San Domingo

San Domingo, or HAYTI, or HISPANIOLA, a large mountainous island of the Antilles group (with wide plains in the SE.), which extends 400 miles from E. to W. It is very fertile, producing sugar, cotton, cocoa, coffee, and valuable timber, and has great mineral wealth. In 1691 Spain ceded the western half of the island to France, in which arose a flourishing French colony. The insurrection of the negroes (1791) led to terrible bloodshed and ruin, The blacks, aided by yellow fever, withstood and finally repelled a British invasion (1793-98). In 1801 Hayti, which was then all subject to France, asserted its independence [TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE], and the French were vanquished by the negroes and disease. The negro chief Dessalines (1804) assumed the title of Emperor of Hayti. After various revolutions the French or western side of the island became the republic of Hayti, capital Port au Prince; while the eastern or Spanish portion became the republic of San Domingo, capital St. (or San) Domingo. This city, on the S.E. coast, is the oldest Enropean settlement (founded 1502) in the New World. There seems little doubt that the population of the interior is tending to relapse into barbarism.