With one day to go before my flight home from Punts Cana, it was time to start the journey back from the lovely northwest coast. And “time” in this case means the five hours it took to get from Puerto Plata to my hotel in Santo Domingo, bus and taxi. The scenery is fantastic, but it’s no wonder there were no other British holidaymakers up there, given they’d stopped direct UK flights to Puerto Plata last year.
Still, getting back to Santo Domingo was worth it. I’m in a fine historic hotel for the last night of my trip. Though I did have my doubts about staying here.
It’s nothing to do with the location on the river, or the pretty courtyards
Or the super-friendly bar staff.
No. It’s about who it commemorates…
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When Santo Domingo was settled by the Spanish, it was originally built on the east bank of the River Ozama. That’s the far bank in the photos. In the centre of the second you can see the little Capilla del Rosario, built in 1544.
By then the settlement had moved to the west bank. The Spanish governor after Columbus, one Francisco de Bobadilla, proved unpopular with the royals and in 1502 they sent a replacement over to sort things out.
His name was Nicolás de Ovando.
It was Ovando who moved Santo Domingo over the river and then set about creating much of the town we now know as the Zona Colonial. His was a major contribution to the future of the colony, but Ovando also set about the native Tainos. To quell rebellions he repressed them mercilessly and wasn’t shy of the odd massacre.
Remember Anacoana, the Taino queen we saw on Columbus’s statue? Here she is again.
She may look rather fetching there, on Columbus’ plinth. But it appears that Ovando was no admirer. In circumstances that are not entirely clear, he suspected her of being involved in rebellion and ended up capturing her in what looks like another slaughter of Tainos. Poor Anacoana ended up on the hangman’s gibbet.
Not a pleasant piece of work, our Nick. Oh, I forgot about him forcing the Tainos to work in the sugar cane fields he introduced from the Canaries. And, of course, that jolly wheeze of dragging in Africans to do the work as well.
In the end, even 16th century Spain were perturbed by these excesses and Ovando went back over to defend himself. He was replaced as governor and received the gruesome punishment of, err..being able to keep all his New World properties. That’s him told.
All in all, it feels uncomfortable celebrating such a man by linking him to a prestigious and stylish hotel, while evoking that era by lauding “colonial elegance” and “colonial romance” on the website. If it wasn’t for men like Columbus or Ovando, there may not be anything to see here at all. But how would we feel if the great house on the Wannsee near Berlin, where the Jewish Holocaust was agreed and planned, was to be turned into the Hotel Heinrich Himmler? Would you stay there? Are we comparing like with like?
Well the die is cast, and here I am. The past is the past, and it can only be recognised for what it really was, so we understand its resonances in the present and ensure that the future is different. Something like that. I have a more pressing problem…
Given what I’ve just written about Ovando, and how ruthless he was when alive –
– how do I feel about spending the night in his old house?
orwellianTwo 