Christopher Columbus
Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating colonization and for abuse of natives. Among reasons for this criticism is the poor treatment of the native Taíno people of Hispaniola, whose population declined rapidly after contact with the Spanish. Columbus required the natives to pay tribute in gold and cotton. Modern estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola are around 250,000–300,000. According to the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, and 42 years after he died, fewer than 500 Taíno were living on the island. The indigenous population declined rapidly, due primarily to the first pandemic of European endemic diseases, which struck Hispaniola after 1519. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also documentation that they were overworked.
Dominican Republic–Spain relations
The first Europeans to arrive to what is now present day Dominican Republic was in December 1492 when explorer Christopher Columbus arrived to the island of Hispaniola. In 1493, Columbus built one of the first European settlements in the Americas and called it "La Isabela", named after Spanish Queen Isabella I of Castile. Soon after Columbus's arrival to Hispaniola, most of the native Taíno people of the island were wiped out by either diseases brought over from Europe or from direct slaughter by the Spanish. In 1493, the island of Hispaniola was governed under the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo and in 1521, it came under the greater Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City.