The Bay of Samaná, in whose waters Cayo Levantado lies, was part of the territory of the Taíno, the Arawak people who inhabited Hispaniola before the arrival of the Europeans. The Taíno lived from fishing, hunting, gathering and the cultivation of cassava, and knew well both the coasts and cays and the forested interior and caves of the region. The bay, rich in resources, was a favorable setting for their activities.
The imprint of those first inhabitants survives remarkably in the caves of the bay, especially in the nearby Los Haitises National Park, where pictographs and petroglyphs of great archaeological value are preserved. These expressions of rock art bear witness to the presence and spirituality of the Taíno in the Samaná area, long before islets like Cayo Levantado became tourist destinations.
With the Spanish conquest, begun at the end of the 15th century, the Taíno world collapsed within a few decades due to disease, forced labor and violence. The island's Indigenous population, including that of the Samaná region, practically disappeared, though its legacy remained in the place names, in the art of the caves and in elements of the later culture.
The Bay of Samaná entered the history of the European colonization of the Americas early. In early 1493, during the return of his first voyage, Christopher Columbus navigated this northeast coast of Hispaniola and had contact with the Indigenous inhabitants of the bay area. Historical tradition recalls a tense encounter with the natives, an episode that left names on the local geography and that early on linked Samaná with the story of the first contacts between Europe and the New World.
Since then, the great Bay of Samaná —one of the widest and most sheltered inlets in the Caribbean— was recognized as an exceptional anchorage and a point of strategic interest. Its value as a natural harbor would make it, over the centuries, a place coveted by different powers and the object of numerous negotiations and projects.
Cayo Levantado, as a small islet within that bay, shared the fate of the whole region: a setting marked by the natural wealth of the inlet and by its geographic importance. For a long time, however, the cay was just one more point of the bay's landscape, without the tourist relevance it would acquire in the 20th century.
During the colonial centuries, the Bay of Samaná was a strategic and disputed area. Its magnificent inlet, capable of holding and protecting boats, made it a point of great military and commercial interest, coveted at various times by European powers and, later, by other countries that saw in it a possible naval enclave. This strategic status shaped much of the peninsula's history.
To reinforce the presence and control over the bay, in the 18th century the city of Santa Bárbara de Samaná was founded, today the provincial capital and the main gateway to the region. The city grew as an administrative and port center, tied to the life of the bay and the control of its access. Off it, in the waters of the inlet, lay the small Cayo Levantado.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Bay of Samaná continued to be an object of international interest: there were projects and negotiations, at various times, to establish bases or enclaves in it, within the framework of the complex relations of the young Dominican Republic with foreign powers. Although none of those projects came to be consolidated in a lasting way, they attest to the value attributed to this bay and its surroundings.
One of the most singular traits of Samaná's history was forged in the 19th century. In the 1820s, during the period of Haitian rule over the whole island of Hispaniola, a group of free African Americans from the United States arrived on the peninsula. These immigrants, mostly Protestant and English-speaking, settled in the region and preserved their language, religion and many of their customs for generations.
From them descend the 'Samaná Americans', a distinctive cultural group within the Dominican Republic, whose heritage is still perceptible in surnames of Anglo-Saxon origin, in Protestant churches and in particular traditions of the area. This population added a cultural nuance of its own to Samaná, different from the rest of the country, a result of that migration.
The peninsula also experienced the ups and downs of 19th-century Dominican history: Haitian rule, the independence of 1844, the brief annexation to Spain and the subsequent Restoration. Throughout that time, the Bay of Samaná and its surroundings —including Cayo Levantado— continued to witness the political changes, while the region's everyday life combined fishing, agriculture and trade tied to the bay.
Cayo Levantado's transition from a mere islet of the bay to a tourist icon is tied, above all, to its photogenic beauty. With its white sand, its leaning palm trees and its turquoise waters, the cay embodies the ideal image of the Caribbean island, and that postcard scene made it a much-sought-after setting.
From that came its most famous nickname: 'Bacardí Island'. According to popular tradition and the tourist narrative, the cay's paradisiacal landscape was associated with advertising campaigns for the well-known Bacardí rum brand, fixing the islet's image as a symbol of the tropical paradise. The nickname spread so widely that many visitors know it that way before its official name, Cayo Levantado. The advertising connection is best taken as part of the destination's popular narrative rather than as a precisely documented fact.
Throughout the 20th century, the cay gained prominence within the Bay of Samaná's tourist offering. Its closeness to the city of Santa Bárbara de Samaná and its beauty made it ideal for day trips, as the region began to open up to tourism. Thus, 'Bacardí Island' became one of the most recognizable images of Samaná and an almost obligatory stop for those visiting the bay.
In the final decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the Samaná Peninsula established itself as one of the great tourist destinations of the Dominican Republic, within the enormous growth of tourism that transformed the country's economy. The beaches, the bay, the humpback whale watching and the lush nature attracted travelers from all over the world, and the development of infrastructure —including the improvement of roads and the El Catey airport— made access to the region easier.
The Bay of Samaná became especially famous for the annual arrival of the humpback whales, which roughly between January and March come to these waters to breed, in one of the most impressive natural spectacles of the Caribbean. Whale watching became an internationally famous attraction and a key tourist engine for Santa Bárbara de Samaná, the base of the bay excursions, including those that go to Cayo Levantado.
In that context, Cayo Levantado finished establishing itself as a destination. The island came to combine two uses: on one hand, a public area that receives the numerous visitors who arrive for the day to enjoy its beach; on the other, a luxury resort installed on part of the islet, which offers an exclusive experience in a paradisiacal setting. That double life —mass and daytime on one part, exclusive and restful on the other— defines Cayo Levantado today, one of the most emblematic images of the Bay of Samaná and of Dominican tourism.