Zona ColonialZONA COLONIAL, SANTO DOMINGO Independent scholar resident in Santo Domingo-- HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF SANTO DOMINGO, CAPITAL OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC In January of 1494, Admiral Christopher Columbus founded La Isabela on the north coast, just east of the remains of Fort La Navidad, where the 39 men left behind from the famous 1492 voyage had perished. But Columbus’s town was on a poorly chosen site. Two years later, the Spaniards began to abandon La Isabela for Nueva Isabela on the south coast, which was founded August 4, 1496, by Columbus’s brother Bartolomé on the eastern bank of the Río Ozama at the mouth of the Caribbean Sea. The new site had good drinking water readily available, fertile land, many Taínos to grow food—and it had gold nearby, the so-called Old Mines in what is today San Cristóbal. So many Spaniards had died in La Isabela that the name itself was considered to be unlucky. Instead of using the official name of Nueva Isabela, residents of the new European town used the name of its fortress, Santo Domingo de Guzmán. On August 5,1502, the new governor, Nicolás de Ovando, moved the town from the eastern bank of the river to its present location on the west bank, so today’s capital can legitimately celebrate two founding dates. The new city was well planned, laid out on a grid pattern, to be protected by strong stone walls and a series of forts along the perimeter. Peter Martyr D’Anghiera, a tutor at the Royal Spanish Court and one of the colonial chroniclers, wrote that Santo Domingo was “the mother” of all the new lands. For more than 50 years, the capital and its hinterlands were the provisioning ground, proving ground, and staging ground for all of the New World’s exploration, exploitation, and colonization by Spaniards. The Columbus family lived here. Bartolomé de las Casas lived here, both before and after he became a Dominican monk and Royal Protector of the Indians. Amerigo Vespucci, for whom all of the Americas were named, stopped here on his exploratory voyages. Juan Ponce de León lived here before he colonized Puerto Rico and, while looking for the Fountain of Youth, found Florida. Diego de Velásquez and Hernando Cortés lived here before they left for Cuba--Cortés then went off to conquer Mexico. Vasco Núñez de Balboa lived here before he stowed away on a ship bound for today’s Panama, whose isthmus he would cross to “discover” the Pacific Ocean. Francisco Pizarro lived here before he turned traitor to his friend Balboa so that he could lead the Spanish exploration and conquest of the Inca people that Balboa had dreamed about leading. Santo Domingo was the seat of the Real Audiencia (the royal Spanish judiciary court, equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court) and of the Royal Treasury. The European-modeled city, whose grid of neatly laid-out streets set the pattern for all the other Spanish New World cities, was surrounded by stone walls, beginning in the 1540s (see below), to protect it from pirates. A crew of African slaves who were experienced in construction was brought in to oversee this and other architectural projects, using mostly native Taíno Indian laborers. Santo Domingo boasts the primada Catholic cathedral in the New World (primada means that it was the highest-ranking cathedral, not the first one—the first cathedral in the New World was built in the gold center of Concepción de la Vega, among the island’s central mountains), a multitude of magnificent churches and monasteries, the first convent, the first hospital, the first European paved road, the first university, treasury office and smelting ovens, warehouses and government offices, and magnificent stone mansions, including the Alcazar or “Columbus House” built by Christopher’s son Diego and his blueblood wife doña María de Toledo—Diego arrived in 1509 to replace Governor Ovando. Las Paredes de la Ciudad (The City Walls) By the 1530s, Spain’s enemies in Europe were actively seeking their share of the New World. Several English and French ships had already either come to the island of Hispaniola or were rumored to have done so. To protect the capital city, the Spaniards decided to build walls around it and put forts at strategic points. The first stone for the encircling walls was officially laid in 1543, but it wasn’t until 1547 that a crew of African slaves arrived to begin the construction in earnest. They began with the western and eastern sides of the city, then the southern. As late as 1655, the city was still unwalled in the northwest section called Santa Barbara, and in 1681 was still unprotected along the northern boundary where Avenida Mella is today (last to be built, this section is in the best condition today). Along the western side of the wall, where today’s Palo Hincado Street runs, were two gates, the one that now is known as the Puerta del Conde (Count’s Gate) and the Puerta de la Misericordia (Gate of Mercy). The English “gentleman” Sir Francis Drake, who is considered to have been a horrible pirate here in the Spanish Caribbean, entered through these two gates to sack the city in 1586. The Puerta de la Misericordia was where Dominican patriots met on the evening of February 27, 1844—the date celebrated as Dominican Independence Day—and fired the shot that began the fight that would free the country from Haitian rule. On the eastern side of the walls, the shipyard’s renaissance-style Puerta Don Diego (Don Diego Gate), with its unique diagonal Moorish arch leading to and from the river port, was the principal entrance to the walled city for more than four centuries. It was often called the Sea Gate in the past. Recently remodeled, the Puerta Don Diego again boasts stone sculptures of the distinctive dual-eagle-topped coat of arms of the Habsburgs, as well as the coats of arms of the Island of Hispaniola and the City of Santo Domingo--the originals were removed during the 19th-century Haitian occupation. The Puerta Don Diego was guarded by Fort Don Diego, which projected out into the Ozama River until 1886, when the river was widened to improve the port facilities—in 1937 Trujillo ordered a small reconstruction of the fort built on the Avenida del Puerto so it would not be forgotten. Trujillo also had tall, hideously ugly cement walls built to hide the crumbling southeastern parts of the original city walls, the part along the Avenida del Puerto. There has been talk of removing the cement walls to reveal the beautiful ancient structures once again, but nothing has yet been done about it. Just north of the Puerta Don Diego, which was the people gate, is the freight gate, the Puerta de Las Atarazanas (Drydock Gate). The elegant churches, government buildings, and mansions of the colonial era (most of the earliest of which were designed by the Spanish architects Rodrigo de Liendo and Luis de Moya) were built of native limestone, decorated with brick and cement appliques. In the 1700s it became the fashion to plaster over the original stone and paint the buildings in bright colors—this appears to have begun when, in 1712, King Philip V ordered everyone to plaster over the stones because his advisors told him disease microbes were lodged in the original building materials. Most of the wrought-iron balconies you will see today were added in the late 1800s. Throughout the walled area of colonial Santo Domingo, orchard groves and vegetable gardens filled the spaces between where the houses ended and the walls stood their silent guard. Right up to the turn of the 20th century, the Franciscan Monastery marked the northern boundary of the city’s residential area, and the Iglesia de las Mercedes the easternmost. Small “fortlets” were built into the protective walls at strategic locations, which include those of Santa Barbara, San Gil, Santa Catalina, San Lázaro, San José, and San Jerónimo. 1) ORIGINAL CITY SITE & PORT AREA The initial city port was a sandy beach area on the east bank of the Río Ozama, below the tall cliffs where the Fortress of Santo Domingo de Guzmán stood. Beside the fortress was a home for the Columbus family, a small church, and approximately 60 wooden houses with thatched roofs. Steps carved out of the stone cliffs wound their way up to the settlement from the beach, which was called El Desembarcadero (Point of Disembarkation). Anyone who wanted to go to the west side of the river had to cross in dugout canoes or in a barge that took them, their horses, and other goods across. Many, many Spaniards crossed the river in the early years, for there were gold mines 8 leagues to the west, along the River Haina in the region that today is San Cristobal, which is also the region where the first commercial sugarcane was grown in the Americas circa 1515. Parque Arquelógico de Nueva Isabela (Archaeological Park of New Isabela) and Iglesia Nuestra Virgen del Rosario (Church of Our Virgin of the Rosary). On the east bank of the Río Ozama, on La Francia Street in today’s Villa Duarte sector, is an archeological park preserving the site of the original settlement of Santo Domingo. The only building that remains from the initial 15th-century settlement, however, is a 20th-century reconstruction of the little Church of Our Lady Virgin of the Rosary, the patroness of sailors, which used to be administered by the Dominican friars. Padre Bartolomé de las Casas, Royal Protector of the Indians, used to hold Mass here. The stone and adobe church was constructed in the 1540s, replacing the original 400’ square, wooden, thatched church. Archeologists recently excavated the remains of numerous Europeans and Indians who were buried beneath the floor. Immediately north are the remains of the well that served the town and the Fortress of Santo Domingo. (It was in this fortress, not the one on the western bank of the river, where Christopher Columbus and his brothers were chained and imprisoned for “abuse of authority” in 1500. The fortress slipped into the river sometime in the past.) After the well ran dry, the hole was used by neighborhood residents as a handy latrine. Puerto (Port) Sans Soucí Until 1998, these docks on the east bank of the Río Ozama, just south of the original El Desembarcadero, were the only docks in the capital suitable for cruiseships. But cruising has become so popular, and Santo Domingo such a popular destination, not only for its historic interest, tropical climate, and nearby Caribbean beaches, but also because of its modern Las Americas airport, that an additional cruiseship port, Don Diego, was constructed on the west bank. Puerto (Port) de Don Diego This new cruiseship facility on the Río Ozama behind the Casa de Colón was named for Admiral Columbus’s older son and opened in 1998. At night, particularly on weekends and holidays, its parking lots become huge open-air discos where young Dominicans gather to dance, drink and mingle. Just south of Port Don Diego, toward the river mouth, is the dock of the car-and-passenger ferry that sails several times a week between Santo Domingo and Mayaguez in western Puerto Rico. Parque Arquelógico del Puerto de Santo Domingo (Port of Santo Domingo, Archaeological Park) or Las Atarazanas (The Drydocks) The river banks where the new Puerto Don Diego is located, behind the Casa de Colón (“Columbus’s House” is the nickname for the Alcázar, the distinctive arched palace that dominates the western shore of the river—described in the next section), has been a busy shipyard for five centuries. It was here, on the western banks of the Río Ozama, that Spanish ships unloaded their Old World wares—wine, wheat, cloth, African slaves--and loaded up with gold, mahogany, and Indian slaves, later with cañafístola (its pods were used to make a popular purgative medicine), cane sugar, ginger, and cowhides. The Atarazana’s Puerta (Gate) Don Diego was the principal people entrance into the walled city for centuries—it was also called the Sea Gate or El Embarcadero (Point of Embarkation). Today the entire port area is a protected national archaeological park. Some of the individual monuments are described below. Museo de las Atarazanas Reales (Museum of the Royal Shipyards) or Museo de Rescate Submarino (Underwater Rescue Museum) Just inside the Puerta de Las Atarazanas (Drydock Gate), which is north of the Casa de Colón, is a museum showcasing silver coins, glassware, and other objects that have been recovered over the centuries from the region’s many shipwrecks, including those of the Guadaloupe and Conde de Tolosa. The museum is housed inside a beautiful brick building that was once one of the royal warehouses. In front of it, along the river (a section called Retreat Beach, Playa del Retiro), was the largest markets of the colonial era. It was here that slave auctions were held. The slaves were housed in a nearby building known as La Negreta. All around the warehouse region lived the coopers, river watchmen, stevedores, candle makers, ironsmiths, tailors and sail makers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths… all the shipyard laborers. La Aduanilla (Little Customs House), Fortín de la Carena (La Carena Fortlet), Plaza de Ceiba (Ceiba Plaza), and Fortín de Angulo (Fortlet of the Angle) Walk north along the banks of the Río Ozama through the area that was a thriving shipyard throughout the colonial era to the remains of a 17th-century Customs House. A little further yet is the recently restored Fortín de la Carena where colonial ships were cleaned and repaired. Next you’ll find a small plaza where the trunk of an ancient ceiba tree was encased in cement between 1916 and 1924. It is here that Christopher Columbus is said to have tied up his ship during his last voyage to the island in 1502. A new ceiba now shades the plaza. Finally, a little further on, is Fortín de Angulo that closed off the northeasternmost portion of the walled city. The numerous fortresses found here are an indication of how valuable the port area was to the colonial-era Spaniards. Fortaleza Trujillo (Trujillo Fortress) Separating the modern port area and the ancient city, just outside the Don Diego Gate, is an imposing military barricade built by Trujillo’s orders in 1937. It faces the river where Fort Don Diego was before the Ozama was widened in 1886. 2) THE AREA IMMEDIATELY ABOVE PORT DON DIEGO Plaza de España (Spain’s Plaza) Above the port area is the vast Plaza de Armas, today renamed the Plaza de España, where colonial-era soldiers paraded upon land that was once a large conuco (agricultural field) of the local Taíno Indians. (Their leader was a female, the Cacica Catalina; she married a Spaniard, Miguel Díaz, who supposedly led Columbus’s brother Bartolomé to the region, where he founded the city.) The southwestern portion of the plaza was called the Plaza del Contador (Accountant’s Plaza) during the colonial era, which had an adjacent public market. Today the combined plaza is so vast that it dwarfs the bronze statue of Nicolás de Ovando by the Spaniard Juan de Vaquero. Ovando was Santo Domingo’s second governor. He moved the city from the Río Ozama’s east bank to the west bank in 1502 and supervised construction of the well organized grid-like layout of the colonial city that became the pattern for all Spanish colonial cities in the New World. Today the Plaza de España is a popular gathering place for locals and visitors alike to stroll while enjoying the evening breezes off the river, or to enjoy concerts, which are frequently presented in the center of the plaza or with the dramatically night-lit Casa de Colón, on the plaza’s eastern side, as a backdrop. Expensive restaurants and bars with open-air seating line the western side of the plaza, along ancient Blacksmiths’ Street (Calle Los Herreros), which today is an extension of Isabel la Católica Street. Alcázar or Casa de Colón (Columbus’s House) This imposing building, today a museum showing how the elite lived in the early 16th century, is the “palace” that was built for the Second Admiral and third Governor of the Indies, Diego Colón (Columbus’s elder son), and his blueblood wife, doña María de Toledo. Most commonly called the Casa de Colón, its official name is the Alcázar. Construction on the elegantly arched and colonnaded Mudejar structure (with Isabelino and Italian Renaissance-style embellishments) was begun in 1510. The house has 72 doors and 22 rooms. Diego and María took up residence in 1515. Ten of their 12 children were born here, and the famous Cacique Enriquillo and Doña Mencía were married in 1517 in the home’s private chapel. As early as 1505, there were huts along the river on the path that wound up the hill to where the Alcázar was built, some of which were used as taverns, including Pie de Hierro (Iron Foot) and El Marido de la Cordobesa (The Cordobesa’s Husband). By 1770, the Casa de Colón had been abandoned and was used as a dumping grounds by nearby inhabitants. City officials suggested turning the abandoned Casa de Colón into a jail, but the plan was unsuccessful. The building was restored during 1955-1957 at a cost of nearly US$650,000 (which was a lot of money in those days and no doubt explains why it was restored as a two-story building, not to its original three) and furnished with period pieces from Spain that added another $350,000 to the project—the elegant musical instruments and genuine 16th-century tapestries were donated by the Duke of Veragua, who was a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus. The Casa de Colón had to be reconditioned again in 1968 because of all the bullets that tore through it during the second U.S. military invasion of 1965 (first was 1917-1924). On the northern side of the Plaza de España, immediately west of the Casa de Colón, is a beautifully restored building that was a temporary residence for the island’s first judges and, later, a storehouse for imports and exports. Today you buy your tickets here to tour the Casa de Colón. Many other former residences and warehouses lined the streets to the north of the Plaza de España in the colonial era in the area known as Las Atarazanas (The Drydocks). Today the buildings around the plaza house elegant shops and restaurants. Casa del Cordón (House of the Cord) Look west, uphill along the road named Emiliano Tejera that leads away from the Plaza de España. On the southwest corner of the first crossroads, Emiliano Tejera and Isabel la Católica streets, you will see a Banco Popular housed in a distinctive two-story stone and adobe mansion that was constructed in a Gothic Mudejar and Elizabethan style, with an ornate double doorway framed by a huge Cord of St. Francis, the “belt” that all friars traditionally wear. This is the oldest known European stone house built in the New World. The owner was Francisco de Garay, a scribe and gold miner, who was one of Admiral Christopher Columbus’s criados (a “faithful man”). Garay owned ten other stone houses in the area, which he rented out. Rich and powerful, he became governor of Jamaica in 1515, and in 1519, Adelantado in today’s Mexico. Diego Colón and his wife María lived in the Casa del Cordón while their palace was being built. María bore the first two of their 12 children here. The judges of the Real Audiencia, the Royal Court of the Indies, which was instituted in 1511 to counteract the power of Diego Colón, heard cases here until the court and its offices were moved to Las Casas Reales in 1516. When Drake invaded and sacked Santo Domingo in 1586, he used a scale in the Casa del Cordón to weigh the booty he collected by ransoming rich inhabitants. Today the Casa del Cordón is used as executive offices by the Banco Popular (but belongs to the Dominican government). If you ask politely, you can enter it and will be given a guided tour during business hours. Museo de las Casas Reales (Museum of the Royal Houses) Two buildings at the southeast side of the Plaza de España were connected together in the 1700s because an earthquake caused serious damage to them in 1673 (look at the window shapes on the second floor to distinguish one from the other). Today they house the Museo de las Casas Reales, a fascinating museum of Santo Domingo’s colonial era that was inaugurated by President Balaguer, along with Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, in 1976. In addition to paintings, archeological objects, and furnishings from the era of the Taínos through the 18th century, the museum has on permanent exhibition the ancient weapons collections that was once Trujillo’s and objects from the ancient pharmacy that once were used in the first hospital in the New World, Santo Domingo’s Hospital Nicolás de Bari. The northernmost of the two buildings (originally constructed in 1512) was the official governor’s office, or captain-general’s office, with a family residential area upstairs (though both Ovando and Colón built their own residences). The southernmost of the two buildings, commissioned by Queen Juana “La Loca” and constructed in 1508, was built to house the first Casa de Contracación (House of Trade), and later housed the Royal Treasury on the ground floor and the Real Audiencia, the powerful court that had jurisdiction over all Spanish territories in the New World until mid-16th century, on the second floor. The buildings face a small plaza, the Plaza del Reloj de Sol (Sundial Plaza). The plaza stands high above the cliffs overlooking the Río Ozama from the crenellated city walls. The sundial was placed here in 1753 under the orders of Governor General Francisco el Rubio y Peñaranda so that city officials could see what time it was by looking out the windows of their meeting rooms. There are also two huge colonial-era canons mounted here, symbols of the administrative power that was so carefully guarded. This is a popular site today from which to peep over the ancient crenelated walls and view the activities in the port area below. Directly across the river is the Iglesia Nuestra Virgen del Rosario and, in the distance, the Faro a Colón (Columbus Lighthouse). 3) SOUTH OF PORT DON DIEGO, ALONG CALLE DE LAS DAMAS Calle de las Damas (Ladies’ Street) Leading south from the Plaza del Reloj de Sol, and continuing almost to the Caribbean Sea, is the first European paved road in the New World. It was originally called Calle de la Fortalesa (Fortress Street), but when Diego Colón’s wife arrived in 1509, she brought her ladies-in-waiting with her. It was the first time a quantity of Spanish women had come to Santo Domingo. They were accustomed to taking a late afternoon walk (still a popular pastime here), but there was nowhere to do so comfortably. Calle de las Damas was paved and extended to accommodate them. Some of the colonial city’s most important buildings line it both on the east and west. The other principal streets of the earliest colonial era that ran north to south were Isabel la Católica (ancient names were Calle de Caño, “Gutter Street,” because all the sewage and rain water ran down it, and/or Calle del Comercio, “Commerce Street,” because it was the busiest business street in the colony, or Calle Santa Bárbara, for the church at its northern end—another popular name was Las Cuatro Calles, recognizing that it had four different names); Arzobispo Meriño (originally called Calle de los Plateros, “Silverworkers Street,” or Calle Las Canteras, “Quarry Road,” also in some old documents Calle Los Escudos, “The Shields Road,” or La Moneda, “Road of The Coin” ); and María Eugenio de Hostos. The principal east-to-west streets were named for Padre Billini, Arzobispo Nouel, El Conde (governor who saved the city from the British in 1655, but the street was originally called El Clavijo after the founder of the first children’s school, then King Street, Imperial Street, El Conde, Separation Street, and Avenida 27 de Febrero—the name El Conde was restored in 1934), General Luperón (originally known as Calle Guarda Mayor Del Rey, Gutter Street, and Milk Street), Las Mercedes (originally known as El Truco), and Emiliano Tejera. Capilla de los Remedios (Chapel of Remedies/Chapel of Divine Help) or Capilla Dávila (Dávila’s Chapel) The first building on the east side of Calle de las Damas is a small church that was the private family chapel of Francisco Dávila, who came to Santo Domingo in 1502 and, by 1514 (at only age 26), was one of the island’s richest residents. The chapel was built of bricks made in his own brickyard. Many elite Spanish residents attended mass here until the Cathedral was completed in 1540. Today the building, which was remodeled in the 1880s and restored in 1970, houses a youth organization. Small musical groups perform here, too, for the former church has excellent acoustics, and there are frequent artistic exhibitions. Dávila was a city councilman and had an encomienda of Taíno Indians who worked for him. In the 1530s, he was owner of a sugar cane plantation with several hundred African slaves, but he lived in the capital. The Casa de Dávila (Dávila House) was the building behind the chapel, high on the cliffs facing the Río Ozama. It features a beautiful Andalusian-style fountain in the patio. The Dávila home and patio have been incorporated into the hotel that is planned for a February 2003 opening (see below). Residencia del Gobernador Nicolás de Ovando (Residence of Governor Nicolás de Ovando) When Ovando replaced Columbus as governor in 1502 and moved the settlement to the east side of the river, he built this private residence, with its distinctive gothic entrance on Calle de las Damas. It was one of the first stone houses in Santo Domingo, though Ovando constructed 15 more (some records say 30), which he rented out. One of these was rented out to Hernando Cortés when he lived in Santo Domingo; today it is the Casa de Francia, across the street (see below) from the Ovando House. Many important governmental decisions were made in Ovando’s residence, perhaps even the one wherein Ovando planned how to comply with royal orders to “pacify” the Taínos by ordering the massacre of their most powerful leaders, counselors, and noble family members. Christopher Columbus stayed several nights here in 1504 as Ovando’s guest when he was recuperating after being shipwrecked on Jamaica at the end of his fourth and final voyage to the Americas. And General Santana, the first president of the Dominican Republic (the one who annexed the Republic to Spain in 1861) lived here. At that time, the building was known as The House of the Cannons for the two huge cannons that guarded the doorway.... The Ovando Residence was restored in 1970 and, in the late 1980s, the building opened as a government-run hotel called the Hostal Nicolás de Ovando, which closed 10 years later. The French firm ACCOR, which owns the Sofitel chain, has leased it and all the other buildings on that side of the block, along with two other hotels in the Colonial Zone. The Ovando Residence is due to reopen in February of 2003 as a 125-room, 5-plus-star, French-run hotel. Escalinata de la Victoria (Victoria Stairway) and Fortaleza Invencible/San Alberto (Fort Invincible/St. Albert) Built in the 1940s, magnificent stone steps lead up from the port area to Calle de las Damas at the foot of El Conde street. The view from the steps down into the port is magnificent. The Victoria Stairway was built alongside the 17th-century Fort Invincible, which locals at the time called Fort Inservicible (Fort Useless) because its defenses were so poor. The fortress was originally built with funds of the Dávila family and served as a private fortress dedicated to San Alberto. From the top of the stairs, the pedestrian-only El Conde street leads west to the Cathedral in the Columbus Plaza, lined with romantic little international restaurants with outdoor seating. Dominican Cartographic Institute A functional yet beautiful old building stands on the east side of Calle de las Damas, to the south of the Victorian Stairs. At various times it has been governmental offices, a military command center, and a police station. In 1893 it was rebuilt to house the telephone exchange and offices of the Secretary of Labor And Communication. Today it houses the Dominican Cartographic Institute, where you can buy any kind of specialty map of the country you may desire. Casa de Bastidas (Bastidas’s House) One of the New World’s first millionaires, Rodrigo de Bastidas was an accountant in Seville when he petitioned to come to Santo Domingo with Ovando’s 1502 fleet. Young conquistadores laughed at him because he was old by the day’s standards. But he had not come to fight his way to riches. He came to trade. He shipped in wine and wheat (so necessary for the Catholic Mass) as well as tons of underwear, probably to clothe the “naked” Indians, and he shipped out Indian slaves. He was elected Mayor of Santo Domingo and appointed to the royal position of Principal Tax Collector. In the late 1520s, now really old, Bastidas regretted profiting from slavery, fearing it would keep him out of Heaven, and vowed to spend his own money to make the dream of Bartolomé de Casa’s dream come true—to found a settlement where Spaniards and Indians would live in brotherly love. They took many priests and friars with them to the mainland, where they founded Santa Marta (in today’s Colombia) and Coro (original capital of Venezuela). Bastidas died in 1527 defending his new settlement against slavers. His remains were shipped back to Santo Domingo and buried in a lavish family chapel in the Cathedral, immediately south of the main altar. Bastidas’s son of the same name is buried with his father. The son was a Dean of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo and Bishop of both Coro, Venezuela, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The son owned 26 houses in Santo Domingo and vast rural estates. The huge building on the east side of Calle de las Damas was the Bastidas residence, but mostly it was built to accommodate the family’s vast warehouses (the building is attached to the Ozama Fortress—see below). The building’s design is quite utilitarian, but has a spacious interior courtyard (2000’ meters!) lined with graceful Romanesque arches. The Neoclassic portal replaced the original in the early 18th century, when the building passed into the government’s hands after the last male of the Bastidas line became a priest. It served as a military barracks for Black and mulatto troops, military hospital, and military/police center. Today the Casa de Bastidas houses a wide variety of art exhibitions. Fortaleza del Ozama (Ozama Fortress) Construction of the main tower of the Fortress, the part called the Torre del Homenaje (Tower of Homage), began in 1505, three years after Ovando transferred the settlement to the west side of the river, which means that the tower is the oldest still-standing European stone building in the Americas. It was expanded into a fortress complex in later years. The Fortaleza del Ozama stands on cliffs 35’ high, only 500’ from where the Río Ozama meets the Caribbean Sea. Along with the Fortaleza Santo Domingo, the Fortaleza del Ozama protected the river mouth, ensuring that no enemy ships entered. Other parts were added onto the tower over the years, turning the building into a large fortress and stronghold from enemy attack. It was also where all new incoming officials had to swear homage to the Spanish Crown and its local representatives. Diego Colón, Christopher Columbus’s son and heir, not only swore homage to the crown here, he and his wife lived in the tower for a short while in 1509 before moving into the Casa del Cordón, then into their own residence. The fortress served as a jail, too, not only in colonial times, but until the turn of the 20th century. There were once residences and military barracks along the inside of the western wall. The remains of the Fortaleza Santiago, including an old sentry box and four of the brick arches, can be seen in the southeast corner of the compound; boldly facing the Caribbean, this fortress was the city’s first line of defense. The Santa Barbara Powder House to the southwest of the main fortress (not to be confused with the church/fortress at the northeastern periphery of the walled city, which is also called Santa Barbara) was built in the 18th century, as was the impressive Portal de la Fortaleza (Fortress Gate) on Calle de las Damas. The 18th-century gate replaced a gate built in 1608 known as Prevention Gate, which had two huge semicircular towers whose foundations can still be seen. The magnificent statue in the courtyard of the fortress compound is of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdéz, who was in charge of the fortress from 1533-1557 but is more famous as author of the multi-volumed General and Natural History of the Indies (which he wrote at the fort). Trujillo used the fortress complex for a while to house political dissidents. Mainly, however, the modern function of the fortress was as the Dominican Republic’s principal military compound (until the 1920s), then as the anti-riot branch of the Military Police, which is why it was forcefully taken by the U.S.-backed forces during the 1965 fracas. The whole complex was restored in the 1970s and, today, is a popular site for music concerts and cultural festivals. There has been talk of turning the main fortress building into a military museum sometime in the future. Fortín de San Fernando (Fortlet of St. Fernando) At the very foot of Calle de las Damas, just before it plunges toward Paseo Presidente Billini and the Río Ozama, are the remains of a small fortress dedicated to St. Ferdinand and a beautiful little park. The view of the river from here is breath taking. The Dominican Republic’s Port Authority has its piers and offices on the banks of the river below. Colegio Santa Clara (St. Clara School) and the 16th-century building that today houses the Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliófilos (Dominican Bibliophile Society) are among the many beautiful buildings on the west side of Calle de las Damas,. Recently restored, the latter used to be one of the many police buildings near the Fortaleza del Ozama. Casa de Francia (French House) Directly across Calle de las Damas from the Ovando Residence is one of the houses that Ovando built. He rented this one out to Hernando Cortés when he lived in Santo Domingo. In its courtyard, archaeologists excavated what may have been the city’s first gold smelting ovens. Today it houses the French Embassy and French Cultural Alliance, where residents can take French lessons, check out books from the large French library, and participate in French cultural events. Plazoletta María de Toledo (Maria de Toledo’s Plaza) Also on the west side of Calle de las Damas, just south of the National Pantheon (see next entry), is a beautifully landscaped plaza with a fountain and two sets of magnificent arches. The arches are all that remains of the Jesuits’ cloistered monastery. On Sundays there’s a pulga here—a flea market selling a variety of jewelry and antiquities, many real, many fakes. At the western end, facing Calle Isabela la Católica, is a pleasant, open-air restaurant with attached art gallery, the Plaza Toledo Gallery and Restaurant. The gazpacho here is excellent, as are all the daily lunch and dinner specials, but the coup de grace is the Chocolate Decadence dessert. The gallery features top quality paintings and artwork by Dominican, Cuban, and Haitian artists. Iglesia de los Jesuitas/Panteón Nacional (Jesuit Church/National Pantheon) The Jesuits were latecomers to Santo Domingo, arriving two centuries after the Dominican and Franciscan friars. In 1702, on the southwest corner of Calle de las Damas and Las Mercedes, across from the Governor Nicolás de Ovando residence, Jesuit friars began the construction of their church on the site of one of the original houses built by Ovando. The Renaissance Neo-Classic-style church was not completed until mid-century because the Jesuits were busy remodeling and constructing a series of buildings up the south side of Las Mercedes, all the way to Isabel la Católica Street, which they used as classrooms from 1701 on. The House of the Jesuits’ School, most commonly called The House of the Gargoyles for the fascinating gutter spouts that dominate the exterior (and which some say the Jesuits took from the Cathedral), is attached to the north side of the church at the southwest corner of Calle de Las Damas and Las Mercedes. It was built by Ovando and appears to have been the home of Hernando Caballero, brother of the highly placed Diego Caballero. The Jesuits made it the central office for the Universidad Real y Pontífica de Santiago de la Paz y Gorjón, along with the neighboring house, which once belonged to Juan de Villorio--in 1747, the Spanish Crown gave the Jesuits control of the old Colegio Santiago de la Paz, which was built in 1538 with money bequeathed by the deceased sugar planter Francisco Gorjón. In 1767, however, King Charles III kicked all Jesuits out of the New World, and the building reverted to the crown. The building then served as a tobacco warehouse, as a theater during the Independence Era, and as government offices…. In 1958 the former Jesuit church was restored by Trujillo, who had plans to turn it into a rich mausoleum where he could be worshipped in death. After Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, Dominicans didn’t even want his body on the island (he’s buried in Paris. France), but the mausoleum idea was a good one. The church and the two houses that formed the Jesuit Office were all remodeled again in the 1970s. The former church now houses the National Pantheon, where many beloved Dominican ex-presidents, writers, and heroes are entombed. The Pantheon boasts an impressive bronze chandelier that was donated to Trujillo by General Franco of Spain, a vast ceiling mural of The Apocalypse and Resurrection by Rafael Pellicer, and ironwork choir grills along the upper gallery with Latin crosses that, if you look hard, turn into swastikas—local guides swear the choir grill was a gift of Hitler and that it came from a German prison, but there are no documents to support this claim. 4) THE COLUMBUS PLAZA AND CATHEDRAL AREA Plaza de Colón (Columbus Plaza) The Plaza Mayor (Central Plaza) of Santo Domingo was the heart of the colonial city. The first cathedral in the New World was constructed on its southern side (see below) and government offices on the north. Until the new Presidential Palace was built in the 1940s, the country’s Congress and Legislative branches met in buildings here. Along the other two sides of the plaza, rich inhabitants built fabulous stone mansions. The town crier made his announcements in the Plaza Mayor for all the townspeople to hear, and after 1532 everyone came here to get their drinking water, which was piped in via a gravity-fed aqueduct from the Franciscan Monastery atop the hill to the north. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, bullfights were held here, as well as in several other locations around the walled-in city. Since 1891, the eve of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the plaza has been known as the Plaza de Colón (Columbus Plaza). Every tourist poses for a photo in front of the impressive bronze statue sculpted by the French artist E. Gilbert of Admiral Christopher Columbus in his famous pose pointing west, the direction which he claimed would be a rapid route to sail from Europe to the gold and spices of the East Indies. The monument, which was inaugurated on February 27, 1887, incorporates design elements of ships’ prows and a nearly naked female Indian, who appears to be climbing beseechingly upward toward Columbus. The plaza is a must-see tourist destination and a popular park where Dominicans and foreigners alike come for evening strolls and/or to enjoy the many concerts and special presentations held here. Outdoor restaurants and cigar and souvenir shops line the plaza, and vendors hawk postcards, merengue tapes, jewelry, and other “bargains.” Catedral de Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Incarnación (Cathedral of Our Holy Lady Mary of the Incarnation) Seat of the Archbishopric of Santo Domingo, in 1546 Pope Paul III elevated the cathedral in Santo Domingo’s Plaza Mayor above all others in the Indies. From 1504-1514, however, the “cathedral” was a hut-like structure of royal palms, a temporary structure that was replaced by another temporary structure made of wood and adobe. Plans for a magnificent stone cathedral were designed by master builder Rodrigo de Liendo. Governor Diego Colón laid the cornerstone for the Cathedral with much fanfare on May 25, 1510—but construction was delayed again and again. Furious that the work had not begun, Bishop Alejandro Geraldini laid another cornerstone on March 25, 1521, and oversaw construction of the present-day stone Gothic/Romanesque cathedral, which was begun in 1521 and built mostly with funds from the wealthy Bastidas family. The family founder, Rodrigo de Bastidas, and his son of the same name, who was a bishop of the cathedral, are both buried in the family chapel, which is just south of the main altar. The principal part of the structure was completed in 1540. Four years later María de Toledo, the widow of Christopher Columbus’s son, brought the remains of both her husband and his father to Santo Domingo from Spain for interment near the cathedral’s main altar. (In 1898, the Admiral’s remains were placed in a chestlike-urn and exhibited in an ornate monument within the Cathedral; the urn and monument were designed by Fernando Romeo. Both the urn and its monument were moved to the Columbus Lighthouse in 1992.) In 1546, Pope Paul III elevated the cathedral to the position of Catedral Metropolitana y Primada de las Indias (primada = “supreme”; the pope raised the Santo Domingo cathedral to the status of supreme over all others in the Indies). The cathedral’s southern entrance, leading to Priests’ Alley, is called Geraldini Gate. Priests’ Alley houses the priests’ residences and has beautifully landscaped courtyards with elegant sculptures; it has also been called the Alley of Niches and Pellerano Alfau Alley. Look for the cathedral’s symbol, a vase of lilies, among the design motifs of the ancient northern portal, the Gate of Pardons, which faces Columbus Plaza. The main entrance, St. Peter’s Gate, which faces west, is double arched, with a frieze of gargoyles and other mythical figures, dominated by the double-eagle crest of the Habsburg dynasty; the original statues of St. Peter and the other apostles that once graced its niches were carried away by Francis Drake in 1586. Various cloisters and office quarters were added to the cathedral over the centuries, plus eight chapels--these are the ones nearest the western entrance; most of which were added in the 18th century. The cathedral’s overall design combines gothic vaults, Spanish Renaissance facades, and Romanesque arches with baroque decorations. Despite the centuries of additions, the cathedral is cited as the one major colonial building that has remained essentially unaltered in the colonial city because Drake and his men sacked it in 1586, but did not burn it down. Instead, they purposefully desecrated the cathedral by using it as a latrine (for the men and their horses), slaughterhouse, and storehouse for the booty they collected, and as a prison--remember that Drake and his 5,000 men were Protestants and came at the peak of the religious wars in Europe.... The story of the Cathedral’s Bell Tower is especially interesting. It was designed by Liendo to be one of the tallest, most arresting structures in the city, taller than the Fortaleza de Ozama’s Tower of Homage. But in 1547, after the bell tower’s foundation was completed, an advisor to Charles V warned that the tall tower could be seized and used by enemies to shoot down into the nearby fortress. Construction was halted. The brick bell tower that was built much later on the massive foundation appears out of place, not only because it is of brick, not of coral stone like the foundation, but because of its “puny” size, relatively speaking. The Cathedral’s Stained-Glass Windows were designed by the Dominican artist José Rincón Mora from Cotui and donated by Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, Archbishop of Munich, Germany, in 1986; Rincón Mora resides in Germany. The following Map of the Cathedral’s interior,
with its multiple chapels, is from the book Santo Domingo by Carmenchu
Brusiloff and Juan Alfredo Biaggi (Dominican-American Cultural Institute,
undated). The former colonial residences on the northeast corner of the Columbus Plaza (El Conde and Isabel la Católica streets) today house the National School of Fine Arts. The rest of this quiet part of El Conde, between the Cathedral and Calle de las Damas, is filled with exquisite international restaurants and bars. Casa de Abogados (Lawyers’ House) The building on the southeast corner of the Columbus Plaza (El Conde and Isabel la Católica streets), where the Dominican Congress used to meet, has been the headquarters of the Dominican Bar Association since the 1960s. Palacio de Borgellá (Borgellá Palace) Building no. 103, attached to the Casa de Abogados on the southeast corner of the Columbus Plaza (El Conde and Isabel la Católica streets), was constructed overtop of older government buildings and residences. It is known as the Borgellá Palace for General Gerónimo Máximo Borgella, Military Governor of the Department Ozama, who lived here during the Haitian occupation (1822-44). He built the palace’s distinctive double-tiered arched portico in 1830. President Boyer of Haiti bought the house from Borgella for US$32,000…. During the Restoration, the Court of Appeals met here. Today the Borgellá Palace houses the offices of Patronato, the governmental body that controls and protects the Zona Colonial, all of which has been designated as a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO. The façade of the building was reconstructed in 1999 to repair damages caused by Hurricane Georges in September of 1998; the double-tiered portico collapsed the day after the hurricane due to weight of all the standing water on the roof. Cárcel Viejo (Old Jail) Building no. 101 on Isabel la Católica, just south of the Palacio de Borgellá, was the colonial jail. In later eras the building housed a theatre (it was infamous for the plays that promoted separatism during the Haitian occupation), a bakery, and then government offices. Residencia del Arzobispo de las Indias (Archbishop of the Indies’s Residence)—Behind the Cathedral, on the southeast corner of Isabel la Católica and a tiny little street (just one block long) called Calle de los Nichos, is the building where the Archbishop of the Indies currently resides. (Formerly the Archbishop’s residence was at the southeast corner of Hostos and Padre Billini streets, which is today the site of the Bartolomé de las Casas Park—see below.) The Castilian-style building with mudejar decorations dates to the early 16th century. In the mid-18th century it earned the name House of the Blessed Sacrament because of a bizarre story about a pet orangutan and a baby of the Garay family (the house’s residents then), who was miraculously saved from certain death at the orangutan’s hands after the mother prayed to the Blessed Sacrament. Other residents of the house included Alonzo de Fuenmayor, the first Archbishop of the Cathedral, and Governor Alexis Carró during the 19th-century Haitian occupation. In 1931, a Puerto Rican architect named Pedro de Castro joined the House of the Sacrament with the house beside it under one plateresque façade. That house had been home to four Dominican presidents: Ramón Cáceres, Eladio Victoria, Gen. José Bordas, and Juan Isidro Jiménez. The Casa de Diego Caballero (Diego Caballero’s House, is the central one on the north side of Calle do los Nichos. Diego de Caballero was one of the richest and most politically powerful of the earliest colonists; he was First Secretary of the Real Audiencia. He was already rich when he began investing in sugarcane. He owned a plantation on the Río Yuca with 70 African slaves in 1533, and another, called Capecipi (or Cepi Cepin), on the Río Ocoa, with 70 African slaves and 365 Indians in 1545. Yet another of Caballero’s plantations, this one at the mouth of the Río Nigua, is listed on a 1545 census as “one of the biggest an richest on this island,” with 310 African slaves and 50 Indians. His house in the capital used to be larger, but appears to have been absorbed by the auditorium beside it, which was built for the military. Palacio Consistorial (Town Hall Palace), also known as the Antigüo Ayuntamiento (Old City Hall) At the southwest corner of the Columbus Plaza (Arzobispo Meriño and El Conde streets) is the magnificent Palacio Consistorial, with its distinctive clock tower (El Vivaque) and arcaded walkways, which was constructed in the first decade of the 20th century over the remains of the original city hall building. Town meetings were held at the Palacio Consistorial throughout the colonial era, and the upstairs floor used to house the National Library. Part of the building was also used as a jail and police station. It is here that the keys of the city were handed over to Toussaint Louvertoure and Jean Pierre Boyer and, for many years after the Haitian Occupation of 1822-1844, the building was called “The Bivouac” because the Haitian main guard resided there. The Palacio Consistorial has undergone many changes and restorations, most recently in 1998. Today the beautiful building is vacant except when used for state receptions and other special events, which include a magnificent Christmas exhibit each year. The remodeled interior features Diego-Rivera-style murals by Vela Zanetti, a Spaniard who was exiled here during the Spanish Civil War. Padre Billini Plaza Just south of the Cathedral, on the northeast corner of Arzobispo Meriño and Arzobispo Nouel streets, is the beautiful Padre Billini Plaza, dedicated to Padre Francisco Javier Billini. The plaza is lined with expensive international stores and has a graceful statue of the man who founded so many humanitarian facilities in Santo Domingo--an insane asylum, hospitals, an orphanage (1869), and the first public school system for Dominican children (the latter he did with the help of his Puerto Rican friend Eugenio María de Hostos). Workers reconditioning the Cathedral in preparation for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas brought Padre Billini a chest that they found under the floor. The chest had a plaque indicting that it contained the remains of Admiral Christopher Columbus, which supposedly had been sent to Havana, Cuba, for safe-keeping from corsairs. Padre Billini’s research indicated that it was probably Diego Colon’s remains that were sent to Havana—he claimed that the original Columbus remains were those that his workers found in Santo Domingo. (Today three different places argue that they have the original Columbus remains: Santo Domingo, Havana, and Seville, Spain.) Before its dedication to Padre Billini, the plaza was known as San Juan de Diós Plaza.
Casa de Tostado (Tostado’s House)—This fabulous gothic mansion on the southeast corner of Padre Billini and Arzobispo Meriño streets was built circa 1520 by Francisco Tostado, one of the city’s first settlers. He had seven other stone homes around today’s Plaza de Colón, which he rented out. Tostado was a royal scribe. He and his son of the same name made their fortunes first in gold, and then by raising, milling, and selling cane sugar from the 1530s on. Their plantation in Itabo had 93 African slaves and 210 Indians in 1545, and Santa Isabela, another of their plantations, this one on the Río Nigua, had 70 Africans and 130 Indians. The son was also a professor at the New World’s second university, the Colegio Santiago de la Paz (see below) until he was killed by one of Drake’s cannon balls. Today their family home is a Museum of the 19th-Century Dominican Family. It boasts an ornate cement window in the Isabelina style on the northern wall. Plaza y Parque Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Friar Bartolomé de las Casas Plaza & Park) On the site of the former Archbishop’s residence, which was originally built in the mid-1600s and demolished in the early 1900s, off Calle Padre Billini in between Arzobispo Meriño and Hostos streets, is a little park and plaza dedicated to the Royal Protector of the Indians, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, author of many books that detail the history of the conquest and settlement of the Americas, and the mistreatment of the Indians that ensued. Las Casas was an encomendero himself until he heard about the sermon given by Antonio de Montesinos in 1511 (see below), warning Spaniards to abolish the system. Unfortunately, one of the methods Las Casas suggested to the Spanish Crown to save the Indians was to bring in more African slaves. But at the end of his long life, after numerous Atlantic crossings to promote his cause, and after a history-making debate with Sepulveda over the humanity of the Indians, he wrote a letter lamenting his suggestion to increase the use of African slaves, recognizing their humanity, too. He feared that, despite his decades of good works, he had condemned his soul to hell with that suggestion…. The modern sculpture of Las Casas is by Juan de Vaquero. Iglesia de los Domínicos (Dominican Church) Among the first of the Dominican friars to come to Santo Domingo in 1510 was Antonio de Montesinos, who was chosen by his peers in 1511 to speak out against the encomienda system and whose magnificent statue greets incoming ships where the Río Ozama empties into the Caribbean Sea. In 1515 (some records say 1524), work began on the Dominican Order’s church and monastery (original name was El Convento de la Orden de Predicadores en Américas, “Convent of the Order of American Preachers”), located on Calle Padre Billini between Duarte and Hostos streets, where they also had a university. It was called the University of Santo Tomás de Aquino. Founded in 1538, it was the first university in the Americas and offered courses in theology, philosophy, law and medicine. Unfortunately, the original university building no longer exists. It was also called the University of Santo Domingo and today continues to turn out quality students as the Universidad Autónomo de Santo Domingo, the country’s only public university. The main work on the Dominican Church was completed between 1531 and 1532, but the wooden shingles of the nave’s roof were not replaced with a stone vault until 1746, at which time the Baroque ornamental elements were added to the main entrance. It was most likely a temporary church on this site where Montesinos gave his famous 1510 sermon protesting maltreatment of the island’s Taíno Indians, a sermon that caused the encomendero Bartolomé de las Casas to give up his Indians. In 1515 the former encomendero came to the new church, where he took his holy vows to become a Dominican friar and lived in one of its austere cells. The Dominican Church has some of the most magnificent altars of all the city’s many magnificent churches, including the main altar, which was a gift from Charles V. It also boasts the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, built in 1775, which is the only “cosmological” chapel in the Americas (and one of only four in the world); the chapel’s ceiling is an ornately adorned “star map.” The Gothic and Renaissance-style Dominican Church, with its delicate stone decorations of roses and vines, is one of the few buildings that Drake did not burn in 1586, but two friars were executed in front of the church by his orders. At the western end of the Dominican Church Complex is the Chapel of the Third Order, built in 1759, with its Baroque appliqué. Eugenio María Hostos, who founded the first public school system in the Dominican Republic, was entombed in its back garden until his remains were moved to the Pantheón Nacional. Parque Duarte (Duarte Park) Across Calle Padre Billini from the Dominican Church, this is where the two friars were executed by Drake’s orders in 1586. Legend also has it that it was where this peaceful park now stands, with its statue of Duarte by the Italian sculpture Tomannime, that the Cacica Anacaona was hanged in 1503. Bullfights were held here in the mid-1600s, spilling yet more blood. In the early 20th century, the Puerto Rican Eugenio María Hostos founded the country’s first school for teachers, La Escuela Nacional, in the Dominican Convent attached to the church. Casa del Tapao (House of the Hooded One) On the northeast corner of Calle Padre Billini and 19th of March Street there is a house that belonged to a very mysterious occupant—the Hooded Man or Covered Man. He always went about hooded, anonymous, when he went out all, that is. The rich hermit was rumored to be a twin to the King of Spain, hiding to save his life, or a gentleman hiding from the law. Iglesia y Convento Regina Angelorum (Queen of Angels Church & Convent) One block west of the Dominican Church, on Padre Billini between Duarte and 19 de Marzo, is the church and convent that were built for the city’s Dominican nuns. Construction began circa 1567 and was finished sometime before 1650. (Until 1560, the only nuns on the island were the Franciscan nuns at Santa Clara.) The existing structure replaced the original, dating from 1714-1722. It is an elegant convent, which housed the rich unmarried daughters (and their personal maids) of the city’s most illustrious residents, who were hard pressed to find suitable husbands. Two of the first European-style poetesses of the New World lived and wrote here, Sr. Leonor de Ovando and Sr. Elvira de Mendoza, and Padre Billini, who accomplished so much for lower class Dominicans (but who is more often known as the discoverer of the remains of Christopher Columbus), is entombed here. During the Haitian Occupation from 1822 to 1844, the lovely little church and convent was a military barracks, and later was turned into a theatre. Today it is once again a church. Convento y Iglesia de Santa Clara (St. Clara Convent & Church) Female “Claristas,” nuns belonging to the Order of St. Francis, came to Santo Domingo in 1555. This church and the convent on Padre Billini and Isabel La Católica streets that housed them was a school for rich Spanish girls and the first convent in the New World. The convent’s orchard was expansive, running all the way south to the Caribbean Sea. Drake razed the buildings, which were restored in 1648 with a generous donation by the city’s richest and most powerful inhabitant, don Rodrigo Pimentel. The Franciscan nuns of Santa Clara abandoned the island in 1796, moving to Havana, Cuba. While they were here, however, the convent, with its plethora of wealthy young Spanish virgins, was a convenient “hunting grounds” for the amorous pursuits of men such as Francisco Manso de Contreras, the real-life model for Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan. Since the 1800s, the church and convent have belonged to the Order of Cardinal Sancha. Colegio del Gorjón (Gorjón College) In 1532 and again in 1540, the bachelor Hernando Gorjón signed promises that he would will his entire estate to the crown for the founding of a college and hospital in Santo Domingo. For this he received a multitude of royal favors, including interest-free loans and permits to bring in African slaves duty-free, as well as all the duty-free supplies and equipment he wanted for his sugar-cane plantation. Indeed, all his assets went to the crown, but it turns out that he had been selling off slaves illegally and over-valuing his inventories for years. There was barely enough money for a college after his death on January 25, 1547, when his estate, called Santiago de la Paz, in Azua, was auctioned off for 23,200 pesos. The offical name of the university was Colegio de la Paz y Gorjón. Situated on the southwest corner of Arzobispo Aportes and Meriño, it was the second university in the New World (the first was San Tomás de Aquino, founded in 1538 at the nearby Dominican Church). The university was moved to buildings constructed by the Jesuits, who took over its management in 1748/49 until they were evicted from all of Spanish America at the end of the century. Today the original site of the Colegio Santiago de la Paz (popularly called Colegio Gorjón) is the Spanish Cultural Center, which houses a wonderful library that is open to the public, sponsors many art exhibits, concerts, and conferences, and offers weekly Spanish movies. Estatua de Antonio Montesinos (Statue of Antonio Montesinos) Just before Christmas, on Advent Sunday of 1511, the Dominican friars on the island elected their best speaker, Antonio de Montesinos, to give a sermon speaking out against the system of “encomienda” whereby groups of Taínos labored for individual Spaniards, supposedly in exchange for teaching the Indians the basics of Christianity and how to live in a “civilized” way. “I am the voice crying out in the desert,” shouted Montesinos during his sermon, asking the attendant Spaniards to consider the fate of the Taíno Indians: “Are these not human beings?” he asked, preaching abolition of the abusive system that he and the other Dominican friars believed was killing off the Indians in massive numbers. There was such a furor over his sermon that Governor don Diego Colón and the other powerful men of the colony demanded that Montesinos return to the pulpit the following Sunday to retract what he’d said. He returned to the pulpit all right, but only to unleash yet another broadside against the encomienda system and the Spanish encomenderos! Bartolomé de las Casas was one of the encomenderos who heeded the message (although it appears that he was not physically present to hear either of the sermons) . He gave up his Indians, took holy orders himself, and became the most vociferous of the encomienda’s opponents. The statue of Montesinos that towers high above the Ozama River, where it opens into the Caribbean Sea, was a gift from the Mexican government. It welcomes visitors to Santo Domingo’s harbor much in the way that the Statue of Liberty welcomes visitors to New York. The site where the statue stands today is the site of the former Santo Domingo Lighthouse and the point of land on which it was constructed is known as the Baluarte de San José (St. Joseph Bastion). Plaza de la Amistad Domínica-Americana (Plaza of Dominican-American Friendship) In front of the statue of Montesinos, in between José Gabriel García and Paseo Padre Billini (the same avenue that is also known as the Malecón and Avenida del Puerto), is a beautiful park on the hill overlooking the Ozama River where it meets the Caribbean. The park’s central monument was donated in 1944 by the American community of Santo Domingo to commemorate the Dominican Republic’s 100th anniversary, hence the plaza’s name. Today, the plaza is enjoyed by all the local residents, especially basketball players, who have a court on the eastern end, at the site of the entrance of the Cueva de las Golondrinas (Cave of the Swallows). This cave was once the “escape hatch” for the city’s elite, the place where the underground tunnels that abound throughout the city converge. Beside the Plaza of Dominican-American Friendship are the remains of Fort San José, which helped guard the city’s walls.
Las Ruinas del Hospital San Nicolás de Bari (Ruins of the Hospital de San Nicolás de Bari—The first European hospital in the New World, the Hospital San Nicolás de Bari was constructed on the south side of Calle Hostos between Las Mercedes and Gregorio Luperón streets from 1533-1556, though there was a smaller wooden hospital with six beds on the site shortly after Ovando relocated the city from the east bank to the west bank of the Río Ozama in 1502, and a second hospital of stone that replaced it circa 1512-1519. The hospital had room for 50-60 patients at a time. San Nicolás de Bari was still serving as a hospital until the beginning of the 20th century, when it was declared structurally unsafe. Most of the walls were torn down between 1912 and 1921 to make room for the construction of the Iglesia Nuestra Señora de Altagracia. The elegant little chapel called La Concepción that graced the hospital’s church since the 1540s, was saved, however, and has been incorporated into the stone walls of the new church (see below). Today the ruins of the hospital are popular as a site for wedding photos, receptions, conference dinner parties, and the like, and for filming ads and period films. There are no current plans to refurbish the Hospital of St. Nicolás de Bari. Instead, the beautiful ruins have been stabilized and are maintained by the city’s team of professional engineers and architects so that they do not deteriorate any further. Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Altagracia (Our Lady of High Grace Church) Although her real home is the Basilica in Higüey, the Virgin of Altagracia, the patroness of the Dominican Republic, also has a home here in the capital on the southeast corner of Calle las Mercedes and Calle Hostos. Inaugurated in 1922, the building was sponsored by the Vicini family. Protected within the walls at the northeastern corner of the modern-era church is the 1540’s Mudejar-Gothic-style red-brick Capilla de la Concepción (Conception Chapel), part of the original church that serviced the Hospitl San Nicolás de Bari. When the Virgin of High Grace is carried in procession on her feast day (January 21), she rides on a magnificent plateresque throne that was donated by Trujillo, as was the church’s organ; unfortunately, the organ no longer functions. Across Hostos street is the city’s former Police Palace, which Trujillo donated in 1956 to serve as the offices and residence for the church’s priests. Ruinas del Monasterio de San Francisco de Asís (Ruins of the St. Francis of Assisi Monastery) The Dominicans and the Franciscans were the two principal orders of friars in early Santo Domingo. The Franciscans sided with the wealthy Spanish encomenderos against the Dominicans in their fight to abolish the encomienda system. They built a magnificent church, monastery—the first monastery in the New World--and cloistered gardens complex on top of a ridge at the highest point of the entire Zona Colonial, between Duarte and Hostos streets, at the top of Emiliano Tejeda Street. The main part of the complex was completed from 1544-1556 with Indian and African slave labor, under the direction of the master builder Rodrigo de Liendo. Construction was not rushed--the vaulted roof was not installed until 1650, and the official inauguration took place on October 3, 1664. Actually, there were a series of three churches on the site. The ruins we see today were restored in the second half of the 18th century and mostly belong to the third structure, which replaced the “old church” of stone and wood that was built circa 1508-1511, which itself replaced the original thatched-roof, wooden church built in 1502. The distinctive plateresque-style double door on the northeasternmost part of the building, with its Franciscan cord and shield of the Franciscan Order carved into the stone overhead, dates back to the first half of the 16th century. The remains of the water wheel and reservoir that fed the city’s first aqueduct are here (it was a gravity-fed system that guided water down to the Plaza Mayor in front of the Cathedral). Both Bartolomé Colón, Christopher Columbus’s oldest brother, who is considered to be the original founder of Santo Domingo, and the conquistador Alonso de Ojeda were buried at the San Franciscan complex. Ojeda requested burial “where parishioners would walk over his body,” though there is debate over just where on the grounds he was interred. The famous Cacique Enriquillo, who led a successful rebellion against the Spaniards from 1519 until 1534, was educated here as a boy. The Franciscans were ordered to leave in 1795, at which time the buildings began to decline. During the Haitian Occupation, from 1822-1844, the complex served as a “quarry” for stone building blocks. From 1885 until the 1930s, the monastery served as an insane asylum founded by Padre Billini, and it also served to house artists who fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Its grounds served as a cemetery. Today the ruins provide a dramatic backdrop for concerts, wedding receptions, and elegant dinner parties. In July of 2002, the media announced that Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional, the Spanish foundation that has helped so much to refurbish the Zona Colonial, would donate RD$7 million to turn the ruins of the San Franciscan Monastery complex into an air-conditioned auditorium and Dominican cultural center with exhibition halls, without compromising “the architectural splendor” of the historical monument. Only time will tell. Casa de Italia (House of Italy) This house on the southwest corner of Hostos and Salomé Ureña streets was the first official home of Pedro Santana, the Dominican Republic’s first president. Today it is the Casa de Italia, where one can take Italian language lessons and enjoy events that celebrate Italian culture in Santo Domingo. Edificio San Pedro (St. Peter’s Building) On the northern side of Calle Mercedes, just west of Hostos street is the early 16th-century Edificio San Pedro, which was the home of several of the Dominican Republic’s presidents, including Alejandro Wos y Gil, Cesáreo Emiliano, and Ulises Heureaux, better known as “Lilís.” During the Haitian Occupation, French administrators lived here, adding fanciful decorative touches. And the Cuban hero José Martí was a guest here when he came to visit with Máximo Gómez. Today the building, with its fabulous garden and upper-level terrace, houses a popular tourist restaurant and bar, and a variety of business offices. María Trinidad Sánchez Park Just west of the Edificio San Pedro on Calle Las Mercedes, where it joins with Calle 19 de Marza, there is a beautiful little triangular park dedicated to the woman who made the first Dominican flag, the flag that was raised over the Independence Gate (Gate of the Count) at dawn, the morning of February 27, 1822. House of General Ulises Heureaux The infamous president/dictator known as “Lilís” lived in the house at no. 204 Calle Las Mercedes. Today it houses the Dominican Society of Historians. He also owned the corner houses on Las Mercedes, where the street is joined by Calle Luperón and Calle Duarte, Museo de Duarte (Duarte Museum) On the western side of Isabel la Católica Street, between Restauración and Vicente Duarte Streets, is house no. 308, the modest family home of the principal Founding Father of the Dominican Republic, Juan Pablo Duarte, who was born January 26, 1813. The house was the site of many clandestine meetings to foster rebellion against the Haitian government. It was probably here that María Trinidad Sánchez sewed the first Dominican flag that was raised at dawn on the morning of February 27, 1844. Today the home is a museum housing photographs, documents, and other personal possessions of Duarte and his family. Iglesia/Fortaleza de Santa Bárbara (Church/Fortress of Santa Barbara) Located between Arzobispo Meriño and Isabel la Católica Streets in the northeastern most corner of the Colonial Zone, high on a hill in one of the strategically weakest parts of the ancient city, defense-wise, is the city’s only combination church and fortress, an impressive Gothic and Baroque structure that reflects the architectural changes that have been made over time. Santa Bárbara is the parish where the stonecutters and masons lived, alongside the quarry where the stones were cut to build the Cathedral, Fortaleza del Ozama, Capilla de los Remedios, Convento Domínico, Casa de Colón and other elite houses of the colonial era. The current Church of Santa Barbara was built on top of the quarry site circa 1571, replacing a nearby structure built of royal palm. The foremost founder of the Dominican Republic, Juan Pablo Duarte, was baptized in the Church of Santa Barbara in 1813, which still has the same baptismal font. In the late 17th century, high on the ridge behind the church, a “fortlet” was built with five huge canons. It’s worth the climb up to it, for there is a dramatic view of the riverfront area and the city’s ancient rooftops from the fort. If you look west along the ancient walls here that follow Avenida Mella, you can see the nearby Fortín San Antón (Fortlet of St. Anton). The small plaza in front of it is the Plaza de los Artesanos (Artisans’ Plaza). This part of the city wall was the very last to be constructed, hence is in good condition. It was double walled, with a protected pathway for soldiers and cannon to move from one location to another, as needed. Casa de Medaliones (House of the Medallions) This colonial house from the 1540s on the west side of Arzobispo Meriño, no. 358, just north of Calle Las Mercedes, has a distinctive facade featuring double stairs and five large sculpted medallions. It was constructed just across from the original site of the Casa de la Moneda (House of Coins), where silver coins were minted under orders of Charles V beginning January 1, 1542. The original colonial building is believed to be underneath the parking lot that is across the street from the Casa de Medaliones.
Home of Ulises F. Espaillat The house at no. 54 General Luperón Street was once the home of President Ulises F. Espaillat. General Alejandro Wos y Gil, who was president of the Dominican Republic twice, both lived here and died here. The house was converted into the offices of a French cable company, the company that was the first to connect the Dominican Republic with Europe. Just down the street, at no. 101 (on the corner of Calle Hostos and Luperón), is a house that was once home to General Gregorio Luperón. Fuerte de La Concepción (Fortress of the Conception) This fort at the corner of Palo Hincado Street and Avenida Mella was originally built in 1543 and was restored in the 1970s. It defended the northwesternmost corner of the colonial walled city from any attempted enemy attacks by land. The fortress also acted to protect the nearby Puerta del Conde, one of the principal city gates. Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes (Our Lady of Mercy Church and Convent) The order of Mercedarian friars was officially established in Santo Domingo in 1527. They commissioned Rodrigo de Liendo, the master builder of the Cathedral and Franciscan Church, to build their church on Calle Las Mercedes, between Sánchez and José Reyes streets, which was completed 1549-1555. The bell tower is one of the most beautiful of the church’s once many architectural splendors—it has 10 arches, nine of which are Romanesque and one Mudejar. In 1635 the church’s roof crashed down, necessitating the addition of thick walls to strengthen the slender Gothic lines of the original design, but it is still a beautiful church—be sure to go inside if the doors are open and take a look at its elegant baroque altar. Bullfights were held in front of this church throughout the mid-17th century. Note that, until the turn of the 20th century, the Our Lady of Mercy Church was at the northwestern edge of the residential area of Santo Domingo—only gardens, orchards, and the lepers’ area lay beyond it. Just behind the church, on José Reyes Street, is the Our Lady of Mercy Convent. Its most famous resident was the Spanish friar Gabriel Tellez, whose pen name was Tirso de Molina. He lived here from 1616 to 1618 and later wrote the erotic novel, Don Juan Tenorio, which was modeled after one of the judges of Santo Domingo’s Royal Audiencia, Francisco Manso de Contreras. Iglesia San Lázaro (San Lazaro Church) Beyond the residential area of the walled city, up “St. Lazarus Hill,” as this part of Santomé Street just north of Las Mercedes Street is called, was the San Lázaro Hospital, a refuge for lepers, and the church that serviced it. The building dates from sometime before 1575 and was rebuilt because of earthquake damage in 1751. Today it is a Catholic refuge for the country’s youth and headquarters of the Movimiento de Orientación para los Jóvenes (Movement for Youth Orientation).
Fuerte San Gil (Fort St. Gil) At the southwesternmost corner of the Zona Colonial, on the cliffs above the point where the Ozama River empties into the Caribbean Sea (where Palo Hincado Street meets the Malecón), is a recently reconstructed 16th-century fort. Fort St. Gil was built to defend both the river entrance and the Gate of Mercy (see below), which is one block north on Palo Hincado Street. For centuries, students gathered along the coast near the fort to enjoy the ocean breezes while they studied. Today it is still a popular gathering spot for Dominicans and visitors of all ages. It is especially lively at night, when food vendors vie to see who can play merengue the loudest. Puerta de Misericordia (Gate of Mercy) Where Palo Hincado Street meets Arzobispo Portes Street is another of the colonial city’s famous gates, The Puerta de Misericordia, which was also called Puerta Grande (Big Gate) or La Savana (The Plains). Throughout the colonial years, miners heading for the gold mines of the Haina River area would have left through this gate, which was protected by the nearby Fort St. Gil. Obviously the fort didn’t provide enough protection, for it is through this gate that Drake and his men entered in 1586. It is also here that Matías Ramón Mella, one of the country’s three founding fathers, fired the blunderbuss shot on February 27, 1844, that began the Dominican Republic’s successful revolution for independence from Haiti. The area in between the Puerta de Misericordia and Fort San Gil was called the Plaza del Matadero (Slaughterhouse Plaza) because cattle were butchered there. Hospital y Capilla de San Andrés (St. Andrews Hospital & Chapel) Although founded circa 1524, construction of the St. Andrews Hospital on the southeastern corner of Arzobispo Nouel and Santomé streets appears to have begun around 1562; the chapel was added 150 later, around 1710. The hospital was supposed “to shelter the Indians of those isles,” but existing reports say that it had no patients. The buildings were burned by Drake in 1586, but later rebuilt. The buildings served as a correctional institution for prostitutes, as a priests’ prison, a rest home for priests, and as a public prison. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a popular San Andres Plaza just to the east of the church where outdoor pageants and plays were presented. Today, the chapel is associated with Padre Billini Hospital on Arzobispo Nouel and Santomé streets. Be sure to enter one morning when it’s open to the public to see its beautiful baroque altarpiece that was carved out of one solid piece of mahogany—there is a Christ figure in the sculpture that is reputed to have healing powers--and the statue of the Christ of San Andrés. Iglesia Nuestra Señora del Carmen (Our Lady of Carmen Church) Circa 1615, on the southwest corner of Arzobispo Nouel and Sánchez streets, a group called the Brotherhood of Remedies built a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Carmen. The chapel, built on land donated by the San Andrés Hospital, was enlarged in 1729, at which time the entire façade was refurbished. The early part of the chapel is made of stone; the later addition is of brick. The small plaza in front of the church is the Plazoleta de la Trinitaria (Little Trinity Plaza), where Dominican patriots met to plan the republic’s independence. In fact, it was in the house across the street, at Noeul 455, that the idea for the secret society of Trinitaria was conceived. The chapel was restored in 1880 and again in the 1970s. The chapel’s image of Christ carrying the cross goes on procession each year during Holy Week. Museo Porcelano (Porcelain Museum) On the west side of José Reyes street, just one house north of Arzobispo Nouel, is a fabulous mansion that was built by the Vicini family, owners of many modern-era sugar mills and plantations on the island. The mansion, which has a huge interior fountain and a quantity of elegant columns, was modeled after the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. Today it houses a Porcelain Museum with precious pieces from all over the world.
Puerta del Conde (Count’s Gate) Located on Palo Hincado where it meets El Conde Street, the Puerta del Conde is the main entrance into the ancient walled city today. The Puerta del Conde dates from the 17th century, not the 16th like the rest of the existing city gates, although there was a gate here earlier. The Dominican flag was raised here for the first time at dawn on February 27, 1844, and the Dominican Republic’s constitution was signed here later that same afternoon, under the gate’s archway. The overhead inscription reads: “It is sweet and decorous to die for your country.” Formally uniformed military guards stand at attention beneath the archway. Both the Puerta del Conde and the street El Conde (see below) were named for Count Peñalba, one of the country’s governors, who saved Santo Domingo from the English in May of 1655. The English squadron, which consisted of 56 ships and 8,000 men, was commanded by Robert Venables and General William Penn; the latter founded the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. The Dominican Republics three founding fathers—Duarte, Sáchez, and Mella—were buried under the gate until 1976, when the new mausoleum was completed to house their remains. Calle del Conde (Conde Street) El Conde is the principal east/west artery of the walled city. It leads from the Puerta del Conde in Independence Park all the way through the Colonial Zone, past the Cathedral to the Victoria Stairs at Calle de las Damas, down to the Río Ozama and Port Don Diego. Be sure to stop and have a Dominican expresso at El Cafetál, a little coffee shop famous because it was a hangout for all the poets, writers, painters, and other dissidents who left Spain during the Civil War there and World War II—it and the other restaurants, bars, and coffee shops along El Conde are still popular hangouts for artists and intellectuals, and for heated discussions of local politics and world affairs. El Conde was closed off to automobile traffic in 1987 and quickly became a popular shopping-meeting-eating-drinking place for everybody, including Dominicans and international residents and visitors. Street vendors line El Conde, the tables and chairs of small bars and restaurants spill out onto it, and there are frequent bazaars and both formal and impromptu presentations of all sorts, from music to evangelizing. It’s a great place for a stroll at any time of day or night. In fact, it is such a popular place for strolling that locals have coined a new Spanish verb, condear, which means to stroll El Conde. Parque Independencia (Independence Park) and Fortaleza de la Concepción (La Conception Fort) Pass through the Puerta del Conde and enter the beautifully landscaped Independence Park, the most important park in the entire country. It is laid out in the shape of a Latin cross, with a compass rose embedded in the walkway just past the Puerta del Conde that marks “kilometer 0,” from which all maps of the country measure their distance—appropriate because 11 streets begin here at the park. The small sentry boxes and portal to t |