Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage to the Americas, sailed south from what is now the Bahamas to explore the northeast coast of Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola.

The Dominican Republic ( Spanish: República Dominicana ) is a country in the West Indies that occupies the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola.

: Shares island of Hispaniola with Haiti ( eastern two-thirds is the Dominican Republic, western one-third is Haiti )

The largest lake of the Hispaniola, and of the West Indies, is the Lake Enriquillo.

# Île de la Gonâve, the largest offshore island of mainland Hispaniola, is located to the west-northwest of Port-au-Prince in Haiti's Gulf of Gonâve, in the Caribbean Sea ( the largest gulf of the Antilles ).

Hispaniola ( Spanish: La Española ) is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Because Anghiera's literary work was translated into English and French in a short period of time, the name " Hispaniola " is the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries for the island in scientific and cartographic works.

Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean ( after Cuba ), with an area of.

The climate of Hispaniola is generally humid and tropical.

With an area of, Jamaica is the largest island of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the third largest of the Greater Antilles, after Cuba and Hispaniola.

The related term buccaneer is derived from the Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame for smoking meat, hence the French word boucane and the name boucanier for hunters who used such frames to smoke meat from feral cattle and pigs on Hispaniola ( now Haiti and the Dominican Republic ).

In the 17th century the buccanneer John Esquemeling recorded the use of mahogany or cedrela on Hispaniola for making canoes ; ' The Indians make these canoes without the use of any iron instruments, by only burning the trees at the bottom near the root, and afterwards governing the fire with such industry that nothing is burnt more than what they would have ...'.

The oldest evidence of humans in the Caribbean is the Casirimoid culture in Cuba and Hispaniola which dates back to 4500 BCE and is associated with edge grinders similar to those used in Archaic Age Central America.

It is 3. 6 % smaller than the island of Ireland while Hispaniola is 6. 1 % smaller than Hokkaido.

Other information about the customs of the Lucayans has come from archaeological investigations and comparison with what is known of Taino culture in Cuba and Hispaniola.

Great Inagua is closer to both Hispaniola ( 90 km.

The family is known from fossils of the extinct genus Paleoleishmania preserved in Burmese amber dating to the Albian ( 100 mya ) and Dominican amber from the Burdigalian ( 20-15 mya ) of Hispaniola.

The Golden Swallow formerly bred on the island of Jamaica, but was last seen there in 1989 and is now restricted to the island of Hispaniola.

The second piculet subfamily, Nesoctitinae, has a single species, the Antillean Piculet, which is restricted to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Like the name Haiti itself, Saint-Domingue may be used to refer to all of Hispaniola, or the western part in the French colonial period, while the Spanish version Hispaniola or Santo Domingo is often used to refer to the Spanish colonial period or the Dominican nation.

In 1511, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar set out from Hispaniola to form the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, with orders from Spain to conquer the island.

Christopher Columbus reached the island of Hispaniola on his first voyage, in December 1492.

In 1510, the first sizable shipment, consisting of 250 Black Ladinos, arrived in Hispaniola from Spain.

Sugar cane was introduced to Hispaniola from the Canary Islands, and the first sugar mill in the New World was established in 1516, on Hispaniola.

* 1492 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

* 1493 – Christopher Columbus sets sail for Spain from Hispaniola, ending his first voyage to the New World.

The earliest record of Native American and African contact occurred in April 1502, when Spanish colonists transported the first Africans to Hispaniola to serve as slaves.

The Spanish colonies were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola.

The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.

The first inhabitants of the islands were Arawakan-speaking Taíno people who crossed over from Hispaniola sometime from 500 to 800.

The first written account of the disease dates to 1495 when an epidemic struck the island of Hispaniola.

* 1507: The first recorded epidemic of smallpox in the New World occurs on the island of Hispaniola and decimates the native Taíno population.

* December 5 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first known European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola.

Two of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, are said to have encountered tobacco for the first time on the island of Hispaniola, when natives presented them with dry leaves that spread a peculiar fragrance.

* The first African slaves brought to the New World arrive at the island of Hispaniola ( present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic ).

* June 25 – The first hurricane ever observed by Europeans strikes the Spanish settlement of La Isabela on Hispaniola.

The first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World were the Spaniards who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and laborers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, where the alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population ( Laws of Burgos, 1512 – 1513 ).

The first enslaved Africans arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.

The first slaves to arrive as part of a labor force appeared in 1502 on the island of Hispaniola ( now Haiti and the Dominican Republic ).

During the first voyage of the explorer Christopher Columbus ( mandated by the Spanish crown to conquer ) contact was made with the Lucayans in the Bahamas and the Taíno in Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola, and a few of the native people were taken back to Spain.

This first occurred along the Caribbean coasts on the islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba, and after 1500 extended into the interiors of both North and South America.