History of Samana

For 200 years (1600-1800), the governments of Spain, France, and England fought for the control of the peninsula, leaving as beneficiaries of this instability the pirates and French and English buccaneers, as well as slaves and revel natives, who utilized the zone like a refuge and center for their activities.  In 1625, the English and French took possession of the Island of San Cristobal (Sant Kitts), Lower Antilles, where they dedicated to the shooting of wild animals (buccaneers), to the piracy (filibusters), or to the agriculture (brothers of the coast). Many of them established in the Samaná Peninsula, forming small urban centers such as La Terrienne, Petit Port, Saint Capuce, La Basse Terre. The filibusters introduced the farming of the coconut, coffee, sugar cane… remaining until the end of the 17th century, when the government of La Tortuga ordered their eviction due to the excessive distance to the center of operations of the filibusters and buccaneers. 

In 1690 the corsair Jack Banister fought against two English vessels in the border of Luna Island that was called "Cayo Banister", currently "Cayo Levantado," visited today by thousands of tourists. Banister placed the cannons of his vessels in the cayo (key) and along with his men defended himself, killing more than two hundred of Spanish sailors

Early in the 1700s, the City Hall of Santo Domingo proposed to Spain to populate the Samaná Peninsula with Spaniards to contain the continuous French usurpations. The region was populated with numerous families from the Canary Islands. The city of Santa Barbara de Samaná, capital of the province, was founded in August 21, 1751, by the Spanish governor Francisco Rubio y Peñarada. 

In 1724 the Spaniards lost two galleons (vessels): "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe" and "Conde de Tolosa," in the reefs near Miches. They were seeking, without success, for shelter against a storm. In 1782, the French ship "Scipion" was stranded in the, since then called, Port of the English, in the southern coast of the bay, while fighting against three English ships.

In 1783, in the populated area of Samaná, only forty-nine houses existed and about two hundred fifteen people. The interior of the peninsula was uninhabited. In that same year an old French pirate named Juan, decided "to flee his companions and take refuge in a spot of the peninsula where he remained completely hidden". At the end of twenty-two years, this hermit was discovered by one of his old companions. The location of the place where Juan resided was called Punta Ermitaño (Hermit Point) and the small island across from the same carries the same name. They are only a few miles to the east of El Limón. 

With the Basilea Treaty of 1795, France received the entire Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, including the Samaná peninsula, in exchange for yielding its conquests of the Pirineos to Spain. The French government wanted to build, in the utmost part of the Samaná Bay, a city "that would soon become the storefront of all the cities of Europe." The transfer to France of the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo occurred six years after the French revolution of 1789 started, a fact that would quickly have enormous repercussions in the colony of Saint Domingue, where the slaves would rebel demanding the same rights of "liberty, equality, and fraternity". In 1793 France abolished slavery in Saint Domingue. 

In 1801, the Haitian Toussaint Louverture, an ally of France, invaded the eastern part of the island, controlling the cities of Santo Domingo and Samaná.  Nevertheless, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had reached power by the end of 1799, sent a fleet with more than eighty ships and 58,000 men.  Half of that fleet, headed by general Leclerc, reached Samaná in January of 1802 and while observing it Toussaint exclaimed: "our only option is to perish, all of France has come to Santo Domingo to be avenged and to put an end to the blacks."  The war between the French and Haitians lasted two years (1802-1804). The soldiers of Napoleon, victorious in Italy and Egypt, could not defeat the black Haitians, who had the yellow fever as ally.  Over fifty thousand French, including Leclerc lost their lives. Saint Domingue declared its independence on January 1, 1804, adopting the name of Haiti.

The French general Louis M. Ferrand took the city of Santo Domingo in 1804, which was besieged in May of 1805 for three weeks by twenty-one thousand Haitians, until the arrival of a French squad heading towards the West, a fact that swayed the Haitians to drop their arms and return to Haiti.  Nevertheless, the situation after the raising was such that many Dominicans and foreigners opted for leaving. Ferrand tried to rebuild the colony promoting the plantation of coffee in Samaná, whose French population in 1808 had grown so much that he ordered the creation of plans for a model city in Santa Barbara de Samaná, with gardens in the style of Versailles, a palace, a theater, fountains, and a Comedy Plaza that would be called "Port Napoleon".

The resistance of Sánchez Ramírez against France was initiated in 1808, year in which the battle of Juan Sánchez Ramírez Palo Hincado took place, in which the Dominicans defeated the French. An English squadron of five ships was sent from Jamaica entering the Samaná Bay on November 10, 1808. It captured five ships and destroyed the fort of Santa Barbara. The English handed over Samaná to Sánchez Ramírez "under the condition that the rights of the French inhabitants would be respected and their properties maintained." At that moment, the population of Santa Barbara was a little over one thousand people. With the delivery of Samaná, the French only remained in possession of Santo Domingo, until their surrender in July of 1809.

The Samaná Bay and Peninsula have important history, full of curious anecdotes, and, undoubtedly, the period between 1795 and 1819 was the most interesting one of all, and it was during those troubled years when the famous painter Theodore Chassériau was born. 

Haitian Occupation
The declaration of the Dominican independence, on December of 1821, would not last long and would be known as "La Efímera." The few French that still resided in Samaná, with the support of the Spaniards of Puerto Rico, sent an emissary to Martinique so that the admiral Jacob would transfer to Samaná with his ships to help the Dominicans who were in danger of a new Haitian invasion.  Jacob arrived with his ships, but opted for withdrawal due to the threat of the Haitian president Boyer to kill all the French that still resided in the island.

The Haitian occupation would last twenty-two long years. One of the first acts of Boyer was the construction in 1822 of a fort in Los Cacaos. A Haitian document dated the same year explains how in El Limón "has seen the commerce offer supplies to large ships and corsair vessels for their travels." To avoid this, the Haitians built in the mouth of the Limón River a small fort, with many cannons. In 1824, the Haitian president negotiated with the Quakers of Philadelphia, a religious group, the delivery of six thousand freed American slaves to the island, with about two hundred of them settling down in Samaná. These former-slaves belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and this developed new ethical nucleus with English surnames. In 1844 they would join the pro-independence cause and in 1861 they would oppose the annexation to Spain. Their religious festivals include an anticyclone ritual “storm meeting", festivals of crops, "watch nights", etc. Some Haitians settled in Tesón, north of Samaná, keeping their native créole tongue until the middle of the 20th century. A third group, immigrants of Turkey, English-speaking and Protestants, also settled in Samaná. 

Efforts to Sell or Lease Samaná
The French consul Lavasseur suggested to its government to negotiate the Samaná Peninsula in exchange for the reduction of a debt contracted by Haiti. By that time, a deposit of coal in the southern part of the peninsula had been located, which would be able to provide fuel to steamboats. On February 27, 1844 the independence of the Dominican Republic was proclaimed in the Puerta de El Conde. The independence lasted until 1861 when Spain regained the eastern part of the island and maintained its control until 1865. During this period they tried to re-establish the catholic religion, closing all the protestant churches. Once the independence of Haiti was obtained, it was the Dominicans who tried to sell the peninsula and its bay to United States, England, France or Spain, in exchange for protection against future Haitian invasions. 

In 1851, a census of the city of Samaná resulted in a population of 1721 souls among which there were three hundred former American slaves. The remainders were Dominicans of French or Spanish origin.  The English consul Sir Robert Schomburgk visited the bay in 1853, explaining in a report how "El Limón was the place where all the roads joined to continue toward Matanzas, San Francisco de Macorís, etc." He adds that in the Limón River still there were three cannons, but they were dismantled.  He was the first to report the archaeological deposits and the prehistoric paintings in the caves of the Haitises. He was surprised to hear English, Spanish, and French spoken near the populated area of Samaná. 

Annexation to Spain
Because of the annexation of the Dominican Republic to Spain in 1861, Spanish ships were transferred to the bay, fortifying the installations in Cayo Levantado, Santa Barbara de Samaná, and Los Cacaos. A Spanish official report explained how in the town of Samaná there were between three hundred and four hundred people, being the majority blacks from Florida, Haitian descendants and, seldom, some “white one". When the Dominicans defeated the Spanish troops and achieved the restoration of their independence, the efforts to lease or sell the peninsula continued. In 1868 Samaná was leased to the Americans by US$2 million, but the Dominican government that signed the treaty, was ousted, thus the agreement became invalid.

The president Buenaventura Báez signed a treaty of annexation with the United States under which Washington would be able to take the control of the Samaná Bay, which happened that same year.  But due to the opposition of senator Chat Sumner, the agreement was rejected by the American congress in 1870. The following year, the Washington government decided to send to Santo Domingo a "commission of investigation" to determine if the Dominicans were in favor or not to the annexation of their country to United States. This commission, that included scientists, journalists and sketchers, in addition to important political personalities, visited Samaná and made the first drawings of the city that have survived the passing of time, giving great importance to the bay for its strategic value, saying that it would be able to become "the main naval station of the U.S. in the Antilles." 

In 1872 the bay was leased to a group of American capitalists, receiving the payment of its first annuity in 1873, but the following year the other government of Báez was ousted leaving the capitalists not knowing which government to pay, the Dominicans took advantage of this opportunity and cancelled the contract due to infringement. 

The Railroad
In 1869 the Dominican government offered the first concession for the establishment of a railroad between Samaná and Santiago, but its construction would not begin until 1882, initiating its operations in 1888. 

During that time, the railroad was the main way to export the agricultural production of the Cibao. The place called "The Cañitas", today the city of Sánchez, would be the point of arrival of the train. A pier was built where the ships would arrive to receive mainly coffee and cocoa. This prompted the immigration of Syrians, Lebanese, and Italians to Sánchez and Samaná. During some years Sánchez was one of the most cosmopolitan centers of the country, given the presence of so many foreigners. The railroad to stopped operating around 1966.  Between 1916 and 1924, the Dominican Republic was occupied by infants of the navy of the United States, with the justification that they had to be assured that the country paid its debt to American creditors and to protect the Americans residing in the country. During that period the American navy tested the bay and made plans to defend it against a German attack. Cannons would be placed in Cayo Levantado and Los Cacaos to block the access through the only deepwater entrance to the bay. 

Trujillo and Balaguer
Between 1930 and 1961 the country was controlled by the cruel dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who promoted the marble mines to the east of the city of Samaná. Trujillo was anti-Haitian and changed many of the names of places of the peninsula because they sounded Haitian, when in reality they were French. He prohibited all the Haitian descendants of Tesón to speak créole among them. In 1946 Santa Barbara of Samaná was practically destroyed by a fire.

In 1966, Joaquín Balaguer took power, an intellectual that had served to Trujillo and had studied in the Sorbona. Inspired by the project of the Napoleonic city of Ferrand, he ordered the destruction of all the beautiful and attractive wooden houses of Santa Bárbara of Samaná, contemporary with the ones that still, fortunately, existed in the city of Sánchez. And because of the strong opposition of the descendants of the American freed slaves its venerable church remained intact. Modern dwellings and concrete buildings substituted the old houses. Balaguer built a hotel in Santa Bárbara of Samaná, another in Cayo Levantado, as well as a seldom utilized footbridge. He ordered the construction of the Arroyo Barril airport that, sadly, will never be able to receive international flights due the short length of its runway.  He also built a pier, which, just like the airport, has had little use. 

Starting in the eighties, the international tourism began to arrive to the peninsula, transforming places such as Las Terrenas, Portillo and Las Galeras into cosmopolitan centers. At the end of November 2006, the El Catey International Airport was inaugurated, also known as Samaná International Airport, at only 10 minutes from Sánchez and 40 from Las Terrenas. Currently, there’s a freeway being built that will shorten the trip from the city of Santo Domingo to the peninsula to two hours.