Hispaniola

Hispaniola also known as State of Hispaniola (Spanish: Estado de Hispaniola, French: État d'Hispaniola, Haitian Creole: Eta an Ispanyola Dominican Creole: ) is a US state located in the Caribbean, occupying 1/3 of the island of Hispaniola and the the Magdalena Archipelago in the the Greater Antilles island chain. It shares no land borders, but shares maritime borders with Puerto Rico to the east, the nations of Jamaica and Mineralta and the State Cuba to the west, and the state of the Bahamas to the north. Hispaniola is one of only six US states where Spanish is an official second language (the others being Pantanosa, Marchena, Panama, Cuba, and Puerto Rico) and one of four US states where a creole is an official second language (the others being , and Benirdoba.

Dominica was admitted to the Union as the ??th state on February 9, 1903, and it holds a special place in the history of the Americas as the landing site for Christopher Columbus during his historic trip in 1492, as well as the first permanent European settlement in the New World (with the current state capital and largest city of Santo Domingo being established in 1496). It was ruled by the Spanish for centuries until it gained independence for the first time in late 1821, after which it was subjected to a cruel Haitian occupation from 1822 until 1844. Disaregemnets ended up spitting ito two - the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Quisqueya.

In the early 1860s, when then-President Pedro Santana returned the Republic of Dominica's status to that of a Spanish colony, Spain was able to re-establish control over the embryonic republic for a brief period (it remains the only sovereign nation, current or former, to do so). Spain abandoned the island in 1865 after just four years of administration, two of which were spent battling a resistance movement.

In 1869, Buenaventura Báez, the republic's 13th (and final) president, requested that his highly indebted nation be annexed by the United States, which would assist pay off the debt and create a naval base in Samana Bay. Ulysses S. Grant, the president of the United States, accepted Báez's offer and wrote a treaty for the annexation of Santo Domingo, which included a clause guaranteeing future statehood. Grant believed that the new territory might be utilized to resettle liberated Afo-American slaves. The pact was narrowly confirmed by the US Senate in June 1870, and the United States gained formal control of the new Dominican Territory in July, despite mixed public reaction. During the thirty-three years leading up to statehood in 1903, the United States invested millions of dollars in improving the impoverished region's infrastructure and overall standard of living. Since then, the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet has used the Samana Bay Naval Base as a regional base (along with Guantanamo in Cuba). The state would develop a mixed-race creole culture, especially after the annexation Haiti in 1916

The state's economy is now exceedingly diverse, with tourism, manufacturing, and agriculture accounting for a large amount of the state's annual revenue. The tourism industry is by far the most important, with endless millions of people visiting Hispaniola's white sand beaches and national parks each year. The state's largest city, Grantsville, is named in honor of President Grant for his efforts in getting Hispaniola annexed into the United States. Baseball is the dominant sport among Hispaniolans, earning Santo Domingo its state nickname "The Baseball State".