A plethora of cultures have left their stamp on Dominican society. Traditional Taíno foods and medicines are familiar today, and Taíno words - like hammock and tobacco - still pepper the language. Spanish settlers gave the country their language, the Roman Catholic faith and a deep strain of machismo. Africans brought here as slaves brought their own faith, inextricably bound in the dominant European offering, as well as art and music. Even US troops left their mark - Dominicans love baseball. It is a heady mixture.

Music and dance is at the heart of Dominican culture. The most popular form is merengue, which will be blasted, full volume, almost anywhere you go in the country. A tad more pastoral is bachata, Dominican country music, with plenty of songs about heartbreak and loss. Salsa probably makes the third favorite musical type in the DR's holy trinity, though you'll find plenty of jazz, rock, hip-hop and just about anything else that'll keep your feet moving.

The Dominican art scene is also quite healthy, thanks in no small part to dictator Rafael Trujillo. Creative freedom was not a hallmark of his reign, but the man did have a soft spot for painting. He founded the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (National School of Fine Arts) in 1942, basically instituting the country's fine painting tradition. 'Primitive' art, which relies less on perspective and shading and more on color and action, is also popular; keep your eyes open for it. And to check out what's happening in edgier scenes, drop by the Museo de Arto Moderno in Santo Domingo.

Architecture is another important part of Dominican culture, from the well-preserved colonial Spanish buildings of Santo Domingo, the Americas' first European city, to the brightly colored farmhouses of the countryside. Color and style are ignored by no one in the DR, which makes for some very interesting sightseeing. The earliest known inhabitants of the Dominican Republic reached the island around 2600 BC, using dugout canoes that allowed them to ride the current from South America throughout the Antilles. They were primarily nomadic hunter-gatherers who used stone tools and left little behind for archaeologists to examine. A second group, often referred to as the Salanoids or ancient Arawaks, landed on Hispaniola around 250 BC. The group, easily traced because of their distinctive ceramics, spread throughout the Caribbean.

A third migration, from Venezuela, swept through the Antilles about 2000 years ago, and by AD 700 occupied the Dominican Republic and most of the surrounding islands. This society's complex hierarchical structure allowed for specialization in fishing, worship, art and farming. They called themselves the Taíno (friendly people), and an estimated 400,000 of them lived on Hispanola when Christopher Columbus got off the ship to greet them. Folks on another island had told Columbus that there was gold to be found there, and the anxious Italian set off in the night to find it, accidentally dashing the Santa María offshore.

Columbus named the island Hispaniola ('Little Spain') and returned with a thousand colonists the following year ready to make it the centerpiece of Spain's new empire. Naturally it was the Taíno who were set to work to build this vision, and within six years of Columbus' arrival they had been thoroughly decimated by cruel working conditions and European diseases. Though some independent communities survived in hard-to-reach areas of the island, much of the original culture was lost.

The original Spanish settlement near Isabela was abandoned after just a few years and settlers shifted to the present site of Santo Domingo, where Columbus' son, Diego, tried to flesh out his father's blueprint. Hispaniola, however, ran out of gold rather quickly, and Santo Domingo soon lost prominence when gold and silver were discovered in Mexico and Peru. Pirates ransacked Spanish settlements, particularly in what's now Haiti, and Spain finally gave up on the western third of the island and ceded it to France in 1697 - a decision it no doubt came to rue as the French turned what became known as Haiti into the world's richest sugar cane producer.

The slave rebellion in Haiti was initially supported by the Spaniards, but their politicking backfired when revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture invaded the eastern part of Hispaniola, took Santo Domingo and freed the island's 40,000 slaves. This prompted much of the Spanish elite to relocate to neighboring islands like Puerto Rico and Cuba.

Toussaint was eventually driven back to the formerly French territories, and Haiti declared independence in 1804. Then, they invaded the eastern half of the island again in 1821. This time they stayed for 23 years, looting the country, freeing the slaves (again) and bringing economic activity to a standstill. A nascent Dominican nationalist movement formed during the occupation and beat the Haitians back to the eastern side of the island in 1844. The leader of this important revolution was Spanish dandy and all-around ass-kicker Juan Pablo Duarte, now hailed as the father of the Dominican Republic.

Various military men and families with money fought for control of the fledgling government, one General Santana actually allowing the republic's annexation by Spain just to stay in power. The poorly armed Dominican population fought Spanish troops so well that on March 3, 1865, the queen of Spain annulled all claims to the island. The DR has been fully independent ever since.

Much damage had been done to urban infrastructure and the agrarian economy in the course of the war, however, and things weren't looking good. More military men and moneyed families crawled out of the woodwork, playing tug-of-war for the next 35 years with what was left. There was some progress, particularly under liberals General Luperón and Father Arturo (1879-1882), and Ramón Cáceras (1905-1911), but overall things were a bit of a mess.

The neighboring United States saw trouble in the Caribbean as opportunity for expansion, and in 1916, US troops moved in. Like the Spanish, who lost interest when the gold ran out, however, the USA became bored with the island when it became clear that the Germans probably weren't going to attack the Panama Canal after all, making the DR a bit less strategically important. In 1924, they stepped back, and President Horacio Vásquez stepped up.

The new president built roads and schools, initiated irrigation programs and got the economy hopping. Just when things were going really well, army chief Rafael Leonidas Trujillo got jealous of all that power he didn't have (he had been siphoning money off the military budget for years, but sometimes wealth just isn't enough) and forced Vásquez to resign. From 1930-1947 (and indirectly until 1961), Trujillo dispensed with the formalities of democracy and got down to business. Repression, murder and torture went side by side with building, land reform and economic success during the Trujillo administration. Authoritarianism is efficient, at least.

The resumption of free elections pitted the usual suspects against one another: Reform-minded liberals, military men and wealthy families all fought for the brass ring. The Dominican Republic continued to diversify its economy, build schools and slowly move forward almost in spite of its leadership (not to mention the increasingly regular rolling blackouts caused by increasing infrastructure and inadequate power plants). Current President Leonel Fernandez Reyna, a lawyer who grew up in New York City, has his work cut out for him. Perhaps he'll rise to the occasion and finally realize the potential of this amazing land.