillo from 1936 until after his assassination. Statues of him were mass-produced and put up across the country.

Which Haitian religion blends West African spirit beliefs with Roman Catholicism and honours spirits known as lwa?

Vodou takes its name from a Fon word for a spirit or deity, used in the old West African kingdom of Dahomey. Many followers also consider themselves Roman Catholics.

Which French-based language, spoken by nearly everyone in Haiti, became official alongside French in 1987?

Creole, or Kreyòl, takes most of its vocabulary from French, while its grammar blends West African languages such as Fon with regional French dialects. The 1987 constitution calls it the one language all Haitians share.

Which sky-blue gemstone, a variety of pectolite, is found only in the Dominican Republic's Barahona region?

Larimar was named in 1974 by Miguel Méndez, who joined his daughter Larissa's name to mar, the Spanish word for sea. Copper in the mineral produces the blue colour.

Which sea mammals breed in Samaná Bay, drawing tourist boats to the eastern Dominican Republic every season?

Humpback whales use Samaná Bay as one of their significant Caribbean breeding sites. The bay's protected islands are also nesting grounds for pelicans and frigatebirds.

Which mountaintop fortress in northern Haiti, armed with 365 cannons, was built to stop the French from returning?

Citadelle Laferrière took up to 20,000 workers to raise on a 900-metre peak, and the invasion it was meant to repel never came. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1982.

Which revolutionary general made himself king of northern Haiti in 1811 and built the Sans-Souci Palace?

Henri Christophe reigned as Henry I, though he was probably born on Grenada rather than in Haiti. Ill and facing a coup, he shot himself, reputedly with a silver bullet.

Which general declared Haiti independent on 1 January 1804 and was proclaimed its first emperor later that year?

Jean-Jacques Dessalines made the declaration at Gonaïves and renamed the country Ayiti, after its Taíno name. He ruled as Jacques I for two years before he was assassinated.

Which plantation crop, grown alongside coffee, made Saint-Domingue the richest French colony in the West Indies?

Sugar from the colony met about 40 percent of Europe's demand by the 1780s. It was grown on hundreds of large plantations worked by enslaved Africans, who rose in revolt in 1791.

Which disease killed much of the French army sent to retake Saint-Domingue, including its commander Leclerc?

Yellow fever swept through the expedition once the rainy season began in 1802. Leclerc, who was Napoleon's brother-in-law, died of it that November.

Which country's Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924?

United States Marines landed at Port-au-Prince in July 1915 on the orders of President Woodrow Wilson. They seized the Dominican capital the following May.

The 1937 massacre of Haitians along the Dominican border is named after which herb, used as a spoken test?

Parsley is perejil in Spanish, and troops reportedly made suspects say the word. Anyone who could not pronounce it the Dominican way was taken for a Haitian and killed.

Which beach resort town in the easternmost Dominican Republic was developed from the late 1960s by Frank Rainieri?

Punta Cana got its name in 1970, when Rainieri dropped the older names Yauya and Punta Borrachos. He and his partners had bought a 58-million-square-metre lot at the country's eastern end.

Which guitar-led Dominican music, first called amargue, had its first official release in 1962?

Bachata was at first treated as a kind of bolero, and its old name, amargue, means bitterness. UNESCO has since declared it part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage.

Hispaniola is the second-largest island of which Caribbean group, which also includes Jamaica?

Greater Antilles islands account for nearly 90% of the land in the West Indies. The group is made up of four major islands and many smaller ones.

The Mona Passage, a strait about 130 km wide, separates Hispaniola from which island to its east?

Puerto Rico lies across a busy shipping route that links the North Atlantic to the Panama Canal. Mona Island sits close to the middle of the strait.

Besides Hispaniola, which is the only other divided island in the Caribbean, split between France and the Netherlands?

Saint Martin has been divided since the Treaty of Concordia in 1648, one of the oldest treaties still in effect. France holds more of the land, but the Dutch side has more people.

Which old name for Hispaniola, said to mean 'mother of the lands', supplies the word for Dominicans in their anthem?

Quisqueya appears in the anthem as Quisqueyanos, sung in place of Dominicans. Sixteenth-century chroniclers recorded the name, though doubts have been raised about how authentic it is.

Which word for a Caribbean pirate first described French hunters on Hispaniola who smoked the meat of wild cattle?

Buccaneer comes from boucan, the frame the hunters smoked their meat on. They sold the jerky to passing raiders, and English colonists reshaped the French boucanier into the word used today.

Which English sea captain seized the Dominican capital in 1586 and left only after a ransom of 25,000 ducats?

Francis Drake held the city for a month, then sailed on to attack Cartagena. On the way out from Plymouth he had already raided Vigo and the Cape Verde Islands.

The Dominican capital's Columbus Lighthouse and which Spanish city's cathedral both claim the explorer's remains?

Seville has the stronger case, because DNA tests on the bones in its cathedral pointed to Columbus. Dominican authorities have not allowed the same tests on the remains in the lighthouse.

François Duvalier, the physician who ruled Haiti as dictator from 1957 to 1971, was known by which nickname?

Papa Doc was what his patients called him, and he used the name all his life. His son Jean-Claude, who succeeded him at the age of 19, was nicknamed Baby Doc.

Which fashion designer, born in the Dominican capital and trained by Balenciaga, dressed Jacqueline Kennedy?

Oscar de la Renta later became the first Dominican to design for a French couture house, at Balmain. He was the youngest of seven children and the only boy.

Which shrew-like mammal of Hispaniola, active at night, is one of the few mammals with a venomous bite?

Solenodon means grooved tooth, after the channels in its lower incisors that carry the venom. The Hispaniolan species was once believed to be extinct.

Which gem material mined in the Dominican Republic is famous for its fossil inclusions and a rare blue variety?

Amber from the Dominican Republic is nearly always transparent and holds more fossil inclusions than the Baltic kind. Much of it is dug from bell pits, which are extremely dangerous to work.

Which 1697 treaty saw Spain recognise French control of the western third of Hispaniola?

The Peace of Ryswick ended the Nine Years' War in Europe. In the Caribbean it only confirmed the facts, since France had planted its colony of Saint-Domingue years earlier.

Which South American liberator was given sanctuary, supplies and troops by Haitian president Alexandre Pétion in 1815?

Simón Bolívar arrived as a refugee and left with material and infantry support for his campaigns. Pétion was the first president of the Republic of Haiti, in office from 1807 until he died in 1818.

Which French novelist's father, a general of the French Revolution, was born to an enslaved woman in Saint-Domingue?

Alexandre Dumas's father, Thomas-Alexandre, was the first Black man to become general-in-chief of a French army. He was born into slavery, and his own father took him to France in 1776.

Which celebrated painter of American birds was born on his father's plantation at Les Cayes, in what is now Haiti?

John James Audubon published The Birds of America between 1827 and 1838, with plates engraved in Scotland and England. Its huge page size is known as double-elephant folio.

Which hip-hop star, born in Croix-des-Bouquets, was barred from standing for the Haitian presidency in 2010?

Wyclef Jean was turned down because he had not lived in Haiti for the five years before the vote. His trio, the Fugees, took its name from the word refugees.

Which vegetable is the base of soup joumou, the dish Haitians eat every 1 January to celebrate independence?

Squash was grown by enslaved workers who were forbidden to eat it themselves, so the soup became a taste of freedom in 1804. UNESCO added it to its cultural heritage list in 2021.

The three Mirabal sisters, murdered in 1960 for opposing the Dominican dictatorship, were known by which code name?

The Butterflies, or Las Mariposas, took the name from Minerva Mirabal's underground alias. The date of their deaths, 25 November, is now the UN day against violence towards women.

Which currency has Haiti used since 1813, when it replaced the colonial livre?

Gourde is a French cousin of the Spanish gordo, from the pesos gordos, the hard silver coins of colonial trade. One unit is divided into 100 centimes.

Which northern Haitian city, near where Columbus's flagship was wrecked, was the colonial capital until 1770?

Cap-Haïtien was then called Cap-Français, and it lost its rank when the capital moved to Port-au-Prince. Its wealth, architecture and artistic life had earned it a nickname borrowed from Paris.

Which French king sent warships to Haiti in 1825 to demand 150 million francs for recognising its independence?

Charles X set a first instalment six times larger than Haiti's yearly revenue. The total was later cut to 90 million francs, and the loans taken out to pay it were not cleared until 1947.