When the Spaniards arrived in the America's They chose a large island to construct their first capital city.

They call the island Hispaniola.

Today, the Hispanic part of that island maintains a strong heritage of Spain.

But over the centuries its European ethnologies has mixed with powerful African and Indian elements, it is the Dominican Republic.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury ♪ Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

♪ ♪ In the Americas with David Yetman theme The Domincan Republic occupies the eastern portion of the islad of Hispanola.

It has a tumultuous history but over the last 50 years, has established itself as a stable and growing democracy.

It is especially known worldwide for whales, for baseball, and for the most unusual carnivalin all the Western Hemisphere, in La Vega.

This enormous building, is actually a lighthouse dedicated to Christopher Columbus and it dominates the entire Eastern part of the urban area of Santo Domingo.

It might not have turned out the way it was intended, but a dictator had it constructed.

Bill: There was a contest in 1929'to design the appropriate monument for Christopher Columbus and his remains, 450 people entered that contest.

A British architect designed this cross shape and the lighthouse itself will project a light to the Heavens' that's cross-shaped.

It was opened on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to this part of the world in 1992.

By that time many people had begun to think that Columbus's arrival didn't do as much good, as many people like to believe.

The claim is that Christopher Columbus's bones are in a box up here, the discrediting of Columbus has become a tidal wave in the last few decades.

Because he brought destruction and death to virtually everyone in his path in the Americas and his Spanish institutions destroyed what was here.

The entire question of who he ws and what he was doing has been brought under a microscope and maybe wasn't and maybe wasn't as glamorous as it was thought to be 50 years ago.

This is said to be the first church in the Americas.

Bill: This church was authorized by the Pope, which in itself is very interesting, it's a Vatican sponsored Church and the idea was,it would bring together the Spaniards who were here, the indigenous population, which was rapidly disappearing, and the beginning of the African slave community and free slave community that were also here.

The church construction began around 1520 and it took about 20 years to build.

And when this was being built, Cortez was still planning his invasion of Mexico.

That's how old this is.

If you ask Dominicans, what occupies more of their thoughts, their long history or their favorite sport?

They will almost surely tell you, baseball is King.

To say that the Dominican Republic is obsessed with baseball is an understatement.

The country lives and breathes baseball.

So much so that every major league team has a formed system in the Republic and an academy, to train the very young players, not just about baseball,but what it's like to be a baseball player.

This particular facility is ownd by the Tampa Bay Rays, and it is 1 of 30, in the country.

The place swarms with scouts tryingto find every possible nook and cranny, where there might be a hopeful young baseball player, and there are a lot.

Cynthia: Dominicans have a phrase that every male child is born with a glove and a baseball under his arm.

And, everywhere you see a kid playing baseball, it's in our blood, it's like a lifestyle.

When we sign a player,he becomes part of our family, our team.

We provide everything so he develops himself as a player and as a human being too.

They have to have talent in order to go step by step to the majors and it's very hard.It's not easy at all.

So they call this a showcase game for young players and you'll look around the crowd, what do you see?

Scouts.

Bill: Scouts of all 30 major league teams are here recruiting players to come to the academies here in the Dominican Republic.

and the reason we see that major league baseball insignia out there, is because since the 1948 integration of major league baseball, these players have become the target of major league teams and the reason for this is, about 1/10th of all the major leaguers right now, are from the Dominican Republic.

So these scouts have been very successful in identifying talent and getting them through the various hoops of the major league.

And they expect to do it again.

And there's huge investment, the Tampa Bay Rays just signed a sixteen year old, for 2.8 million.

The Dominican Republic is part of the second largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba is the largest.

The area of the country itself is about the same as a combination of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The Spaniards found out very early when they got here in the early part of the sixteenth century that it has terrifically rich soil and a very favorable climate.

For the most part it's not terribly hot, it gets good rainfall, almost everywhere in the country and its hill-y, which means you get good drainage.

Since the Spaniards decided that this was the place they wanted to grow a lot of things it became known for a lot of tropical crops.

Primarily to Europeans, for Tobacco and sugar cane.

But now if you drive over the country you'll find just huge portions of it in fields with bananas, and now rice.

Most of the original forest has been cut down, but every once in a while you come upon a place that looks like man, this is still the way the Caribbean was 500 years ago."

The North easternmost part of the Dominican Republic is the Samaná Peninsula, it's known for beaches, it's got a lot of very tropical vegetation there, and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of humpback whales that come to spend a few months each year.

As you're seeing this Harbor here, you realize that coming from Puerto Rico, this is the first, really safe harbor the Spaniards would've found, and it was a very fine place to bring your ships.

Bill: This channel that were looking at, is protected from Hurricanes pretty much and from great wave action, so it's so it's a very secure location.

Bill: So pirates love to come in here, and the warships from the British, the English, the French, couldn't come after them without getting trapped, and the Aryan becoming victims of the pirates.

It's only in the last few decades that scientists have discovered that in the Samana Bay area of Dominican Republic, is the greatest concentration of humpback whales in the world.

And seeing those whales, studying them and watching them has become a major tourist attraction and industry for Dominican Republic.

On the boat they gave us this neat little model of a humpback whale.

They are 40 feet long or so, and weigh many tons, 15 to 20 tons I guess, but what's most interesting is they are called the humpbacksbecause when they dive, this part, they keel over, and these bumps show up.

Humpback whales come here more than anywhere else in the world.

80 percent of the world's humpback whales come here to the bay ofSamaná for reproduction purposes, there's nothing for them to eat.

They come from the North as much as 7000 kilometers away and come here, and do nothing but to make love, give birth, and the guys come looking for the girls and the girls decide which guys they want.

Kim: We're able to watch humpback whales using this area like an enormous single's bar.

Males and females come in checking it out, if there's nobody interesting to dance with they head on to the next singles bar and maybe come back in a week or so.

So we see a lot of the same whales transiting through the area during the winter.

Uh, reproductive behaviormale humpback whales fight for the right to escort females and this is one of the best places in the world to see that kind of activity.

the female humpback whale will change her escort every 8 hours until she finds the male that she is interested in.

Here we got a young whale.

It's really casual coming up to the surface and just watching the ship, hanging.

Which I guess is unusual behavior for them as if he's have never seen a boat before they are very boat savvy,because they know they can get hurt by the propellers, but this little one is just hanging there.

It is not big for a whale but it's huge!

Kim: The estimates are that in the North Atlantic we have a population of 15 to 16 thousand About 85 percent of those animas are found here in Dominican waters in the winter time.

We do know several things about humpbacks.

One is they are looking for shallow, warm, protective water to give birth.

And, the average depth here in Samaná Bay is is around 60 feet, 40-60 feet, and it seems to be an appropriae area for mothers and calves.

There's like barrier reef, nice rolling sand bottoms and an average depth of about 40-60 feet.

This activity started as one vessel and we now have 43 vessels.

It has an enormous economic impact on the area.

You can always detect whales by their spouting.

They exhale and then they dive and these whales will stay down, oh, 40 minutes maximum.

But usually they dive for 12-15 minutes and then come back up.

Responsible whale watching is a viable economic alternative to whaling.

Whaling has not gone away, but you would be surprised the number of countries that are supporting the reinstitution of commercial whaling on an international level.

We really believe that responsible whale watching is a viable economic alternative to whaling.

It's much more sustainable it's nonlethal, and we would encourage all the countries all over the world that have marine mammals,develop your whale watch industry for future generations and let's all become whale watchers and stop being whale hunters.

In more or less the center of the country is a nondescript agricultural town.

If you go there during the beginning of Lent, you will find a carnival unlike anything you have ever seen.

It's a place called La Vega.

Not Las Vegas, but the entertainment is just as great.

La Vega.

Roberto: Our carnival's histor back more than 500 years.

Carnival began in colonial times in what is now the Dominican Republic.

In the Dominican Republic, the kickoff to Carnival, the first festivities, begin right here in the city of La Vega.

In our city, everyone joins in to present the main character of Carnival, the Diablo Cojuelo, the Limping Devil of La Vega.

He is identified by the color of his dress or costume.

Well this is an example of one and you hold up your arms and you're still sweating underneath the yards of material ' it's all imported, very expensive.

So these are costly.

These come through Miami, these are dyed feathers.

Each year he designs a new one ofthese and they are complex.

You can hear the bells.

So this is the shirt they call it.

There's a rule that if you're in one of these costumes, you can't go into the 'street without a mask.

No one will know who you are until the last day, the 27th of February.

Then you can go out into the street and take off your mask and everyone will then recognize you.

So there's a bunch of suspense involved in who's wearing what.

I went to the United States to places like Disneyland to find out what really neat designs are flashy.

They brought back the very best of what they could find and each year they become more glamorous and flashy.

It's like a snakeskin only it's smoother, it's really fun.

Now you get the reflection, but if you go the other way, you get the non-reflective side that's pure green.

Roberto: Our carnival's roots came from Spain.

The celebration takes place before Ash Wednesday.

The Diablo Cojuelo is based on the court jester of medieval Spain, but the Diablo also has Italian roots.

Our first festivities involving the Limping Devil were held in 1514.

Then, in 1520, the first celebration of Carnival took place.

Now, in 2016, we still preserve the European roots of our Carnival.

Well, the basic mask is papier mâché made from a mold, When they actually cast it, they will then take it off and they will break parts of it off to make it firmer with more papier mâché and then put it back together and then cover it with various glues that they have.

and also then the paints.

And he has to use his mind and imagine how it will match up with the costumes.

So this particular design is for a child and this one is for an adult.

And if you want, you can get one that's a lot bigger.

You know, it feels as though I'll never get it on, but it's padded so.

I feel as though I'm absolutely diabolical César: We recognize the roots of our fiesta as mainly Spanish, but I go further and include the African and Indigenous populations.

After all, Indians inhabited these lands before the Spanish arrived.

Its multiple origins are part of what attracts people here on the Sundays leaping up to Carnival We'll have 100, 200, sometimes as many as 300,000 people.

Such is the magic of this Carnival ' the magnetism that brings people to La Vega.

That spirit pervades everything and the result is a celebration that makes people happy and content.

César: In the Diablo Cojuelo, the main Vegano character, several important factors are combined.

The figure of the devil is a representation of ancient god Pan.

Pan, whose face we see in the costumes, was the god of sheep and goats of farmers of ancient Greece.

And farmers both feared and respected him.

The Catholic Church staged theatrical performances in which the priests hoped to associate individual pagan rituals with the devil, the symbol of evil, and thus discourage people from those practices.

The early priests chose the god Pan as the image of the devil.

He was half human, half goat so that farmers would forget about the real devil.

So this explains why the devil figure has a goat like face.

It's of European origin, it is nothing more than a caricature of the sword used by the Spanish court jester ' ridiculing Spanish gentlemen by likening them to Pan.

Because after all, what is Carnival really about?

Carnival is about ridiculing.

Carnival is about putting what is on top on the bottom and what is on the bottom on the top.

It is a transformation of the human being by making fun of everything.

César: But I will go even further, our Carnival is not just for spectators.

It is also for participation and you must understand that the goal of the priests who founded Carnival was to designate the fourth Sunday in February, which this year falls on February 27th to be a day when we can all enjoy the festivities as one, without social divisions.

On this Sunday, the 27th of February, being Dominicano manifests itself in La Vega and spreads itself throughout the country.

César: It is a general belief that the devil that I have inside, the devil I have within me, comes out of me and is transferred to the devil mask and that purifies me.

What function does the bladder of the devil serve?

It punishes you so you pay for your sins.

The loud sound of the whack drives off the evil spirit.

So when you get spanked, the devil is actually doing you a favor so that you can gain entrance to heaven by erasing your sins.

We need to understand why we do what we do.

Otherwise, what we do won't make sense.

These costumes are unbelievably complex.

You have to remember, they use them for four weeks instead of just one shot carnival.

But for four weekends, they get a special dispensation here in La Vega from somebody in the Church way higher than I am And they can then go past Ash Wednesday without giving up everything for Lent and still continue to celebrate.

Here in La Vega, Carnival is both religious and political because it culminates in Dominican independence class, gender, race, still exists.

Nevertheless, there's an inversion of all these things and a feeling of community that's just wonderful and it's expressed in all the groups as they go by.

We look at this and the amount of community effort and investment that goes in just to the costumes, to say nothing of the sponsors who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these cuevas, these caves, and all of the public addressing equipment, the music, the lights, the seating, it's a massive focus on a fiesta.

Not just from a community spirit,from an economic spirit for the country.

We found again and again people saying this particular fiesta defines the Dominican consciousness of a people as a nation.

We are Dominican here.

For several decades until the l 1960s, the Dominican Republic endured a smothering dictatorship.

During that time, thousands of Dominicansfled to the United States, and since then, have maintained a tradition of forth movement between the Nort US and their original country.

That connection ties the Domini Republic to the United States a as any other country in the Ame.

Join us next time in the americas with me David Yetman Oregon is sandwiched on our west coast, between California on the south and Washington on the north.

The eastern portion is rather dry, while the western part is wet.

The Cascade Range, marks the dividing line.

We begin on the east side, where the history of the landscape is easier to see.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

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