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Editorial: Origins of the conflict between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
The present geography of the island of Haiti or Hispaniola is the consequence of the bitter struggle of Europeans for control in the New World during the 17th century. When Christopher Columbus “discovered” the New World in 1492, he named the island of hayti where his troop embarked Hispaniola meaning little Spain. Quickly the Spanish established themselves permanently in Hispaniola and built the city of Santo Domingo where they ruled their colonies in the New World. By 1548, however, the Indians were decimated and the reserves of gold in the colony were expiring. At the same time, Hernan Cortes was discovering Mexico and Peru (1521) which were rich in gold and silver. Santo Domingo then lessened in value for Spain and the Spanish settlement quickly left the island for the richer land of Mexico and Peru. Then the first French settlers came to Hispaniola and established themselves on the island of Tortuga ( ile de la Tortue) on the Northwest coast of present day Haiti. These French settlers known as the buccaneers entered in trade with the Spaniards of the mainland. Then in what Miguel Aquino called as the “tactical error of unimaginable proportions” at the root of the division of the island into two separate nations, the Spanish governor of Hispaniola encouraged in 1605 the Spanish inhabitants of the western part to move to the eastern section of the isle in order to end that trade with the French. Contrary to what the Spaniard governor expected, the French pirates settled themselves in western Hispaniola and spread themselves in less than fifty years to create St Domingue, a translation of Santo Domingo. These French settlers entered in bitter struggle with the Spanish for more land. By 1664, France created the French West Indian Company to signal their intention of colonizing St Domingue. During that time, Spain was lessening on its importance as a world power in Europe and could barely withstand the English, Dutch and French attacks on its colonies in the Caribbean. Therefore, by the treaty of Ryswick in 1697, Spain abandoned to France the western part of Hispaniola to the French creating legally the colony of St Domingue. The two colonies, Santo Domingo under Spanish rule and St Domingue under French, followed then different paths that would weight heavily on their future. Around a hundred years later, Spain ceded to France the eastern part of the island under the treaty of Basle, (1795). Toussaint Louverture, the author of the Haitian Revolution, was at the time fighting for the French and entered in his program to unify the island under French rule. He thus declared in 1795 that the island was “one and indivisible”. In 1801, after assuring his power in St Domingue through the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint invaded Santo Domingo to put his words into actions. Later, in 1802, when he had to fight the troops of Napoleon for the independence of Haiti, Toussaint as part of his strategic plan withdrew his soldiers from Santo Domingo. After the arrest of Toussaint by Leclerc, Dessalines carried out the revolution and defeated the French creating the State of Haiti. However, from the very day that Haiti was born, January 1, 1804, it was recognized by the leaders of the nation that the island must be unified under Haitian rule as a condition for the preservation of Haiti as Independent. A small French presence indeed remained on the eastern section of the island and it was feared in Haiti that an attack from the French and other European colonial nation may invade the new nation from there. The policy of Haiti concerning Santo Domingo would be directed onward by this recognition. It was thus written in the first Haitian constitution that the island was indivisible. By 1805, Dessalines would invade the eastern part of the island and would only recede his forces from capturing Santo Domingo when reports reached him that a French naval squadron was approaching Haiti. By 1808, the Haitians in their policy against the French helped Spanish colonists who had returned to Santo Domingo to expel the French. Santo Domingo was then returned to Spanish rule who plunged the colony in economic decline. This period known as Espana Boba ( Foolish Spain) convinced the Dominicans to seek an independence similar to that of the Latin American State of Simon Bolivar. Jose Nunez de Caceres then announced the colony’s independence under the name of Spanish Haiti on November 30, 1821 and sought to gain admission to the State of Gran Colombia created by Simon Bolivar. However, before the Dominican request was replied, the troops of the Haitian president at the time, Jean Pierre Boyer, invaded the new nation and unified the island. From 1822 to 1844, the Dominican Republic and Haiti would then be one nation. In 1844, the Dominicans took advantage of the fall of Boyer from the presidency of Haiti, and regained their independence through a rebellion carried out by the Trinitaria movement, an organization founded by Juan Pablo Duarte in 1838. The Haitians would try to invade the new nation since then and their last attempt would end by 1855. A boundary agreement was signed between the two nations in 1936 drawing the present frontiers between the Dominican Republic and Haiti and establishing the definitive geographic delimitation of the two countries. The struggle of the European nations among themselves for control in the Caribbean will have for final consequence the division of an island into two countries. The same consequence is also found in the demography of the island since the creation of the two colonies of St Domingue and Santo Domingo resulted in the creation of two people. After the signature of the treaty of Ryswick (1697) between France and Spain, the two colonies of Hispaniola would follow different economic paths that would influence the composition of the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The French quickly develop St Domingue into the most productive colony of the Hemisphere if not the world. By the Eighteenth century, St Domingue’s production of sugar surpassed that of the English colonies. This growth in production made St Domingue important for France since the colony contributed to the development of its economy. To bring St Domingue to this level of production, some measures were taken at the dawn of the sugar cane revolution. Indeed, as the colonists of St Domingue foresaw a growing world market through cultivation of sugar cane, they incessantly tried to maximize their profits by importing to the colony huge numbers of African slaves. By 1790, the black population surpassed the white and a new group of men was created: the mulatto. There were at St Domingue around that time more than 500,000 black slaves compared to 30,000 whites and 27,000 freemen, this last class of men containing both black and mulatto individuals. On the eastern part of the island, the Spanish colonists did nothing to develop sugar plantations on their huge holding in Santo Domingo. They were not motivated by the goal to supply sugar to the new world market like the French. Being not as wealthy as their French counterpart and this absence of market driven pressures kept these landowners from importing slaves in large numbers. This policy also enabled the domestic labor force to practice subsistence agriculture. Therefore, by 1790 when St Domingue was in a demographic explosion, the population of Santo Domingo was of 125,000 white landowners and about 25,000 blacks or mulatto and about 60,000 black slaves. Clearly, at Santo Domingo, the blacks were a minority. That was the demographic basis for the formation of the population of Haiti and The Dominican Republic today. When the Haitian Revolution broke out in 1791 thousands of whites will fled the colony during and after the revolt to escape the revenge of the slaves. Those few remaining were exterminated by Dessalines in 1805 to protect the revolution. As a consequence, Haiti was a nation of a tremendous black majority with a relatively small number of mulattos. In Santo Domingo, the contrary was true. Miscegenation between the Spanish and the blacks created the mulattos which are in majority. In 1822-1844, Boyer, the Haitian president, tried to influence the population composition of Santo Domingo and encouraged 10,000 free blacks from the USA to settle there. However, this policy sort of failed since the majority of these blacks quickly left the island and the remaining few had virtually no impact on creating at Santo Domingo a population similar to that of Haiti as Boyer probably wanted. This population differences will be used as we will see further to amplify and worsen the extent of the Dominican-Haitian conflict. A third fatal consequence of the treaty of Ryswick (1697) is to shape the mindset of the Haitians and the Dominicans, forever forcing them to view each other as irreconcilable enemies. Today, to be a Dominican in the Dominican Republic is before all not to be a Haitian. Dominican’s definition of their identity as a people or as a person was designed with this recognition in mind. Therefore schools, newspapers spread a propaganda having for goal to dispel the African heritage of this country and separate the Dominicans and Haitians. The Dominican people is first described as a white people of hispanic descent. Trujillo celebrated in the Dominican Republic the concept of la Hispanidad (Spanishness). However, when a person’s skin leave no doubt so as to their black heritage, a concept of “Indianness” was quickly created to explain that Dominican’s complexion. Thus, a Dominican whose skin color is midway between a mulatto and a black is identified as of Indian origin. Countless of dubious studies were conducted to prove this indianness of the Dominican people through analysis of blood types, facial features and varying denture patterns. Of course, the definition of the Dominican’s identity as Indian is highly doubtful since the first inhabitants of the island were decimated in less than 50 years by the Spanish (see Tainos in History Page). However, this obsession of the Dominicans to define themselves as something not Haitian and African, stems from their turbulent relationship with Haiti, this relationship itself resulting from colonialism. When Haiti freed herself from French control in 1804 we have seen, she quickly undertook to protect her freedom from a new invasion by France from the island’s eastern borders where the Dominican Republic, then Santo Domingo, is located. The Haitian thus lead vis a vis of the Spanish colony a politique of undivisibility which eventually led to the occupation of the Dominican Republic by Haiti for twenty-two years. Jean Pierre Boyer, the Haitian president then, carried action in his domination of the Dominican Republic that had for goal the destruction of their Hispanic culture. He closed the University and prevented contact between the Dominican church and the church hierarchy in Europe. He broke up the large estates of the Dominican nation held by the church. These policies had for consequence the increase of anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. These policies partly explains Trujillo’s definition of his country when he was elected president as a Hispanic nation, Catholic and white, as opposed to Haiti which is Afro-French, and largely practicing “vodou” as a religion. Haiti was portrayed under his government as a threat and the antithesis of the Dominican Republic. He dreaded the growing influence of Haitian culture in Dominican territory. His fear of Haitian darkening of the Dominican population led him to conduct a policy of Dominicanness which ultimately led to the assassination of more than 25,000 Haitian by his men on the Haitian-Dominican border. After having signed a boundary agreement between the Dominican government and that of Haiti, Trujillo realizing that the people on the border, Haitian and Dominican of Haitian descent, spoke mainly creole and used the gourde as their currency, he undertook to definitely separate racially what is Haitian to what is Dominican. Under Operation Perejil, Trujillo killed thousands of Haitians and dark skinned Dominicans residing on the border zone. These people were asked to pronounce the word perejil, believed to be hard for Haitians because of the “r” and the “j”. Everyone who failed at the test was systematically killed. Years later, the Dominican president and Trujillo’s ideological heir, Joaquim Balaguer, would continue his policy of discrimination and racism against the Haitians. In his book, La Isla al Reves, he outlined his hopes and fear for the Dominican nation. This book is a monument to the fear that Haiti as an afro-caribbean nation instilled to the author and the Dominican nation. It warns of haitian imperialism as a “plot against the independence of Santo Domingo and against the American population of Spanish origin”. Haiti is a threat primarily for “biological reasons”, its people multiplying themselves “nearly as rapidly as plants” Although we must acknowledge that the Haitian-Dominican conflict stemmed from the occupation of the Dominican Republic by Haiti, it would be dangerous and unfair to the Dominican people to attribute Trujillo and Balaguer’s act and ideology entirely to the same origin. Balaguer and Trujillo are both racist mulattos and politicians who used the past for their own interest. The Dominican people did not participate in Trujillo’s massacre of the Haitians; many Haitians were saved by good-hearted Dominicans who could not imagine and accept the killings of thousands of innocents for petty reasons. The best example of this fact is the Dominican politician, Jose Maria Peña Gomez, whom is believed to be of Haitian descent and escaped the massacre because a white Dominican family adopted him. This man grew up to become Balaguer’s most feared opponent in the elections in the Dominican Republic. Despite his color (a proof that color is not a real obstacle in the Caribbean) he was very popular among the voting Dominicans, and to fight him Ballaguer had to cheat in the elections of 1991, and spread propaganda about his Haitian origin. The old Haitian-Dominican conflict was thus used by politicians to assert themselves in power, propagating a mythology in the country about the 22 years of Haitian rule having been a period of repression and savagery. According to Juan Bosch this mythology was forged by traditional Dominican historians who deliberately “have falsified the historical truth”. He contends that the majority of the population welcomed the Haitians. For the slaves, it meant emancipation; for other blacks it promised a break from the racist hierarchy of Spanish colonialism. Haiti had also at this point a more developed economy than Santo Domingo and Union, it was believed, would improve economic conditions for the poor. Radical land reforms did indeed benefit the poorest section of the population. These reforms broke up many of the largest estates and church owned lands to distribute them to the small holders, providing thus a basis for the independence of the Dominican peasantry economically. More Info:
Here is a list of books on the subject from amazon. Some books may reappear: Amazon.com Books Search Results Here are some sites for more info:
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