RE: El Dragon Ingles
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As I read this I think of the sorry history of Haiti...which shares that island. Not only did the French plunder Haiti, but they bankrupted the island even into the 20th century. France forced Haiti to pay reparations for lost property (slaves!!) and the Haitians had to borrow from French banks to do that. Haiti never had a chance. Even after the French were done wringing wealth out of the nation, the U. S. did its best to cripple Haiti because the example of a freed slave population was a dangerous precedent.
Haiti is a mess today, but a lot of people had a hand in making it a mess.
Sorry for the digression...this post, most interesting, is about the Dominican Republic. I didn't know about Drake. Interesting to read this.
I'm glad you found it interesting, @agmoore. From visiting this area of the Caribbean I got a sense of just how complex and messy colonial history actually was there. From what I observed, Dominicans, many of which descend from slaves, are very forthcoming about their history and proud of it in spite of that messy complexity. They honour their founders while openly showing the injustices that occurred in their past and how those were corrected to create their nation. It was eye opening to see this love of country, warts and all.
Interestingly, trading in slaves was apparently illegal under Spanish law in that area at the time, but Drake was still selling them there, and this brought him into conflict with Spanish authorities. So, the story of the siege of Santo Domingo goes deep.