Haiti Never Occupied the Dominican Republic:
Time to Put The Myth Aside
Haiti has never occupied the Dominican Republic, yet schoolbooks on both sides of the island continue to perpetuate the myth of a Haitian occupation. A chronological review of the island’s history illustrates how this misunderstanding came about:
· In 1492, Spain was the first European power to take control of the island of Haiti from its Taino inhabitants and to begin importing Africans to the island.
· In 1697, in the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain surrendered the western one third of the island to France. Over the next century, France turned its part of the island into a killing field, importing large numbers of African people whom they worked to death to create the world’s most prosperous colony.
· In 1791, opponents of slavery on the island launched a revolution.
· In 1795, in the Treaty of Basil, Spain ceded the remaining two thirds of the island to France making the entire island a French colony. Many Spanish settlers resettled in other colonies.
· In 1801, Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolutionary forces governed the entire island.
· In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared the island’s independence from France. The new nation’s constitution proclaimed the entire island as the nation of Haiti.
Following Haiti’s independence, slave owning nations attempted to stifle the island nation. The United States imposed an economic embargo. France demanded 150 million (equivalent to 21 billion in today’s dollars) in reparations for its former slave-owners. These measures crippled Haiti’s economy and weakened a government that was struggling to maintain unity among different factions. In the southern part of Haiti, Petion ruled. Christophe took over the northern region. In the eastern part of Haiti, some of the remaining Spanish settlers invited but could not convince Spain to retake possession of the island. In 1821, some Spanish settlers called for the independence of “Spanish Haiti” and for its incorporation into Simon Bolivar’s Gran Columbia. This attempt at breaking up Haiti prompted Haitian President, Boyer, to send the army to the eastern part of the island to prevent its succession from the union. To better control the Spanish settlers, Boyer recruited the assistance of African-Americans who he invited to live in Samana on the eastern part of the island. Boyer’s government established authority over north, south, and east Haiti, and maintained the territorial integrity of the island nation.
On May 7, 1842, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, destroying many cities and paralyzing Boyer’s government. The disarray allowed separatist forces to take hold of the eastern part of the island and to nominally declare independence in 1844 as the Dominican Republic. Haiti refused to recognize this loss of its eastern territory. At the time, the US did not take sides on this issue. In fact, in 1849 the US sent Special Envoy, Benjamin Green, to Haiti as well as to the new Dominican government to request that Samana, on the eastern side, not be allowed to secede to England. This was done because the Haitian constitution continued to define Haiti as the entire island. By the time of the American occupation of Haiti (1915-1934), the US more firmly recognized Dominican independence and rejected Haiti’s claim to the entire island. In 1929, the US helped to set the current border between the two countries. Haitian territory was redefined in a new constitution written under US occupation.
In 1930, the dictator, Trujillo, came to power in the Dominican Republic and sought to more definitively separate the two sides of the island. He began a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to create his ideal of Dominican identity. He made historians distort Dominican history to discount African heritage. In his racially motivated fairytale, he described Dominicans as descendants of Europeans and of the decimated Tainos. To lighten the population, he welcomed Europeans fleeing Franco’s Spain, Hitler’s Germany, and Mussolini’s Italy. Dark skinned people were classified as Haitian and were murdered by Trujillo’s government.
Trujillo’s government built roads to link small towns to the larger cities. Towns were renamed to accentuate Spanish heritage. Radios for listening to Spanish stations were given to people living in remote areas. Free Spanish newspapers were distributed. The number of free Spanish speaking schools that were built increased from one to about 250. Homes were demolished if their architecture appeared African and were replaced with new homes based on Spanish/Mediterranean architecture. Churches and missionary groups were sent to rural communities to destroy Vodou, the traditional African manner of worship. Any recognized aspect of African culture shared by Dominicans and Haitians came under attack.
Despite Trujillo’s attempted genocide, most Dominicans today have Haitian / African ancestry along with European ancestry. This is partly because after Haiti’s independence from France in 1804, people moved freely across the island nation. This resulted in people moving from the more populous western side (pop. 350,000) to the less populated eastern side (pop. 70,000). Today the population that became the Dominican Republic is equal to that of Haiti’s 9 million, in part because of this migration. Both countries remained economically on par until 1960 when per capita income in the Dominican Republic began to increase while Haiti’s became stagnant. Today’s new disparity in wealth is increasing tensions between the two countries as Haitians seek opportunities across the border while Dominicans struggle to restrict their access.
Haiti never occupied the Dominican Republic as there was no such entity when the island became an independent nation in 1804. The myth of Haiti having occupied the Dominican Republic is a fabrication perpetuated on the Dominican side by a desire to paint Haitian culture as foreign and to present Haitians as aggressors in order to justify a large Dominican military budget. In Haiti, the myth is perpetuated because it helps to nurture a sense of military/ national achievement. The myth hides a more painful truth of the island’s history: the fact that political forces, both internal and external, as well as natural disasters have caused upheaval that fractured the island nation.
References:
Baur, John E., Faustin Soulouque, Emperor of Haiti: His Character and His Reign, Academy of American Franciscan History © 1949.
Derby Lauren. Haitians, Magic, and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands, 1900 to 1937. Comparative Studies in Society and History. Vol. 36, No. 3 (Jul. 1994) pp. 488-526. Cambridge University Press.
Lipski, John M., A New Perspective on Afro-Dominican Spanish: The Haitian Contribution. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. University of New Mexico.
Woolls, Daniel, Mystery: Who’s Buried in Columbus’ Tombs? The Herald, (Miami) Oct 2, 2004
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