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BIRTH OF A BOUNDARY: BLOOD, CEMENT, AND PREJUDICE
AND THE MAKING OF THE DOMINICAN-HAITIAN BORDER,
1937-1961

presented by

EDWARD RAMON PAULINO

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BIRTH OF A BOUNDARY: BLOOD, CEMENT, AND PREJUDICE AND THE
MAKING OF THE DOMINICAN-HAITIAN BORDER, 1937-1961

By

Edward Ramon Paulino

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

2001

ABSTRACT

BIRTH OF A BOUNDARY: BLOOD, CEMENT, AND PREJUDICE AND THE
MAKING OF THE DOMINICAN-HAITIAN BORDER, 1937-1961

By

Edward Ramon Paulino

My dissertation examines the effects 1937 Haitian Massacre in the Dominican
Republic and the subsequent nationalization of the Dominican borderlands. More
than 20,000 Haitian men, women, and children were murdered by Dominican soldiers
following orders of the dictator Rafael Trujillo. This genocidal and unprecedented
policy eliminated most of the Haitian presence along the border and led the way for a
state-building project to Dominicanize semi-autonomous this region. Following the
massacre the Dominican government incorporated this region into its sphere of
influence by establishing institutions such as the church and military to physically and
officially demarcate its territory with Haiti. My dissertation utilizes various
methodological approaches from border history, genocide, and nationalism to better
understand the violent implications of state projects that attempt to eradicate a semi-
autonomous and interdependent community such as the Dominican border with Haiti.
Moreover, by placing this event as part of a larger historical continuum of
Dominican-Haitian border relations, I show how the Dominican frontier rather than

the capital of Santo Domingo shaped the existence of the nation.

Covyright by
Edward Ramon Paulino
2001

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It took me six long years to finish a good drafi of a dissertation, which I truly
believe will contribute positively to the Dominican historiography. Yet for all my
sweat and tears this dissertation would not have been possible but for the generous
and kind people who believed in me. There are many people I would like to thank
but time and space constrain me to limit their names. First I thank God whose
guidance in leading me through the valley of despair and temptation allowed me to
complete this degree. In terms of family my mother Delia is perhaps the one person
responsible for making me the man I am today. Her endless love and support has
taught me invaluable lessons about perseverance and integrity while constantly
instilling in me the power to believe in my dreams. Throughout these six years my
family members in New York City and in San Francisco de Macoris, in the
Dominican Republic, at one time or another, supported me financially and
emotionally. To all of them I say thank you. I hope to be there for you all when the
time comes.

Academically, I thank my dissertation committee beginning with my advisor
Dr. Peter Beattie who was a constant beacon of support and who taught me to be
sensitive to the differences between theory and practice or as he says: (“what happens
when the rubber hits the road?”). Committee members Dr. Elizabeth Eldredge and
Dr. Harry Reed challenged my thinking concerning topics on nation and race in
African and African-American society. Sadly, I will miss my committee member the

late Dr. David Walker. Dr. Walker was an extremely intelligent and thought

iv

provoking scholar and teacher who always treated me fairly and with respect. I will
miss him. I also would like to thank Dr. Dagmar Herzog, Laurent Dubois from the
History department and Michael Largey from the Music department for their warm
and enlightening conversations. I also want to thank Dr. Ruth Hamilton from the
department of Sociology whose constant support along with my fellow ADRP family
helped me survive the ordeal of a doctoral program. Although not at Michigan State
University, Dr. Lauren Derby and Dr. Richard Turits were tireless supporters of my
work and offered very important suggestions that have strengthened my analysis.

My dissertation could not have been completed without the generous support
of various organizations that believed in my vision put forth in my proposals. The
AHA Albert J. Beveridge Summer grant; the SSRC’s International Pre-dissertation
Travel Research Fellowship; and the Fulbright IIE Felllowship provided the
necessary funding for me to travel to the archives in the Dominican Republic. I also
thank Michigan State University which through the Don Lammers Award; the
College of Arts and Letters Merit Fellowship; an International Studies and Programs
Dissertation Travel Grant; and a King/Chavez/Parks Dissertation Write-up
Fellowship showed its commitment to doctoral students.

In New York, the Dominican Studies Institute, particularly its founder and
director Silvio Torres Saillant and librarian Sarah Aponte, served as a refuge where I
felt at home, sharing my ideas and learning from two dedicated Dominican
scholar/community activists. In the Dominican Republic, my archival research was
enjoyable and downright fun because of people like Eddy J aquez, F erreira, and Sixta:

all very wonderful archivists at the Archivo General de la Nacion in Santo Domingo.

Historians Frank Moya Pons, Roberto Cassa, and Orlando Inoa all took time out of
their busy schedules to meet with me and offer valuable criticisms and suggestions.
Lynn Guitar was instrumental in being an older sister to me. Her constant
indefatigable support and endless energy sustained me when I felt depressed.

As a poor Dominican kid in New York City I never dreamed that I could
complete a Ph.D. but professors like Dr. Laurence Hauptrnan, and Dr. Zelbert Moore
took me under their wings in college and opened my eyes to the wonderful world of
archival trips and research. Consequently, I also would not be here if it were not for
the Affirmative Action institutional policies that were established in the 19708. As a
beneficiary of Affirmative Action, I am indebted to this program and to people like
Dr. Thomas Morales whose leadership and vision under the Educational Opportunity
Program in upstate New York saw many Latino and African-American students
become the first in their families to enter and graduate from college.

Lastly, I thank Zaire Dinzey who simultaneously helped me prepare this
dissertation while paving the way for our hearts to meet. Of course as always, I am

responsible for all errors in this dissertation.

vi

“Birth of a Boundary: Blood, Cement, and Prejudice and the making of the
Dominican-Haitian Border, 1937-1961”

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................... 24
Birth of a Boundary
Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................ 70

Border Colonization, Anti-Haitian Immigration, and Border Treaty Negotiations

Chapter 3 ...................................................................................................... 84
A Genocidal Massacre and an International Scandal

Chapter 4 ...................................................................................................... 129
Reoccupying the Borderlands

Chapter 5 ...................................................................................................... 166
Becoming Spiritually Virtuous, Physically Clean, Lawful, and Patriotic on the
Dominican Border

Chapter 6 ...................................................................................................... 209
Anti-Haitian Discourse and the Border

Conclusion .................................................................................................... 246
Bibliography ................................................................................................. 269

vii

Introduction

In 193 7, a genocidal massacre took place near the Dominican-Haitian border
on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. According to estimates, nearly 20,000 Haitian
and Haitian-descended men, women, and children living in Dominican Republic were
systematically rounded up and murdered by the Dominican army and groups of
organized civilians. Orders to exterminate as many Haitians as possible came from the
Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, whose rise to power in 1930 marked the initiation
of a campaign to limit Haitian workers’ entrance to the Dominican Republic. Through
the prism of the 1937 Haitian massacre, this dissertation examines the importance of
the Dominican-Haitian border region, its significance to the development of the
Dominican nation, and its role in the project of state-building under the Trujillo
regime. The dissertation examines Dominican history from the perspective of the
border and interpolates the Haitian massacre as a means to underscore the centrality
of the border in the development of Dominican history. In this sense, the main
protagonists of this study are the border and its inhabitants, which served as the
backdrop to the historic struggle between the state and its marginal regions. This
dissertation is unique because it traces the border’s influential role in the creation and
development of the Dominican nation. The 1937 Haitian massacre then is examined
not just as Rafael Trujillo’s strategy to violently incorporate the border, but as part of
the larger historical legacy that the border has wielded in the evolution of the country.

Rather than focusing on single events, this study underscores the role of

border residents as catalysts in shaping Dominican history. The border region

provides an opportunity to investigate issues of state-building, national identity, race
relations, and ethnic cleansing. Furthermore, this study aims to challenge and reverse
an anti—Haitian post-massacre historiography that attempts to justify and defend the
killings in the name of Dominican nationalism.l By tracing the development of
Dominican history from the perspective of the border, I argue (as do other scholars:
Lauren Derby and Richard Turits) that, prior to the massacre, the historic border
relationship between Dominicans and Haitians at the regional and local level was
more collaborative than adversarial.2 Moreover, as I explore the decades after the
massacre, I argue that the Dominican state, in its post-massacre Dominicanization

project, failed to eradicate the economic and cultural links extant before the massacre.

Chapters

This dissertation is divided into six chronological chapters that trace the
evolution of the fiontier, the creation of political boundaries, attempts at imperial and
state colonization, the massacre, and the post-massacre state-building project to

Dominicanize the borderlands. Chapter One examines the emergence of a frontier at

 

' Some of these clearly ant-Haitian works are Manuel Arturo Pena Batlle, El sentida de una politica.
(Ciudad Trujillo: Editora La Nacion, 1943); Joaquin Balaguer, La realidad contemporanea. (Buenos
Aires: Ferrari Hermanos, 1947); Angel S. del Rosario Pérez, La exterminacio'n afiorada. (SI: SN,
1957); Carlos Cornielle, Proceso histo'rico Dominica-Haitiano. (Santo Domingo: Publicaciones
America, 1980); and Luis Julian Pérez. Santo Domingo fiente al destino. (Santo Domingo: Editora
Taller, 1990).

2 Here I am building on the pioneering scholarship of Richard Turits and Lauren Derby who I most
influenced by and who first suggested that the border region was much more of a collaborative space
rather than an antagonistic one. My work very much corroborates their research and I am indebted to
them for their suggestions. See Lauren Derby and Richard Turits’, “Historias de terror y los terrores de
la historia,” Estudios Sociales (Abril-Junio 1993), No.92 Ano XXVI; and especially Richard Turits’ “A
World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed” Paper given at the Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Evening Seminar Series, Fall 2000: Ethnicity and Migration in the Caribbean at the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, Fall 2000: 1-73. (Forthcoming article to be published in the Hispanic
American Historical Review).

the fringes of French and Spanish colonies and the process whereby European
colonial powers appropriated the island of Hispaniola and simultaneously displaced
Indigenous populations. The remote fiontier became a convenient refuge for runaway
Indian and Afiican slaves and a safe space for French and Spanish colonists involved
in the growing and unregulated trade on the fiinges of both colonies. Subsequently, I
examine how the political boundary, the precursor to the present border, played a
crucial role in the creation of the Dominican nation following years of unsettled
negotiations regarding its limits.

Chapter Two examines the gradual incorporation of the frontier into the
Dominican nation under the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Between 1930 and 1936,
territorial limits were finalized, ending years of ambiguity as to where each country’s
territory ended and the other began. This was also a time when Dominican-Haitian
relations were perhaps at an all-time zenith. At no other point in the history of both
countries did a sentiment of mutual understanding and fiiendship reign over the island
with more authority than during this period. Six years of successful border
negotiations with the Haitian government that culminated in fixed tenitorial limits
between the nations, in addition to sobering trips that exposed Trujillo to the
overwhelming presence of Haitians along the Dominican border, set the stage for a
violent yet unexpected mass murder.

Chapter Three examines the state’s genocidal policy of rounding-up and
killing thousands of Haitian and Haitian-descended Dominican men, women, and
children. Although the massacre tarnished Trujillo’s international image, it eliminated

a large Haitian presence that was especially visible along the border. The killings also

set the stage for the state to initiate, in earnest, an aggressive effort to colonize the
frontier. The 1937 massacre ushered in a violent institutional and ideological state-
building process that aimed to subordinate the border region to the authorities in
Santo Domingo. This state-building project marked Trujillo’s attempt to control a
semi-autonomous region that had been heavily influenced by Haiti. Hence, a reign of
terror that became one of the hemisphere’s most brutal, yet forgotten, examples of
ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century was unleashed. The levels of state violence
encased in the acts of the 1937 Haitian Massacre and in the subsequent policies aimed
at Dominicanizing the border region were unprecedented and unique. Amidst the
violence and subsequent to it, the border assumed a new and constant political,
economic, and military significance for the Dominican government. Thus, the border
region became a catalyst for the Dominican nation to remake itself—through the
massacre—and create a new national identity.

As I demonstrate in Chapter Four, following the massacre, the Dominican
state began the process of redefining the border. New provinces were created and
border towns with previously Haitian names were renamed with Spanish names.
Govemment agricultural and penal colonies were established to settle the region with
Dominicans. This chapter also juxtaposes the violent project of ethnic cleansing to the
persistent cultural and economic inter-border linkages between people, a condition
that was exemplified by the continued post-massacre presence of Haitian currency
within the Dominican border.

Chapter Five discusses the Dominican govemment’s efforts to modernize and

sanitize the border region. The state enacted a series of programs to further

distinguish Dominicans from their Haitian neighbors. As part of this effort, the state
began an intensive program to promote hygiene. Hospitals, along with medical
programs offering a range of medical services, began to appear throughout the border
region. In addition, this chapter reveals the collaboration of the church with the
Dominican State in Dominicanizing the border region. The Catholic Church played an
instrumental and important role in demarcating this region as a pro-Christian
Dominican space to be contrasted to a perceived pagan Haitian opposite.

Finally, Chapter six examines the ideological campaign conducted by state
ideologues to demonize Haitians and identify them as a historic enemy. During this
campaign, many Dominican intellectuals in the capital, alongside administrative
bureaucratic government appointees, portrayed Dominican-Haitian border relations in
adversarial terms. The border was essentially represented as a tumultuous and blood-
infested region where Dominicans consistently and historically defended their nation

against perpetually invading Haitian military armies and then waves of economic

migrants.

Situating dissertation in a body of literature

The anti-Haitian writings published during Trujillo’s regime represent one of
many historiographical stages in understanding how the border has traditionally been
conceptualized. Dominican historian, Frank Moya Pons, was the first to
compartmentalize the historiographical evolution of the border. Thus the post-

massacre “Trujillo” history of the Dominican Republic can be understood as part of

an integrated set of stages of Dominican border history. In this sense, my study is
more than an analysis of the 1937 Haitian Massacre. Unlike previous studies on the
massacre, which do not situate the event in its full historical context, I examine the
history of the frontier region from colonial times to the Trujillo era and demonstrate
the extent of collaboration between peoples on both sides of the island.3

In studying this region, historian Frank Moya Pons has suggested that there are
three cycles to the historiography of the Dominican-Haitian border. The first cycle of
historiography, published in the 1700’s and 1800’s , covers the history of the border’s
formation and describes the island’s early history and the creation of a frontier to
separate two European colonies.4 The second cycle is classified as the “history of the
political border’ ’ and lasted from roughly between 1874 and 1936. In this stage,
historians wrote about the evolution of the border through the examination of treaties
and settlements. The border region was seen by scholars as a problem that needed to
be resolved through the official demarcation of territorial boundaries. They

underscored Dominican intellectuals' need to define national sovereignty through a

 

3 Although Bernardo Vega’s two-volume work Trujillo y Haiti Vol. I. (Santo Domingo: Fundacion
Cutural Dominicana, 1988); Vol. II. (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Dominicana, 1995), and Jose
Israel Cuello H. Documentos deI conflicto Dominica-haitiano de 1937 (Santo Domingo: Editora
Taller, 1985), are invaluable to understanding the massacre, their works are a compliation of diplomatic
sources without either a profound historical context or analisis of the massacre in relation to the border.
There also have been novels by Dominicans: Freddy Prestol Castillo’s El masacre se para a pie (Santo
Domingo: Editora Taller, 1973); Haitian novels addressing the massacre have been written by Jacques
Stephen Alexis, Mi compadre el general sol (Santo Domingo: Ediciones de Taller, 1987); and the
recent publication by Haitian-American writer Edwidge Dandicat’s F arming of Bones (New York:
Soho, 1998). Other political and economic treatrrrents of the massacre can be found in Eric Roorda
“Genocide Next Door: The Good neighbor Policy, the Trujillo Regime and the Haitian Massacre of
1937,” Diplomatic History, Vol.20 No.3 (Summer l996):301-3 19; Thomas Fiehrer “Political Violence
in the Periphery: The Haitian Massacre of 1937,” Race and Class 32:2 (October-December 1990):
1:20.

4 Frank Moya Pons, :Las tres fronteras,” in Wilfredo Lozano’s ed. La cuestion haitiana en Santo
Domingo: Migracion internacional, desarollo y relaciones inter-estatales entre Haiti y Republica
Dominicana (Miami,FL: FLACSO, 1992), pg.18-19.

fixed border. Between the massacre, through the period of the Dorrrinicanization of
the border to the end of the dictatorship, Trujillo intellectuals assumed the bulk of the
writing and wrote from an explicit anti-Haitian perspective.5 During this
historiographical period, the birth of the Dominican Republic would be fixed in the
minds of Dominicans as an initial struggle against French colonialism and a
subsequent fight against Haitian imperialism and colonialism. Haitians and their
culture became the new enemy of a Dominican state, which unceasingly rationalized
and promoted authoritarian policy implementations throughout the border region.
Moreover, the massacre and its aftermath transformed how Dominican intellectuals
wrote about the border and past treaties. By implementing an institutional and
ideological “war” against Haitians and their influence in the border region, Trujillo’s
intelligentsia created, or perhaps recreated, a new Dominican identity. After the
massacre, the border was no longer seen as a region that undermined state power but
one that could aid government efforts to Dominicanize the border. Thus, after
centuries of being viewed by the state as a liability, the border now became an integral
part in the consolidation and expansion of the nation.

After Trujillo's assassination in 1961, the third cycle, defined as the “social
border,” began. Trujillo’s removal allowed Dominican scholars to move beyond
issues of territorial boundaries and addressing more diverse political, economic, and

social questions concerning Haitians. This stage emerged in the mid-19608 through

 

5 Among some of the most recognized pro-Trujillo and anti-Haitian intellectuals, and whom I examine
in this dissertation, are Joaquin Balaguer’s La realidad dominicana. (Buenos Aires: Ferrari Hermanos,
1947); Manuel Arturo Pena Batlle’s El sentido de una politica. (Ciudad Trujillo: La Nacion, 1943);
Angel S. Rosario Perez’s La exterminacio’n ar'iorada. (S.I.: SN, 1957); and Socrates Nolasco’s
Comentarios de la historia de Jean-Price Mars. (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Dominicana, 1955).

19703. According to Moya Pons, both leftist Dominican and Haitian scholars,
"abandoned the emphasis on the political border studies, directing themselves to new
themes: racial prejudice, economic domination, nationality, political class relations

"6 It is within the historiographical

and the Haitian presence in the sugar industry.
context of the various cycles of political, historical, and social border history that I
situate my dissertation. I also utilize a narrative approach in an effort to outline the
major turning points in the development of the frontier. Therefore my work, then, in
some ways is part of the post-Trujillo historiography addressing race and the place of
Haitian immigrants in Dominican society (both near and away fi'om the border). It is
a study of the continuities and continuum of border life and Dominican-Haitian
relations through Donrinican history.

Perhaps the major event in the historical continuum of frontier and territorial
boundaries was the 1936 treaty. The final 1936 border treaty between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic resolved the problem of border demarcations. Haitians who
resided within what had been newly defined as Dominican territory, remained in their
place of residence. This permanence presented a prominent barrier for Trujillo's plan
to consolidate the nation. The 1937 Haitian Massacre became an enforcement
mechanism for the 1936 treaty as military men and civilians (many of whom were
long-time border residents) killed Haitians throughout the border area and beyond.
After the Massacre, Trujillo and his cohort consistently denied that a government
conspiracy of murder had taken place. They depicted the massacre as a "border

skirmish" between Haitian thieves and patriotic Dominican farmers who were

 

6 Moya Pons, “Las tres fronteras,” pg.26.

defending their lands and livelihoods. The post-massacre discourse explicitly linked
the past military Haitian invasions with a "silent invasion" of poor Haitian immigrants
residing throughout and beyond the border. For the Dominican government and
nativist intellectuals, this “silent invasion” threatened not only the economic survival,
but also the religious and racial character of the Dominican nation. In reality, the
entrenched economic and personal relationships that existed for years between
Haitians and Dominicans and beyond the control of the state was, in my opinion, the
driving force behind government rationale and subsequent policies to nationalize the
border.

Benedict Anderson writes that a nation is an “imagined community” because
most citizens "will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even

"7 Moreover, the nation is conceived of as a community of people that

hear of them.
shares a "deeply, horizontal comradeship." For Trujillo's intelligentsia, the imagined
community required identifying formal markers along racial, linguistic, and religious
lines to create a new nation of citizens. The state projected new labels of national
identity to inculcate Dominicans with their “true” heritage. The massacre of Haitians
provided the Dominican state and its intellectuals with the basis for defining essential
attributes to distinguish “Dominicans” from “Haitian” interlopers within the national
territory. Simply put, to be Dominican meant that you were not Haitian, and
Dominican culture became the antithesis to Haitian culture. It meant, among other

criteria, that Dominicans were practicing Catholics who did not participate in forms

of “Haitian” Voodoo, even though the line between Catholicism and Voodoo-like

 

7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, pg. 6.

syncretic religious practices was, and still is, very thin across the Dominican
countryside. It also meant that Dominicans were not black, regardless of their skin
color, for to be black was to be Haitian. Concertedly, Trujillo’s intelligentsia created a
new range of color terms to describe the majority of Dominicans, who are
predominantly black and of various shades of brown. Finally, it also meant that
Dominicans spoke Spanish, not Creole, and language under Trujillo became "the soul

"8

of the nation...increasingly the crucial criterion for nationality. (Eric Hobsbawm has

written)

How study iidifferent/imnortant than nreviou_s literature

In this study, I examine the formation of the political border and the
emergence of the numerous geographic boundaries through the prism of the border
region. I then examine the 1937 Haitian Massacre and the subsequent
Dorrrinicanization of the border. By incorporating oral histories and archival
government documents, I show how much of a threat the border posed to Trujillo. In
the pre- and post-massacre chapters, I show that the border was a fluid zone between
Haiti and the Dominican Republic: a zone that developed beyond the control of the
Dominican State. And I clearly show the threat that this region represented for
Trujillo, who resorted to state violence to pave the way for the creation of his notion
of a Dominican identity. Placing the massacre in the middle of a continuum instead

of just focusing on Trujillo’s genocidal policy and the massacre itself, as most

 

8 Eric J. Hobsbwam, Nations and Nationalism Since 1 780. Programme, Myth, and Reality 2nd edition

10

previous scholars have done, marks an important difference in this study. It reveals an
innovative approach to underscore the pivotal role of the border in the development of
the Dominican nation.

This study is also important because it exposes one of the Americas’ worst
cases of mass killings in the modern era. It is a case that needs to be dissected,
discussed, and used to better understand how and why examples of collective state
violence occur in Latin America.9 Most historians and scholars, even those who
conduct research in the field of genocidal studies, are unaware that these killings took
place in the Dominican Republic in 1937. Most are more aware of the decimation of
Indian populations in the Americas but not collective violence against particularly
African populations and their descendants. Their ignorance, coupled with the
ignorance of non-scholars, is reason enough to disseminate more information on this
tragic event. Trujillo’s policy of killing Haitians not only along the border but
throughout the country, followed by his intensive Dorrrinicanization program, presents

an uncontested example of ethnic cleansing.10

The Case and how it is Special

 

(London: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pg.95.

9 Five years prior to the Haitian massacre, another goverment-sponsored massacre took place in El
Salvador. Around ten thousand (Indian) peasants with a siginificant participation by Communists who
had revolted against the government of the dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez were massacred.
See Thomas P. Anderson’s Matanza: El Salvador ’s Communist Revolt of 1932 2nd ed.

(W illimanctic,CT : Curbstone Press, 1992). For a more recent account of a contemporary massacre that
occurred in 1981 in el Salvador during the Reagan led American financial and military support of anti-
communist combat troops in Central America

See The Massacre at E1 Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War. (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).

'0 Trujillo’s project to nationalize the border could also be defined as racial cleansing. However just as
important as the anti-black racial component in the anti-Haitian ideology was value placed on ethnicity
to differentiate black Haitians with black Dominicans.

ll

There are various categories of ethnic cleansing: induced assimilation, induced
immigration, and induced emigration. Induced assimilation can be characterized by
the assinrilationist "melting pot" theory of the United States.11 Induced irnrrrigration,
on the other hand, was popular in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when
govemments in Australia, Latin America and the Caribbean encouraged "white
immigrants" to settle their under-populated countries.12 An example of induced
emigration is perhaps best characterized by the nineteenth-century movement
whereby both whites and blacks in the United States encouraged freed blacks to
emigrate to Africa, particularly to Liberia. Scholar Michael Mann writes that none of
these types of cleansing is coercive. As ethnic cleansing escalates, however, coercion
becomes more pronounced. The last stages of ethnic cleansing are coerced
emigration, deportation, murderous cleansing, and finally genocide. Following
Mann’s argument, two of these forms of ethnic cleansing occurred in the 1937 Haitian
Massacre. First, prior to the massacre, there was induced immigration. Trujillo's
government passed, albeit weak, laws aiding the immigration of “whites” to the

country, especially to the border region. Meanwhile, the government also enacted

 

” See Michael Mama’s “The Dark Side of Democracy: The Modern Tradition of Ethnic and Political
Cleansing,” New Left Review, No.235 May-June 1999, pg.22; ppgs: 18-45.

'2 Ibid. Although it was understood that these immigrants were racially white on their arrival at their
respective Latin American countries, they were often classed by their ethnicities. See David Roedigger
Wages of Whiteness. For Dominican Republic see H. Hoetink’s The Dominican Republic, 1850—1900:
Notes for a Historical Sociology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). It is also
important to remember that white immigration as a mechanism to counter the large percentage of native
Blacks in Latin American countries like Brazil was not the sole option for many of these countries’
elites. In Brazil, like the Dominican Republic and the United States, Asians, Jews, and Arabs also
represented significant waves of immigration which transformed national identity and the very meaning
of what is was to be Brazilian. See Jeffrey Lesser’s Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants,
Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil. (Durham,NC: Duke University Press, 1999).

12

coercive emigration for thousands of Haitians to be deported to Haiti in 1936.13
These deportations then escalated into what Mann calls “murderous cleansing,”
represented by the 1937 massacre. Mann writes that "in rare cases, murder may lead
to the final escalation, genocide, the deliberate, systematic attempt to wipe out a

"14 What occurred in the Dominican Republic in 1937 did not

particular population.
start off as genocide. It began as ethnic cleansing and would have probably ended in
full-scale genocide if the international community had not intervened and persuaded
Trujillo to st0p the killings.

Unlike other projects of mass extermination, ethnic cleansing, and genocide,
the 1937 massacre of Haitians by Dominicans marked the beginning, rather than the
culmination, of an anti-Haitian state ideology. This is what emerges as most
distinctive about Dominican ethnic cleansing in 1937. In Nazi Germany, anti-Semitic
ideological propaganda preceded attacks against (i.e. Kristalnacht), and the eventual
extermination of, the Jewish population. In more recent cases of genocide, such as in
Rwanda, "the encouragement of ethnic hatred on the radio, together with the creation
and arming of militias, was one of the clearest early warning signs of an imminent

"15

genocide. What is so striking about the Haitian massacre is that, as the Dominican

scholar Bernardo Vega has also suggested, there was no gradual build-up of hate or

'3 To the best of my knowledge, there has been no in-depth study of these deportations that took place
in the early 19303, prior to the massacre. But there are famous immigration parallels that occurred
during the same time. In the 1930s, the United States confronting an economic crisis stemming from
the world-wide depression along with strong anti-Mexican feelings, led to the deportation of
government deported thousands of Mexicans to Mexico. See Abraham Hoffman’s Unwanted Mexican
Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures 1929-1939 (Tucson: University of
1Arizona, 1974).

Mann, “The Dark Side of Democracy,” pg.22.

l3

systematic ethnic attacks on the Haitian population through the media before the
massacre. In fact, prior to the massacre, the Dominican press had maintained open
and friendly relations in its coverage of Haiti. But this camaraderie between the two
governments would disappear in the wake of the killings. The Dominican
government's partnership with Haiti and its discourse of mutual respect and fiiendship
cultivated during the first seven years of Trujillo's rise to power changed abruptly.
The massacre and the new official anti-Haitian discourse were unprecedented. In no
other period in Dominican history had a government invested so much money and ink
in the creation and dissemination of a new national identity that aimed to portray
diametrically opposing cultures. '6
Like many border regions around the world, the border between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic had historically been a semi-autonomous region far from the
centers of power and a magnet for rebels and revolutionaries. But different countries
Viewed fiontiers in different ways. For the United States the frontier became the
defining moment in the American identity and was looked upon by European settlers
as redemptive (Frederick Turner). In contrast, throughout the late nineteenth and
“Wentieth centuries, Dominican capital elites, like their counterparts throughout Latin
America, viewed the frontier as a “backward” and “barbarous” region to be feared and

"civilized. In this case, capital cities represented the centers of life and civilization.

g

'5 See Frank Chalk’s “Radio Broadcasting in the Incitement and Interdiction of Gross Violations of
Human Rights, Including Genocide,” in Genocide: Essays Towards Understanding, Early- Warning
and Prevention (W illiamsburg,VA: Association of Genocide Scholars), pg. 187.

l6l‘o my understanding Derby and Turits were the first ones to point out this that in the Donrinican case
propaganda as a precursor to violence was absent in 1937. See Lauren Derby and Richar Turits’,

“Historias de terror y los terrores de la historia,” Estudios Sociales (Abril-Junio 1993), No.92 Ano
XXVI, pg.71.

l4

Historically, the Haitian side represented a neutral and ofien supportive refuge
for Dominican dissidents who plotted against their governments in Santo Domingo. It
appears to have been in this historical context that Trujillo feared an insecure border

between the country he now ruled and its co-lsland neighbor. The border region
undermined his power because, due to years of Haitian influence, represented a fertile
ground for Dominican exiles to plan and undertake invasions against his government.
How could Trujillo control a nation when part of its tenitory—the borderlands—was
undefined and settled by Haitians? Thus, he had to first devote extensive energy
towards befriending Haiti and seeking a resolution to the centuries-long border
diSpute. He accomplished this primary aim but centuries of intermarriage and cross-
cultural trade between Haitians and Dominicans continued and came to undermine
Trujillo's project to create a unified politically and culturally homogeneous nation.
Therefore, as it will become evident, it was imperative for him to secure control of the
Dominican side of the border. As Terry Martin has written for the Soviet case, a
nationalist project to consolidate the nation through state borders "coincided with the

Creation of ethnic borders."l7

W

As my work points out, the study of the Dominican Republic’s history must

begin on the border. Scholars have suggested that for the national histories of Latin

¥

:7 See Terry Martin’s “The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing,” The Journal of Modern History 70,
(December 1998),pg.815. I would like to thank Dr. Lewis Siegelbaum for bringing this article to my
attention.

15

America and their elites, frontiers have not been "central to the formation of national
identities or of national institutions".18 I argue, however, that the colonial fi'ontier
and the national Dominican border with Haiti have not been given the centrality that
they deserve as the region where the Dominican nation came to life. Part of the goal
Of this dissertation is to challenge the traditional historiography that sees the border as

a kind of separate string of wars, exiles, rebel caudillos, and massacres.19

Methodology

My study is a multi-layered examination of the border, which combines
historiographical and ethnographic analysis with institutional and social history.
Moving away fi'om the traditional top-down history, I utilized primary government
documents at the Archivo General de la Nacion in Santo Domingo. From these
archives, I teased out information that sheds light on the daily activities of border
Dominicans and oral histories fi'om elderly border residents present during the
Trujillo era My goals were: 1) to reconstruct, as best as possible, a snapshot of what
daily life was like throughout the border region under Trujillo, during the massacres,
and during the post-massacre reconstruction periods; and 2) to show the centrality of

the border and its inhabitants in Dominican history as a whole.

¥

‘3 See David J Weber and Jane M. Rausch’s introduction in Where Cultures Meet ed. (Wilmington,
DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1994), xiii.

9 This study shows that from the seventeenth century through the twentieth century, the border has
been an integral part and a catalyst in the development and evolution of the Dominican nation and
society. Here I am very much influenced by Peter Sahlins who writes that “the shape and significance
of the boundary line was constructed out of local social relations in the borderland.” See Peter Sahlins’

Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees. (Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1989), pg.8.

l6

Unfortunately, the type of history represented in my study has been, until very
recently, largely neglected by the traditional Dominican historiography. Much like the
German advocates of alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life) who strove to
“develop a more qualitative understanding of ordinary people's lives, both by
investigating the material circumstances of daily existence at work, at home, and at
Play," my study attempts to show that ordinary people both actively resisted and
embraced state encroachment along the Haitian-Dominican border.20 This study,
although in no way an exhaustive examination of border relations between Haiti and
the Dominican Republic, aims to show how a culture of co-existence emerged from

years of semi-autonomous border life before 1937.

Because I was passionately devoted to uncovering this hidden violence, I was
confronted with the possibility of unassumingly presenting this subject as a spectacle
of blood. The unavoidably necessary violent aspect of my work preoccupies me in
several ways. Like scholars such as E. Valentine Daniel, I am challenged by the
dilemma of informing the reader of a nefarious event without succumbing to the need
to be sanguinary. Daniel poses the query: "How do you write about the anthropology
of violence without it becoming a pornography of violence?"21 By writing about the
1937 Haitian Massacre and presenting the violence that it entailed, I have tried not to
make violence a fetish. I do, however, underscore the centrality of violence during the

Trujillo regime to show how he utilized this strategy to implement his state-building

project. Throughout my years of doctoral research and writing, I have been aware and

2° See Geoff Eley’s Forward in The History of Everyday Life. Reconstructing Historical Experiences
and Ways of Life ed. Alf Liidtke (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), viii.

17

ofien overwhehned with the fact that Trujillo exterminated more than 20,000 Haitian
and Dominican-Haitian human beings. I believe that this should and must be
documented to bring back to life, at least in some measure, the victims and their
memories—victims who have remained virtually invisible in the Dominican history
of the massacre and the history of global mass killings. All of the victims possessed
names, surnames and nicknames. Dramatizing the violence employed during 1937
Speaks to the brutality of the Dominican perpetrators but, more importantly, focuses
attention on a group of human beings who suffered cruel deaths—deaths that have
remained anonymous. Today their deaths take on an even more special meaning given
the prevalent tumultuous Dominican-Haitian relations.

To this day, Haitians are portrayed as invaders in Dominican society and the
Dominican government continues to intermittently deport them. In general,
Dominicans fail to see Haitians in a different light because they have been taught to
perceive them as a threat. It is true that the Republic of Haiti unsuccessfirlly attempted
to conquer the Dominican Republic in three different occasions in the nineteenth
century. These events have become a prominent part of the national memory.
However, it is important to point out that although the traditional historiography
neglects it, the reality is that Dominicans today should be grateful for the 1822-1844
Haitian unification of the island, which essentially abolished slavery. Many
Dominican border towns supported the 1822 invasion which represent the untold
story of a region and a people whose history has been more collaborative than

adversarial. From the mid- to the late nineteenth century and through the twentieth

 

2' See E. Valentine Daniel’s Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence.

18

of the massacre must show how ordinary Dominicans participated willingly and
unwillingly in this genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing. Debates similar to those that
other countries confront about their participation in the destruction of ethnic minority
groups must take place in the Dominican Republic. The most recognized example of
this self-negotiation is witnessed in contemporary German society’s present attempt to
comprehend why their forefathers participated in the killing of Jews and other
minorities knowing full well that their actions were morally reprehensible. The
Dominican Republic, a country much smaller in size and economic production and
very different from Germany in multiple ways, should not excuse itself from the
dialogue. Dominican Republic’s comparatively weaker position in the developing

world should not obviate its society from simulating Germany and asking itself: How

could Dominicans, especially those living in an undefined frontier zone, who were

familiar with Haiti and its people, be so callous about killing, burning, and burying

their Haitian neighbors?

With rampant talk of globalization in the Dominican Republic, the

government has failed to globalize the way it remembers its past. At a time when

there is a global movement to remember genocides and other crimes against

humanity, the Dominican Republic has not acknowledged or commemorated the
memories of the victims of the 1937 Haitian Massacre or any historical events
associated with Haiti. Among foreigners, Americans especially should be made aware
of this massacre because President Roosevelt, through diplomatic correspondence,
was aware of the killings, but failed to punish Trujillo and his government. For the

sake of preserving Latin American solidarity and assure the success of his Good

20

Neighbor Policy, President Roosevelt failed to publicly or privately scorn or develop a
policy to isolate Trujillo. All was forgotten when the United States entered World
War 11 against Germany and Japan and Trujillo declared his support for the allies.
One way in which Dominicans can begin rethinking the past is by actively
remembering their nation's rrristakes. Benedict Anderson writes that there is no shame
in feeling ashamed of your country's past mistakes and that crimes committed by the
state—past or present—should be condemned by the entire citizenry. Using the case
of America's role during the Vietnam War, Anderson writes that Americans "felt
ashamed that 'their' country's history was being stained by cruelties, lies, and
betrayals. So they went to work in protest, not merely as advocates of universal
human rights, but as Americans who loved the common American project.” He adds .
that, “This kind of political shame is very good and always needed."23 Dominicans
need to have this kind of shame as a collective group concerning not only Trujillo's
genocidal policy against Haitians in 1937, but other human rights violations during
the regime which continued to occur well beyond the dictatorship.

Today, more than ever, the concept of remembering a nation's shameful past
has become an extremely important tool in countries’ ability to cope with
uncomfortable parts of their history. As a way to come to terms with its past, the
South African government has created 3 Truth and Reconciliation Commission to
address the crimes committed against Blacks under the Apartheid government. Swiss

banks have agreed to pay more than a billion dollars to Nazi Holocaust survivors and

their families whose accounts were hidden by the banks. Recently, Sweden's prime

21

minister, Goran Persson, began reevaluating his country's role and collaboration with
Hitler's army during World War H. According to a recent New York Times article,
"Mr. Persson broke 60 years of tradition by ending a defense of neutral Sweden,
which, it has emerged, sold iron ore to Germany for munitions and let German troops
cross its territory into Finland and Norway." Trials against those persons who
masterminded the genocide in Rwanda are being conducted, albeit at a very slow
pace. President Clinton, who almost apologized for slavery in the United States
during his trip to Afiica, became the first US. president to apologize to his fellow
Arnericans and, in particular, to African-Americans for the painfirl and reprehensible
government project called the Tuskeegee experiment. If other governments
throughout the world can come to grips with their nations' unspoken and shameful
histories, then surely the Dominican Republic can begin the painful (not just
hJ'Storiographical) but redemptive process of remembering the victims of the 1937
Haitian Massacre and their responsibility to this event as heirs to this history.
Through this dissertation, I hope to undermine the persistent and inherent
nOtion in Dominican society that both groups have always existed apart from each
Other. This study serves as a denunciation of a regime which was not held accountable
for its actions in 1937, and for which regrertably the statute of limitations prevents
any future legal and redemptive recourse. Unfortunately, Trujillo was never punished
fol' his crimes against Haitians and for his crimes against humanity. Nor were any of
his ideologues, many of whom, have since died, ever held accountable for their

Participation in those crimes. None of his supporters has been brought before a judge

\

23
See Benedict Anderson’s “Indonesian Nationalism Today and in the Future,” in The New Left

22

America and their elites, fiontiers have not been "central to the formation of national

identities or of national institutions".18 I argue, however, that the colonial fi'ontier

and the national Dominican border with Haiti have not been given the centrality that
they deserve as the region where the Dominican nation came to life. Part of the goal
of this dissertation is to challenge the traditional historiography that sees the border as

a kind of separate string of wars, exiles, rebel caudillos, and massacres.l9

Methodology

My study is a multi-layered examination of the border, which combines
historiographical and ethnographic analysis with institutional and social history.
MOVing away from the traditional top-down history, I utilized primary government
documents at the Archivo General de la Nacion in Santo Domingo. From these
a1‘ohives, I teased out information that sheds light on the daily activities of border
Dominicans and oral histories fi'om elderly border residents present during the
Trujillo era. My goals were: 1) to reconstruct, as best as possible, a snapshot of what
daily life was like throughout the border region under Trujillo, during the massacres,
and during the post-massacre reconstruction periods; and 2) to show the centrality of

the border and its inhabitants in Dominican history as a whole.

\

18 See David J Weber and Jane M. Rausch’s introduction in Where Cultures Meet ed. (Wilmington,
2E: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1994), xiii.

This study shows that from the seventeenth century through the twentieth century, the border has

en an integral part and a catalyst in the development and evolution of the Dominican nation and
soCiety. Here I am very much influenced by Peter Sahlins who writes that “the shape and significance
0f the boundary line was constructed out of local social relations in the borderland.” See Peter Sahlins’

Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees. (Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1989), pg.8.

16

Unfortunately, the type of history represented in my study has been, until very
recently, largely neglected by the traditional Dominican historiography. Much like the
German advocates of alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life) who strove to
“develop a more qualitative understanding of ordinary people's lives, both by

investigating the material circumstances of daily existence at work, at home, and at
play," my study attempts to show that ordinary people both actively resisted and
embraced state encroachment along the Haitian-Dominican border.20 This study,
although in no way an exhaustive examination of border relations between Haiti and
the Dominican Republic, aims to show how a culture of co-existence emerged from
years of semi-autonomous border life before 193 7.

Because I was passionately devoted to uncovering this hidden violence, I was
Confronted with the possibility of unassumingly presenting this subject as a spectacle
0f blood. The unavoidably necessary violent aspect of my work preoccupies me in
Soveral ways. Like scholars such as E. Valentine Daniel, I am challenged by the
dilemma of informing the reader of a nefarious event without succumbing to the need
to be sanguinary. Daniel poses the query: "How do you write about the anthropology
of Violence without it becoming a pornography of violence?"21 By writing about the

1 937 Haitian Massacre and presenting the violence that it entailed, I have tried not to
1bake violence a fetish. I do, however, underscore the centrality of violence during the
Trujillo regime to show how he utilized this strategy to implement his state-building

prOject. Throughout my years of doctoral research and writing, I have been aware and

\

20
See Geoff Eley’s Forward in The History of Everyday Life. Reconstructing Historical Experiences
and Ways of Life ed. Alf Lildtke (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), viii.

l7

ofien overwhelmed with the fact that Trujillo exterminated more than 20,000 Haitian

and Dominican-Haitian human beings. I believe that this should and must be
documented to bring back to life, at least in some measure, the victims and their
memories—victims who have remained virtually invisible in the Dominican history
of the massacre and the history of global mass killings. All of the victims possessed
names, surnames and nicknames. Dramatizing the violence employed during 1937
speaks to the brutality of the Dominican perpetrators but, more importantly, focuses
attention on a group of human beings who suffered cruel deaths—deaths that have
remained anonymous. Today their deaths take on an even more special meaning given
the prevalent tumultuous Dominican-Haitian relations.

To this day, Haitians are portrayed as invaders in Dominican society and the
Dominican government continues to intermittently deport them. In general,
Dominicans fail to see Haitians in a different light because they have been taught to
perceive them as a threat. It is true that the Republic of Haiti unsuccessfully attempted
to conquer the Dominican Republic in three different occasions in the nineteenth
Century. These events have become a prominent part of the national memory.
However, it is important to point out that although the traditional historiography
tleglects it, the reality is that Dominicans today should be grateful for the 1822-1844
Haitian unification of the island, which essentially abolished slavery. Many

Dominican border towns supported the 1822 invasion which represent the untold
Story of a region and a people whose history has been more collaborative than

adversarial. From the mid- to the late nineteenth century and through the twentieth

\

2‘ See E. Valentine Daniel’s Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence.

18

century, Haitian and Dominican border residents created an interdependent and
mutual space where negotiation, understanding, and daily interaction were the norm.
Even today you can witness Dominicans and Haitians unassumingly buying and
selling goods to each other in markets along the border. According to one Dominican
provincial border governor, Dominicans "sell food to Haitians and they, at the same

time, sell them [Dominicans] clothes, perfumes and other personal items."22

The study’s aims-«why it’s important to do/ Bringipg redemption

 

This study builds on the work of others who seek to expose Trujillo's doctrine
0f anti-Haitianism and Hispanidad as a means to simultaneously underscore
Dominicans' cultural similarities with Spain and distance from Haiti. In reality,
however, Dominicans share more similarities than differences with their Haitian
neighbors. Teaching a more accurate version of Dominican-Haitian history will begin
the transformation of Dominican attitudes toward Haitians and, perhaps, will increase
Sensitivities toward immigrants' rights in the Dominican Republic.

Furthermore, the 1937 Haitian Massacre must be taught so that Dominicans

See it as a shamefirl part of their history; a history that is part of the tragedy of
genocide and ethnic cleansing around the world. The massacre must not be
remembered as neither an isolated incident nor as an aberration by a dictator and his

band of soldiers in a remote region of an underdeveloped country. The public memory

\

grinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pg. 4.
Interview with Miguel Mateo, Governor for the border province of Elias Pina Listin Diario May 12,

1997, 6C.

19

of the massacre must show how ordinary Dominicans participated willingly and
unwillingly in this genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing. Debates similar to those that
other countries confront about their participation in the destruction of ethnic minority
groups must take place in the Dominican Republic. The most recognized example of
this self-negotiation is witnessed in contemporary German society’s present attempt to
comprehend why their forefathers participated in the killing of Jews and other
minorities knowing full well that their actions were morally reprehensible. The
Dominican Republic, a country much smaller in size and economic production and
very different from Germany in multiple ways, should not excuse itself from the
dialogue. Dominican Republic’s comparatively weaker position in the developing
World should not obviate its society from simulating Germany and asking itself: How
Conld Dominicans, especially those living in an undefined frontier zone, who were
fallriliar with Haiti and its people, be so callous about killing, burning, and burying
their Haitian neighbors?

With rampant talk of globalization in the Dominican Republic, the
government has failed to globalize the way it remembers its past. At a time when
them is a global movement to remember genocides and other crimes against
hl-lInanity, the Dominican Republic has not acknowledged or commemorated the
Ihemories of the victims of the 1937 Haitian Massacre or any historical events

asSociated with Haiti. Among foreigners, Americans especially should be made aware
Of this massacre because President Roosevelt, through diplomatic correspondence,
Was aware of the killings, but failed to punish Trujillo and his government. For the

sElke of preserving Latin American solidarity and assure the success of his Good

20

 

Neighbor Policy, President Roosevelt failed to publicly or privately scorn or develop a
policy to isolate Trujillo. All was forgotten when the United States entered World
War 11 against Germany and Japan and Trujillo declared his support for the allies.

One way in which Dominicans can begin rethinking the past is by actively
remembering their nation's mistakes. Benedict Anderson writes that there is no shame
in feeling ashamed of your country's past mistakes and that crimes committed by the
state—past or present——should be condemned by the entire citizenry. Using the case
of America's role during the Vietnam War, Anderson writes that Americans "felt
ashamed that 'their' country's history was being stained by cruelties, lies, and
betrayals. So they went to work in protest, not merely as advocates of universal
human rights, but as Americans who loved the common American project.” He adds -
that, “This kind of political shame is very good and always needed."23 Dominicans

need to have this kind of shame as a collective group concerning not only Trujillo's
genocidal policy against Haitians in 1937, but other human rights violations during
the regime which continued to occur well beyond the dictatorship.

Today, more than ever, the concept of remembering a nation's shameful past
has become an extremely important tool in countries’ ability to cope with
uncomfortable parts of their history. As a way to come to terms with its past, the
South Afiican government has created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to
address the crimes committed against Blacks under the Apartheid government. Swiss
btanks have agreed to pay more than a billion dollars to Nazi Holocaust survivors and

their families whose accounts were hidden by the banks. Recently, Sweden's prime

21

minister, Goran Persson, began reevaluating his country's role and collaboration with
Hitler's army during World War 11. According to a recent New York Times article,
"Mr. Persson broke 60 years of tradition by ending a defense of neutral Sweden,
which, it has emerged, sold iron ore to Germany for munitions and let German troops
cross its territory into Finland and Norway." Trials against those persons who
masterminded the genocide in Rwanda are being conducted, albeit at a very slow
pace. President Clinton, who almost apologized for slavery in the United States
during his trip to Afiica, became the first US. president to apologize to his fellow
Americans and, in particular, to Afiican-Americans for the painful and reprehensible
government project called the Tuskeegee experiment. If other governments
throughout the world can come to grips with their nations' unspoken and shameful
hiStories, then surely the Dominican Republic can begin the painful (not just
hiStoriographical) but redemptive process of remembering the victims of the 1937
Haitian Massacre and their responsibility to this event as heirs to this history.
Through this dissertation, I hope to undermine the persistent and inherent
110tion in Dominican society that both groups have always existed apart from each
other. This study serves as a denunciation of a regime which was not held accountable
for its actions in 1937, and for which regrertably the statute of limitations prevents
any future legal and redemptive recourse. Unfortunately, Trujillo was never punished
for his crimes against Haitians and for his crimes against humanity. Nor were any of
his ideologues, many of whom, have since died, ever held accountable for their

participation in those crimes. None of his supporters has been brought before a judge

N...

23 . . . . . .
See Benedict Anderson’s “Indonesran Natronalrsm Today and m the Future,” in The New Left

22

to be tried in a court of law. And some, like Joaquin Balaguer, who has published
racist diatribes about Haitians, have gone on to become President of the Dominican
Republic.
Rewriting history is very much a political act, with readers serving as the
judges and the jury members.24 With this study, and others like it, the perpetrators
can finally be brought to trial. Surely we owe this to ourselves and to the thousands of

Haitian and Dominican-Haitian victims whose spirits roam the borderlands without

closure.

Nam

5mm, No.235 (May/June 1999), pg.l8.

1:rMichel-Rolph, Trouillot, Silencing the Past Power and the Production of History. (Boston: Beacon
ess, 1995).

23

Chapter 1
BIRTH OF A BOUNDARY
The border has shaped the historical development of both Dominican and
Haitian history since the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. In peacetime or in war,
successive Spanish colonial regimes and, subsequently, Dominican governments had
to wrestle with the border question as it pertained to the central govemment’s agenda
in Santo Domingo. Long before this region became an integral component in the
consolidation and modenrization of the Dominican nation under the dictator Rafael
Trujillo, the border had been the site of both interethnic relations and vibrant
economic activity. Through secondary sources, this chapter establishes the
borderlands as pivotal in the political and economic formation of this region, which

emerged from the violent encounter between the Spanish and the Indigenous

inhabitants of Hispaniola.

Ci

 

marrones and Contraband: The Border Region in the Siltteenth Century

Genocide was not exactly new to Hispaniola in 1937. The Spanish conquest of
the indigenous Tainos in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to the economic
exploitation of Hispaniola. Tainos were enslaved and the harsh and brutal working
conditions of the gold mines, along with a reduced immunity to the diseases carried
by Europeans, caused their dramatic decline in the early seventeenth century. The
shortage of Indian labor led the Spanish Conquistadores to replace a dwindling labor

force with imported Afiican labor. However, like their Taino counterparts, many

24

Africans resisted their new slave conditions by escaping to the colonial frontier: a
region virtually uninhabited by Europeans.

The frontier became an ideal place for runaway Afiican and Indian slaves to
escape slavery. The inhospitable and varied landscape, which ranges from steep
mountains, semi-deserts, dry vegetation, and hot temperatures made the border an
ideal place to hide from the French and Spanish colonial authorities. Moreover, the
sparsely populate frontier and the lack of a strong Spanish presence (due to the
crown’s depopulation policies, which I explain later) opened the way for French
expansionism in western Hispaniola and increased economic competition against
Spain.

The struggle for land and resources between the two European powers
converged on the border. This no-man’s land allowed the French to establish trading
and military posts throughout this region, while constantly encroaching eastward. This
provoked consecutive military confrontations between the French and the Spanish
forces. Although conflicts persisted intermittently along the border, several major
border agreements and treaties that became legal precedent for firture diplomatic
border arbitrations emerged throughout the colonial period. They would forever
Change the geographic, political, economic, and linguistic landscape of the island. The
French would come to occupy one-third of western Hispaniola, while Spain
controlled the eastern two-thirds of the island. These distinct monarchies and
governments, as well as differing economic systems, gave rise to a new border culture

Whose importance continued long into the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth

centuries.

25

Spanish colonization

During the initial phase of Spanish colonization and settlement, the only
boundaries within the island were the regional indigenous cacicazgos (chieftancies)
controlled by the five major Taino caciques (chiefs).l As the Spaniards settled the
island and their authority increased, the cacicazgos as regional markers (along with
their inhabitants), gradually disappeared.

For most Tainos, the arrival of the Europeans was an overwhelming threat to
their existence bringing with it violence, slavery, and death. The Spaniards forced
Tainos to work in agriculture and mining, especially in the dangerous and inhumane
task of extracting gold from the mines.2 This unprecedented exploitation along with
high mortality rates due to widespread disease, forced many Tainos to flee their
ICSpective homes. Many of these Taino cimarrones (runaway slaves) and, later,
African slaves, escaped to the inaccessible mountainous center part of the island to
escape the Spanish colonial authorities.

In the early sixteenth century, Africans were brought to Hispaniola as slaves to
work in the sugar ingenios (sugarrnills). From the backbreaking ordeal of cutting the
sugarcane to the exhausting process of extracting the juice and processing it, sugar

PTOduction on Hispaniola, as it would later become in Brazil, Haiti, Barbados,

 

 

I Frank Moya Pons, Manual de historic dominicana, 9th ed. (Santo Domingo: Caribbean Publishers,
1992). pg. 8. Each one of the five major Taino caciques: Guarionex, Caonabo, Behechio, Goacanagari,
and Cayacoa, was responsible for a specific region of the island.

Ibid. Moya Pons writes that “. . .the extraction of gold became everyone’s central
0FCUpation. . .Ovando [the governor of the island] was responsible for converting Hispaniola into a
Slant farm to exploit gold, where the Indians were enslaved and taken by force from their communities
to Work in the mines and the rivers breaking nuggets and washing gold for periods of eight to twelve

26

Martinique and Cuba, was a labor-intensive process.3 The Spaniards’ quest for higher
pro fits amidst a strong desire for fi'eedom on the part of the slaves led the latter to
escape to the mountains along the frontier. Along with Indian cimarrones, such as the
well-known Taino cacique Enriquillo, there were countless African runaway slaves
seeking refuge and freedom throughout the center of the island.4
From its beginnings, the border became a place where people escaped to, settled, and
co-existed together beyond the reaches of the state authorities. In essence, the border
was born out of a democratic need where people existed on equal terms.

Besides being a safe-haven for Indian and Afiican cimarrones escaping
Spanish domination, the sixteenth-century border region became the site where a very
distinct, hybrid, and vibrant culture emerged. The conglomeration of Afiican slaves,
Tainos, and European Spanish settlers led to the creation of a new and complex
culture that became the precursor of today’s Dominican-Haitian border culture. The
absence of a strong Spanish presence and, by extension, a lack of restrictive colonial
control on the frontier, meant that “there were multiethnic Creole children all over the
island, not just in Spanish dominated regions.”5 This new and diverse culture, which

emerged in resistance to Spanish rule, created a frontier region that presently

 

 

months, enduring fourteen hours daily without any food except casabe and water.” See Frank Moya
30118, El choque del descubrimiento (Santo Domingo: Biblioteca Taller, 1992), pg.39.

Some historians have argued that the early seventeen century Caribbean sugar plantations were
ex_3mp1es of prom-industrial processes originating in the colonies and not the metropole. See Sidney
1:31;?3 Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books,

). 48.
4 Ibid. 277. According to Dr. Silvio Torres Saillant, “The best known maroon society in Santo
PonliIIgo , whose population was crushed by the troops of a Captain Villalobos in 1666, had its camp
in the manic] (maroon settlement) of San José de Ocoa.” Closer to the border region and “historically
closest to us existed in Neiba, a section of present Barahona.” See “The Dominican Republic,” No
Ioflger Invisble: Afro-Latin Americans Today edited by Minority Rights Group. (London: Minority
ghghts Publications, 1995), pg.119.

Ibid.313.

27

 

continues to be multilingual, multicultural, and neglected by the central government.
Moreover, by the seventeenth century, the center of the island already boasted
ethnically and racially diverse communities setting the precedent to the mosaic of
complexions extant in present day Dominican Republic.‘5 This cultural dynamism and
economic autonomy, so integral to the Dominican-Haitian border, would represent a
serious challenge to the Spanish government and, subsequently, to Trujillo’s twentieth
century nation-building schemes.

The spontaneous border colonies composed of runaway Afiicans, Tainos, and
rogue Spaniards came to represent a threat to the Crown’s rule on the island.
Furthermore, these colonies also resulted in an autonomous economy existing beyond
the control of the Spanish authorities. For the Spanish colonists it was more profitable
to participate in the contraband trade with the French, the English, the Dutch, and the
Portuguese than it was to purchase imported goods from Spain. According to Manuel

A. Pena Batlle, “The foreigners paid better than the Spaniards, bought much more,
diversified the exchange and provided the inhabitants on many occasions with many
more things than what was sent from Spain.”7 Another reason for the prosperity of
the contraband trade was the continued lack of Spanish enforcement along the
frontier. The majority of the illegal trade was conducted on the north side of

HiSpaniola because Spanish presence and control was weaker there vis-a-vis Santo

 

 

6 See A. 0. Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of A merrca A True Account ofthe most remarkable assaults
committed by the English and the French buccaneers against the Spaniards in America. (Santo
Domingo. Editora Taller, 1992), 30. Originally published in 1678.

lgimme] A. Pena Batlle, La isla de la tortuga, tercera edicion. (Santo Domingo. Editora Taller,
88), 47.

28

Domingo in the south.8 Throughout the 15008, on the northern coast of the island,
contraband trade continued with Spain being unable to exert any control over it. By
the early 16008 Spanish authorities, still unable to contain or eliminate the contraband
trade, decided to depopulate the northern border of all its colonists and relocate them
around the city of Santo Domingo to the south.9 The redistribution of people and its
concomitant transformation of fi'ontier society would become one of the first
examples of numerous future crown and state interventions in the lives of border
residents.10
To contain the contraband trade, the Spanish Crown pursued a variety of

strategies. One such strategy was that of relocating the border population. The
Spanish authorities believed that depopulating the northern section of the island
would undermine the contraband trade and, with the new arrivals from the north,
reinvigorate the southern economy around Santo Domingo.11 Spain believed that

these relocations would strengthen their trading and military position against the

“enemy” contrabandists. However, the relocations proved to be traumatic considering

that the inhabitants were part of a frontier society that had been in existence for about

 

 

:Manuel A. Pena Batlle, La isla de la tortuga, pg. 45.

9Alncl'ico Lugo. Historia de Santo Domingo desde el 1556 hasta l 608. (Ciudad Trujillo: Editorial
lLibreria Dominicana, 1952),159.

11 l0America Lugo, Historia de Santo Domingo desde el 1 556 hasta 1608, pg. 160.

According to a Crown letter to Hispaniola Governor Osorio, “commerce will grow sending their
PYOducts to Spain, everything leaving and entering through the port of Santo Domingo" .it appears to
me a good thing" .the relocation of the three towns.” See Real cedula a Ossorio, 6 agosto 1603, Reales
cédulas y correspondencia de gobernadores de Santo Domingo de la Regencia del Cardenal Cisneros
en adelante, 1582 al 1609, tomo HI. (Madrid: Graficas Reunidas, S .A., 1958), 789.

29

hundred years.12 This was their home and many decided not to follow the crown’s
orders.

The relocations also marked the beginning of a long tradition of border
resistance against capital government encroachment. The relocated colonists protested
and these protests escalated to a popular rebellion resisting being moved to the south.
Many of the border residents (most of who were black and mulatto) fled to the
mountains in order to avoid relocation. ‘3 Instead of undermining the contraband trade
in the north, the relocation project of the Spanish authorities, unintentionally, opened
the doors for the French to temporarily and, eventually, permanently to settle in
northwestern Hispaniola. As a result, this region became the site of initial conflict
between the European colonial powers of Spain and France. The future struggles over
territory and eventual border disputes would all stem from the question of who would
control this region and its commerce.14

French colonial expansion and eventual settlement of northwestern Hispaniola
led to military confrontations with Spain. The point of confiontation between the two
colonial powers shaped the development of the Dominican-Haitian border. Part of this
conflict was also due to the growing inter-colonial trade between French San

Domingue in the west and Spanish Santo Domingo in the east, despite intermittent

 

l2Peila Batlle, Obras escogidas, pg.233. According to scholar Pefia Batlle, “It is reasonable to think
that when the order was given to destroy these northwestern towns, those with more than one hundred
years of being founded had generated their own way of life.”

'3 Americo Lugo, Historia de Santo Domingo desde l 55 6 hasta 1608, pg. 176-177.

According to Lugo, after the depoblaciones, “All of the island’s population remained between the cities
of Santiago and Villa de Azua, except other small towns, which were Boia, Ceibo, and Higuei, which
are on the other side of this city [Santo Domingo].” pg.204.

" “The first buccaneer on Tortuga was a certain Pierre le Grand of Dieppe, who, in the year 1602, with
one boat and a crew of twenty-eight, captured the vice-admiral of the Spanish fleet off Cape Tiburon, in
the west of Hispaniola.” See Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of A merica, pg.56.

30

wars in Europe between France and Spain. Yet, the growing economic activity in an
undefined region far from both colonial capitals convinced colonial officials that a
boundary demarcating territorial conquests was necessary. The end of the seventeenth
century saw France and Spain end their hostilities in Europe. This detente between the
two colonial powers would have a major impact in their Caribbean colonies and
resulted in the first drafted border agreements followed by treaties demarcating the

colonies’ territorial limits.

The First French-Spanish Border Treaties

Ironically, the first agreement associated with the colonial partition of
Hispaniola had nothing to do with the Caribbean island. The Treaty of Ryswick in
1697 was not created with Hispaniola in mind. The treaty, which ended a European
war between France and Spain, brought peace to France’s King Luis XIV and the
Habsburg Alliance.” Contrary to what much of the Dominican traditional
historiography recounts, this was not a treaty giving France the western one-third of
Hispaniola. The treaty never referred to Hispaniola and/or French claims to their
settlements on the island, and it had no reference to border demarcations. According
to Frank Moya Pons, the confusion concerning the “First border line of some
Dominican historians comes from the interpretation that the French gave to the
Ryswick Peace Treaty, since the belligerent parties in Europe agreed to put an end to

the war, returning the conquered lands and recognizing the possessions that each one

31

of them had prior to the conflict.”16 Quite naturally, the French colonists in western
and northern Hispaniola used the Treaty of Ryswick to justify further eastern
encroachments into Spanish territory.

The French gradually occupied lands east of the accepted river boundaries,
causing violent confrontations with Spanish colonial forces who were intent on
dismantling these settlements east of the established rivers.17 Ultimately, the
skirmishes between the French settlers and Spanish troops led to the 1731 border
agreement. This agreement was the first of its kind. It became the foundation for
future border negotiations on the island. The formal boundaries now became the
“Daj abon River in the north extending southwards to the Libon and Artibonito
rivers.”18 While both the French and the Spaniards were trying to create a fixed
border, two distinct but complementary economies were developing on both sides of
the island.

The low numbers of settlers forced the Spanish authorities to initiate an
immigration policy that would be repeated up through the twentieth century with the
hopes of populating the eastern part of the island. In light of this problem the Spanish
Crown, as early as the late sixteenth century, brought over families fiom the Canary
Islands to increase the population levels in Hispaniola. The Canary Islanders were
brought to live in Santo Domingo and, particularly, to the frontier. These families,

established in border towns such as Bénica, were positioned to act as buffer zones

 

'5 Jacinto Girnbernard, Historia de Santo Domingo, (Santo Domingo: Offset Sarda, 1971), 154.

'6 Frank Moya Pons, “La Primera linea fronteriza,” Rumbo, pg.5.

'7 Ibid. 5. Moya Pons writes that, “In the south, the maps of that period show that the French demands
reached up to the vicinity of Azua.”

'8 Moya Pons, Rumba, February 10-16 1994, pg.5.

32

against French settlers who periodically sought eastward expansion into Spanish
territory. The new immi grants, however, were unaccustomed to Hispaniola’s harsh
terrain and its tropical hot climate. Many abandoned the region or fell victim to
disease.19 Along with the depopulation policy of the early 1600s, the discoveries of
massive gold, silver, and copper deposits in Mexico and Peru diverted many
conquistadors away from Hispaniola. In other times, these conquistadors would have
remained in Santo Domingo as settlers.

Overall, eighteenth-century Santo Domingo accounted for very low population
levels. The classic travel account by the Martinican M.L. Moreau de Saint-Mery, who
visited Santo Domingo in the late eighteenth-century, offers some data on population
levels. In Spanish Hispaniola, Moreau de Saint-Mery writes that, “A census taken in
1737 demonstrates clearly that the total population did not reach more than six
thousand souls and the capital only counted with barely 500.”20 For Santo Domingo
and the border, the eighteenth century brought a languishing economy. Furthermore,
the colony remained a difficult place for the Spanish colonial authorities to control.
For French Hispaniola, on the other hand, life was a completely contrasting story.

Since the 16008 and the days of buccaneers and contrabandists, French
settlement on western and northwestern Hispaniola had been growing at a steady
pace.21 The western part of the island, now called Saint Domingue, would become

France’s richest colony thanks to the forced labor of African slaves and the “white

 

19 -
Ibld.

2° M.L. Moreau de Saint-Mery, Descripcio'n de la parte Espariola de Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo:

Editora Montalvo, 1944), pg.158.

33

gold” of the Caribbean: sugar. It has been estimated that by the 1700s Saint
Domingue produced close to one-fourth of all the world’s sugar supply. Thus, this
French colony reaped the benefits of selling a highly prized commodity to an
insatiable international market, while eastern Hispaniola and Santo Domingo
languished in isolation. The disparity between these two colonial economies could be
seen clearly from the perspective of the periphery or frontier.

The difference in colonial economic development between French and
Spanish Hispaniola is evident in the observations of traveler’s accounts such as the
Moreau de Saint-Mery. The Martinican Francophobe traveler recorded his biased
observations of the eastern end of the island and was surprised to find French Saint
Domingue in a more advanced state vis-a-vis Spanish Santo Domingo. While
traveling near the border, Saint-Mery observed: “The most surprising thing and
perhaps the most typical to demonstrate, the character of the two nations, is to look
west of the Massacre [River], establishments in which all of them announce an active
industry and a joy that extends to luxury items, while on the other side, everything
shows sterility, since the small portions of cultivated land with barely what is
necessary for the life of an animal cannot destroy the sad monotony of this aspect.”22
Since the depoblaciones, the Santo Domingo colony descended into a state of
economic paralysis. Neither mining nor sugar production fueled the economy of Santo

Domingo. Eventually, cattle and livestock breeding, rather, became Santo Dorrringo’s

major source of trade.

 

2' Bucaneers were seventeenth-century traders and hunters who inhabited the island of Tortuga north of
Hispaniola. They often traded with the inhabitants of the northern coast of Hispaniola who decided to
remain there afier the depoblaciones.

34

In the late eighteenth-century the laws of supply and demand would force
these two neighboring, one-island colonies to become mutually dependent economic
trading partners. For years, eastern Hispaniola had dedicated itself to deve10ping an
economy of ranching and to the cultivation of small plots of land.23 Yet, due to the
crown’s monopolistic regulations, Santo Domingo’s meat could only legally be
shipped and sold directly to Spain. This strict economic trade regulation explains the
increased contraband trade to and fiom colonial French Saint Domingue.
Furthermore, this trade with French Saint Domingue was more profitable for Santo
Domingo than the sanctioned trade with Spain. With an entrenched and profitable
slave economy that consisted of hundreds of thousands of slaves and thousands of
colonists to the west, Santo Domingo emerged as the best source of meat for the
French colony. Consequently, the frontier became the economic lifeline that
supported both internal economies. This arrangement became, as the father of
Dominican historiography writes, “more advantageous for the Spanish part than for
the French because the former did not have anything to trade but beasts and livestock,
while the latter had an abundance of everything, and found itself already at the height
of progress, which depended on the constant work of three hundred and fifty thousand
slaves[.]”2"

In the French colony of Saint Domingue the economy of sugar required a large

and constant supply of slaves to produce, package, and export this product for

 

22 ML. Moreau de Saint-Mery, Descripcio'n de la parte espaiiola de Santo Domingo, 209.

23 Frank Moya Pons writes that “Those who study history know that during almost four centuries cattle
was the base of the Dominican economy.” See Rumbo, 19-25, April 1995, pg.4.

2‘ José Gabrial Garcia, Compendium de la historia de Santo Domingo, tomo I. (Santo Domingo:
Editora dc Santo Domingo, 1979), pg.207.

35

European consumption. Santo Domingo’s economy revolved mainly around small
plot agriculture and livestock. In the late 1700s, the exploitative slave system that was
so integral to colonial Haiti failed to materialize on the eastern part of the island. This
profoundly affected the institution of slavery in both colonies. The different
economies that evolved between both colonies would also shape the racial majorities
that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

In order to export one-fourth of the world’s sugar, Saint Domingue required
large number of slaves to grow and harvest the crop. With so many Afiican slaves
arriving in Saint Domingue, Haiti’s population quickly became predominately black.
Santo Domingo’s economy in Eastern Hispaniola, conversely, did not depend on
similar highly intensive mono-crop production. Colonists on eastern Hispaniola
“continued, for various reasons, attached to the traditional mode of production, which
consisted, in an extensive way, of utilizing the land and dedicating it to the breeding
of livestock or the cultivation of staple crops.”2 The sugar plantation system in Santo
Domingo, like the rest of eastern Hispaniola, declined throughout the late seventeenth
century. This, along with political and economic neglect by Spain in the seventeenth
century, led to higher rates of miscegenation in Santo Domingo, and especially along
the frontier. As a result, the mulatto would become the future “predominant type in
the ethnic composition of the Dominican Republic.”26

Despite their economies becoming more integrated, the Spanish and French

colonies had not reached a political agreement over the territorial limits of their

 

2’ Frank Moya Pons, Historic Colonial de Santo Domingo, tercera edicicion PUCCM (Espana:
Industrias Graficas M. Pareja, 1977), 249.

36

respective fi'ontiers. During the mid-eighteenth century, violent confrontations
between French and Spanish colonists on the border led colonial authorities to begin
negotiations over a potential border agreement. Between 1731 and 1777, France and
Spain entered into a series of border agreements in efforts to secure the economy and
territorial limits of French Saint Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo. Thanks to
the 1731 border treaty, which established the first border limits on the island and
made possible the stabilization and increase in commercial trade between the two
colonies, new border towns were founded to repopulate the Spanish frontier. Towns
such as San Juan de la Maguana (1733), Neiba (1735), Montecristi (1751), and San
Rafael (1761), among others farther east in Samaria and south in Bani, were founded
to repopulate the northern border with Spanish colonists. One town that symbolized
the eighteenth-century border growth was Dajabon (1776). According to Dominican
historian José Gabriel Garcia, Daj abon “continued to progress morally and materially,
at a faster pace than others. The town of Daj abdn, founded in 1776 on the eastern
shore of the Daj abon river, which, due to the mercantile transactions that were made
between the sections of the island, already could count on more than a hundred houses
and four thousand inhabitants, and with much reason the parish was erected and
separated from the one in Santiago [in 1740].”27
Throughout this period, the border continued to be an attractive place for

people running away fi'om the law. The colonial autorities’ inability to control this

region led to perhaps the island’s first inter-colony extradition treaty in 1762.

 

2" See Silvio Torres-Saillant’s, “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity, ”
Latin American Perspectives, Vol.25, No.3 (May 1998), 134.

37

Fugitives “would be returned to the first border positions with the promise of only
having employed on them the penalty of prison or personal work in public works.”28
No longer was the border, at least on paper, a nebulous region of the island. With the
Treaty of Aranjuez (1777), the border became a tangible reality when stone pyramid-
shaped markers were placed to demarcate the agreed-upon border between the
colonial governments of Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo. The Aranj uez treaty
marked a turning point for the economy of Spanish Hispaniola. The treaty allowed
freer and less restrained trade across the border for Santo Domingo beef exporters,
who had become the major suppliers in Saint Domingue’s economy. Furthermore, the
success of sugar production in western Hispaniola and the concomitant importation of
thousands of slaves served as the catalysts for the economic revival of Spanish Santo

Domingo in the mid to latel 7003.29
The Haitian Revolution and the Treaty of Basilea

The Haitian Revolution struck an undeniable blow to slavery and its
ideological underpinnings of white supremacy. The 1789 French Revolution’s
slogan—Liberte, Fraternite, and Egalite—had a profound impact on the poor and non-
privileged sectors of French society. Furthermore, these ideals were appealing to the
Caribbean-bom slave-owning mulattos who, despite their wealth and influence, faced
discrimination by white Saint Domingue colonial society who detested the mulattoes’

Afiican heritage. Between 1790s and the early 1800s and led by the great Toussaint

 

27 José Garbiel Garcia, Compendio de la historic de Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo: Irnprenta de
Garcia Hermanos, 1893, pg.210.
28 ML. Moreau de Saint-Mery, Descripcién de la parte este espcriolc de Santo Domingo, pg.416.

38

L’Ouverture, former black slaves fought against a British and French invasion and
participated in a civil war against the mulatto class. For Spanish Hispaniola, there was
no escaping the revolutionary upheaval on the western end of the island. Spain went
to war with France to, among other things, protect slavery in its colonies and
especially in their once-prized possession of Santo Domingo. Nevertheless, Spanish
Santo Domingo would also be controlled by Toussaint L’Ouverture and his
followers.30 Thus, in the mid-1790’s, the island became temporarily, if only legally,
unified. For a people who had lived as Spanish subjects, the incorporation of eastern
Hispaniola into the realm of their old nemesis, France, proved to be traumatic.

In 1795, France and Spain ended their disputes in Europe and signed the
Treaty of Basilea. The treaty ceded Spain’s Caribbean possession of Hispaniola to the
French. The Treaty stipulated that “the Spanish troops were soon to be evacuated
from the plazas, ports and establishments they occupied to hand them over to the
French forces that will be present themselves to take possession of these sites.”3 1
Years of military conflicts, diplomatic negotiations, and treaties came to an end, not
in victories on the battlefield but by a stroke of the pen. Those colonists who felt
threatened by the new reality of French rule, and who could afford to, fled Santo

Domingo to neighboring Caribbean islands. They chose as a destination those isands

controlled by Spain. Others fled the border towns and the colony before being

 

29 Frank Moya Pons, Manual de historic dominiccnc, pg.153.

3° Manuel Arturo Pena Batlle. El Trctcdo de Basilea y la desnccionclizccién del Santo Domingo
espcfiol. Ciudad Trujillo: Irnpresora Dominicana, 1952), pg.5. It is important to point out that Spanish
colonial support on the eastern part of hispaniola was crucial for the success of the Haitian Revolution.
I like to thank Dr. Laurent Dubois for helping me to understand that neither nation (Haiti or the
Dominican Republic) could have existed without the support of the other.

3’ Jose' Gabiel Garcia Compendio de la historic de Santo Domingo, Jose Gabriel Garcia, pg.255.

39

captured by Haitian (Toussaint’s) forces.32 Nevertheless, although eastern Hispaniola
was now legally French, the future of the island and, who would ultimately rule it,
remained uncertain.

Toussaint’s arrival in Santo Domingo in 1801 affirmed the black Haitian
leader as the undisputed military leader of the entire island. Additionally, his arrival
reinforced the Treaty of Basilea and officially consolidated Hispaniola as a French
colony occupied by pro-French Republican ex-slaves. Toussaint’s unification,
however, was short-lived. In 1802 Napoleon sent his army to Hispaniola to overthrow
Toussaint and declare slavery once again. Napoleon’s army failed. In 1804, Haiti was
finally able to declare political independence from France and became the first nation
in the Americas to abolish slavery.

No other European colony felt the brunt of the Haitian Revolution more than
Santo Domingo. The Spanish colony now abandoned by Spain, thanks to the Treaty
of Basilea, was left to fend for itself as the defeated French armies withdrew from
Hispaniola. Between 1804 and 1808 Spanish Santo Domingo was controlled by the
French under General Jean Louis Ferrand who barely was able to defend the capital
against
three Haitian military assaults. In retreating to Haitian soil Haitian armies applied a
scorched earth policy to all the interior towns of the former Spanish colony.

Historical events such as this will eventually form a legacy, which Trujillo and post-

 

” “. . .the comfortable class [of the Spanish side] continued to leave through all the ports and in all the
ports and in all directions, as the occasions present themselves.” See Jose Gabriel Garcia, Compedio
de la historic de Santo Domingo, pg.268.

40

Trujillo intellectuals used to mobilize Dominican anti-Haitian prejudice in the
twentieth century.

It was not until 1809 that Santo Domingo reverted back to being a Spanish
colony.
In Dominican history, the period between 1808 and 1822 is called “La Espafia Boba”
(loosely translated as “Silly Spain”) to describe the colony’s fall into economic and
political disarray. In late 1821 and early 1822, the Spanish colonial governor Nunez
de Céceres would claim an ephemeral independence, which was seen by many
Dominicans as an effort to “maintain slavery.”33 Apparently, Nunez de Caceres
believed he could easily win independence while reestablishing slavery without any
resistance. Between 1822 and 1844, however, eastern Hispaniola was once again
annexed to Haiti under Haitian President Jean Pierre Boyer. Significant Dominican
support for Boyer’s unification plans confirmed that many of the black and mulatto
inhabitants of eastern Hispaniola, especially those near the border region, were all too
aware that they would suffer under Nunez de Caceres’ paradigm of independence.
They would become slaves, just like the men, women, and children in Cuba, Puerto
Rico, Brazil, and the United States. It was no surprise then that many towns,
particularly near the border, raised Haitian flags in support of Boyer and freedom.34

Nevertheless, Boyer’s “invasion” in Dominican history is typically represented as a

 

33 Gustavo Rodolfo Mejia Ricart, Historic de Santo Domingo. Vol.VIII. (Ciudad Trujillo: Editores
Hermanos Pol, 1956), 447. The traditional historiography ignores that with the Haitian invasion of
eastern Hispaniola slavery--which had stood since the sixteenth centuryuwas abolished by Boyer’s
ovemment.
Andrés Julio Montolio, Resumen de una cuestién Diferendo Dominico-Hciticno. (Santo Domingo:
lmprenta Escobar, 1911), pg.46-47. On February 9, 1822, in the National Palace of Santo Domingo,
Boyer began his triumphant and unprecedented speech by saying, “The National [Haitian] flag floats

41

“dark chapter” in the traditional nationalist historiography. This event is yet another
example of how the border came to play an integral role in the development and
representation of Dominican history.

Aside fi‘om the prejudice that Boyer encountered in Santo Domingo, he was
welcomed and supported by many Dominicans.” Prior to his invasion, Boyer wrote
that residents of eastern Hispaniola, particularly border cities such as Dajabon,
MonteCrist [sic], Las Caobas, Azua, San Juan, and Las Matas [de Farfan], “have
received their orders and obey them.”36 Dominican border residents, many who could
trace their origins to runaway slaves, again, were at the forefront of claiming their
freedom this time by supporting the faction they believed was most beneficial to
them. Finally, Boyer was able to enter triumphantly through the gates of Santo
Domingo in 1822 because border residents from Monte Cristi to Dajabon had
resoundingly opted to support his military campaign. This is a historical fact that has
never fully been incorporated into either the Dominican historiography or transmitted
through the educational system’s curriculum.37 Much of the Haitian annexation’s
appeal, in the eyes of the inhabitants of Santo Domingo, came from Boyer’s

declaration of the abolition of slavery throughout eastern Hispaniola. In fact, the

 

over all the points of the island that we inhabit! . . .Already over this land of liberty there are no longer
slaves and we do not form anything but a single family whose members are united forever. . .,” pg.42.
’5 Moya Pons, Manual de historic dominiccnc, pg.223. Pons writes that “He (Caceres) like Boyer
knew that the majority of the the population was mulatto and it saw favorably the island’s unification
with Haiti, whose govemment promised lands and the abolishment of slavery—which were very little
for sure—and he knew that he could not count on support from even his own class.” As Pons also
points out during Boyer’s march on Santo Domingo, Dominicans were divided into three ideological
carnps: one pro-hispanic; pro~Colombian (Simon Bolivar’s Gran Colombia project); and one pro-
Haitian. The existence of a group of Dominicans who favored the Haitian invasion is important but in
the traditional anti-Haitian Dominican historiography this exarrrple of Dominicans supporting a Haitian
invasion (“the dark chapter” in Dominican history) is not ignored.

’6 Gustavo Rodolfo Mejia Ricaart, Historic de Santo Domingo, VIII, pg.451.

42

Haitian unification of Hispaniola represented a beacon of liberty for slaves all across
the Americas. Even as late as the mid-18008, Puerto Rican slaves took wooden boats
and made the treacherous seventy mile westward journey to reach the Dominican
Republic where, thanks to Haiti, slavery had been abolished since 1822.38

On the other hand, the unification of the towns by Boyer had, according to one
Spanish document, “produced great and general uncertainty on the part of the
inhabitants, and especially the white people, in terms that the neighbors of Samaria
and Sabana de la Mar, French and Spaniards alike, have not received aid.”39 Needless
to say, whites in Hispaniola, already traumatized by the 1804 Haitian revolution next
door, viewed the unification of the island under Haitian forces as a threat to their
economic stability and racial superiority. For them, Boyer’s march across the island
did not represent a beacon of hope but a loss of economic and racial power and
privilege.

In 1844, the Dominican Republic, unlike other Latin American and Caribbean
nations whose independence movements mostly emerged from a rejection of
European colonialism, declared its political independence from Haiti, itself a former
European colony. For the next sixteen years, Haiti tried several times to invade the

Dominican Republic and reunify the island. As a result, the border continued to play a

 

’7 See Frank Moya Pons, Lc dominccion hciticnc, 1822-1844 3rd. Ed. (Santiago: UCMM, 1978),
g.3 1.
£8 Punta Cana is in the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic. “Up until the year 1873, in which
the abolition of slavery was proclaimed in Puerto Rico, the escapes by Puerto Ricans toward the
Dominican Republic were fi'equent, in spite of the extreme precautions of the Spanish authorities in
Borinqen [indigenous name for Puerto Rico]? See Aristides Inchaustegui and Blanca Delgado
Malagon in Vetilio Alfau Duran’s Clio, Vol.II. (Santo Domingo: Gobiemo Dominicano, 1994), 378-
379.

43

significant role in the political development of the young Republic. Each time Haiti
organized its armies to invade eastward, the Dominican border felt the brunt of the
invasion. Between 1844 and 1855, most of the major military battles that took place
between Dominican and Haitian troops occurred throughout the border region. Even
the last battle that saw Dominicans defeat the Haitian army definitively, occurred near
the border town of Monte Cristi.40 Nevertheless, and in the midst of war, Dominicans
continued to entertain the idea of attracting immigrants to their country due to the
“great lack of inhabitants?“ Offering everything from free state lands to travel
sponsorships and exemptions for potential immigrants, Dominican officials viewed
immigration as a panacea for their nation’s [read Haitian] ins.42

In the nineteenth century, the border region became the most important marker
for measuring the survival of Dominican independence. Militarily speaking, Haitian
forces seeking to control the capital of Santo Domingo would have to traverse the
mountainous border region and control it to advance to the capital. The difficulty of

this task explains why subsequent attempts to reunify the island failed. Moreover

 

39 See Edicién oficicl Reptiblica Dominicana Secretaric de Estado de Relcciones Exteriores,
documentos historicos procedente del Archivo General de Indics. Audiencic de Santo Domingo 78-5-
17. II. (Santo Domingo: Tip. Luis Sanchez A., 1928), pg.9l.

‘0 “At the end of January 1856, the battle of Sabana Larga in Monte Cristi, and with the secondary
actions, the fourth and final independence campaign [against Haiti] ended.” See Rufino Martinez,
Hombre dominicanos: Deschcmps, Heurecwr y Lupero’n Santana y Bdez. (Santo Domingo: Sociedad
Dominicana de Brhliofilos, 1985), 263. The names of the battles are: The Battle of La Estrelleta and
Beler (1845); the Battle of Las Carreras ( 1849); the Battle of Santomé and Cambronal (1855); and the
Battle of Sabana Larga and Jacuba (1856).

“ Jose del Castillo, “Las inmigraciones y su aporte a la cultura dominicana (Finales del siglo XIX y
principios del XX)”, in Enscyos sobre culturc dominicana, Bernardo Vega, Carlos Dobcl, Carlos
Esteban Deive, Ruben Silié, and Frank Maya Pons. (Santo Domingo: Museo del Hombre Dominicano,
1981), 182.

’2 Ibid. Some of the immigrants arriving to the Dominican Republic in the late nineteenth century
were Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, Sephardic Jews, Haitians, English speaking West Indians, Cubans,
and Arabs.

Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Dominican society saw irmnigrants arrive from

44

. aside from geographical terrain which served as a defense barrier, without the support
of border towns and its residents bearing the brunt of the numerous invasions, Haitian

imperial designs would have probably succeeded. 43
The Border Region During the Spanish Annexation

The major test to sustain Dominican independence would come in the early
1860s when Spain would annex its former colony. The Dominican Republic, the only
Latin American nation not to declare independence from a former colonial power,
would finally get the chance to do so in a bloody guerilla war for national
independence. This war to restore the Republic in the early 1860s showed, once again,
how the border played a fundamental role in the victory against Spanish forces as a
strategic economic and military zone.

In 1861, after years of fighting for its independence against Haitian military
invasions, Spain annexed the Dominican Republic. Led by Dominican annexationists
such as President Pedro Santana, who feared the nation was too weak to preserve its
independence alone, the Dominican Republic retumed to the colonial fold and lost its

sovereignty. In a letter dated April 1860 to Her Majesty Queen Isabel II of Spain, the

 

’3 For the Estrelleta and Beler battles, see See Frank Moya Pons, Manual de historic dominicana,
pg.299-300. For the rest of the battles, see Cayetano Armando Rodriguez, chronterc dominico-
hciticnc. (Santo Domingo: J .R Vda. Garcia, Sucesores, 1929), 495. By the mid-18405, the Dominican
army responsible for repelling the post- independence invasions was comprised of 1,500 men. There
are several travel accounts by foreigners, which documented Dominican society in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Among these was an account by David Dixon Porter, an American sent to the
Dominican Republic to facilitate Washington’s decision in giving the Caribbean nation diplomatic
recognition. Porter writes, “The soldiers, as I said before, are not well-disciplined and many of them are
badly dressed and without shoes, but they are a group of men with good presence (the majority of the
soldiers are black) and appear to have a certain military pride. Their marvelous success against
numerous overwhelming enemy [attacks] has given them a sense of their superiority and would fight
until the death in defense of their colors.” See David Dixon Porter, Diario de unc mision secreta a
Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliofilos, 1978), 43.

45

General from the eastern province of El Seibo, military hero, and veteran of countless
battles against Haitian forces wrote: “Our origin, our language, our religion, our
customs, our sympathies, inspires us to wish to find that stability in our mother
[Spain] one more perfect union, and surely a better opportunity will never present
itself than the circumstances offered us today.”44 However, Spaniards had their own
opinions about the inhabitants of Santo Domingo. In debates concerning the future of
Spanish annexation in Santo Domingo, Spaniards clearly contradicted Santana’s
romantic view of Spain. Spain viewed the Dominican Republic as a former colony
inhabited by former slaves. Many in Spain, regardless of cultural similarities brought
about by colonialism, could not see themselves treating as equals people of the

”45 The Spanish considered

“Ethiopian race...composed of negroes and mulattoes.
Dominicans to be black, inferior, and incompatible with their own culture and
background.

By the time that Spanish annexation was being contemplated, Dominicans
were living as independent people and many Dominicans occupied positions of power
in the military. Blacks were so successful in the military that when Spain annexed
Santo Domingo, there were Dominican blacks who sided with the Spanish
government but held higher ranks (because of their military experience in the various

wars against Haiti) vis-a-vis the less seasoned and inexperienced white annexationist

officers and foot soldiers. Spanish soldiers, particularly in Cuba, were accustomed to

 

“ José de la Gandara, Anexién y guerrc de Santo Domingo, Tomo I. (Santo Domingo: Sociedad
Dominicana de Bibliofilos, 1975), 396.

’5 Declaration by Seijas Lozano, Spain’s Minister of Colonies. See Highlights in the Debates in the
Spanish Chamber of Deputies Relative to the Abandonment of Santo Domingo, ed. David G.
Yuengling (Washington DC: Murray & Heister, 1941), pg] 15.

46

seeing blacks in subservient positions and not as commanding officers, and especially
not having command over white soldiers. Moreover, Caribbean and Latin American
whites contained a fear that well-armed black men would mobilize under the banner
of freedom and threaten their achieved power.46 Historians like Phillip Foner, along
with recent groundbreaking work by historian Ada F errer, confirm the participation of
Cuban blacks commanding multiracial Cuban armies in the Ten Year’s War (1868-
1878) and after.

For Ferrer, “this was not just an [Cuban] army in which the masses of black
soldiers served under a much smaller number of white officers, for many black
soldiers ascended through the ranks to hold positions as captains, colonels, and
generals and to excercise authority over men identified as white.”47 Similar
developments had occurred in the Dominican Republic where black officers
commanded their troops against Spain. However, unlike Cuba, black Dominican
officers were given command of white Spanish troops.48 This undoubtedly became a
source of contention for the white annexationist army troops who were accustomed to
seeing Caribbean blacks, especially those in their Puerto Rican and Cuban colonies, in
subservient positions. Needless to say, the Spanish soldiers “were unable to

understand [this new racial reality] and they treated those decorated [Dominican] men

 

‘6 “The spectacle of present or former bondsmen, or their descendants, organized into disciplined
fighting units inevitably suggests the possibility that those units may acquire institutional autonomy and
strike against the very government and society that created them.” See George Reid Andrews The Afio—
Argentines of Buenos A ires, [800-1900, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press), 113.

’7 See Ada Ferret’s Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press, 1999), pg.3. Ferrer writes that “40% of commission officers in
Cuba’s revolutionary army were men of color.”

‘8 In a conversation with archivist Orlando Martinez of Cienfuegos, Cuba, I was told that between 1868
and 1898 no Cuban blacks cormnanded Spanish troops in Cuba. However, he told me that the only

47

with insulting contempt. The [white annexationist] soldier always saw in these chiefs
the slave or the fi'eed slave and despised him and resented giving him the honours due
his ranks.”49

Debates surrounding the question of annexation in Santo Domingo further
reveals that Dorrrincan society of the early 18605 was an anomaly within the Spanish
Caribbean. Slavery in Dominican Republic had been abolished since 1822 and this
reform was reiterated in the 1844 Constitution. Spaniards acknowledged that it would
be difficult to control a population that had experienced freedom—legalized
freedom—for more than forty years. The authorities in Madrid debated the feasibility
of maintaining its hold on Santo Domingo and wondered why they were rewarding
their [black and mulatto] Dominican officer colonists with high-profile military
assignments.50 This was the question that preoccupied Spain in the early 1860s with
respect to their former and now current colony. Meanwhile, rumblings of a
revolutionary war of independence could be heard fi'om the distant border.

In 1863 Dominicans rose up in arms against the Spanish who, unlike the
previous invading Haitian forces, were dispersed throughout the population centers
around the country. This time the border became a safe-haven for Dominican rebels.
Not only did they retreat to the border region and to Haitian territory to escape
Spanish attacks, but Dorrrinicans also received support fiom a Haiti which was very
leery of a European slave-owning power sharing the same island. Spanish military

sources of that time confirm that the border and Haiti played a major role in the final

 

black officer was a Dominican by the name of Dionisio Gil. November 6, 2000, Evergreen Grill, East
Lansing, MI.
‘9 Highlights in the Debates in the Spanish Chamber of Deputies, 115-116.

48

victorious outcome of the war against Spain. According to Captain D. Ramon
Gonzalez, an official of the Spanish army, Haitian-Dominican collaboration was
evident because a Haitian “General Simon Sam, commander of the border department
of Fort-Liberté, has received a rebel commission from Guayubin, and he has given

”51 Thus, the border region became fertile ground for

them a fiiendly reception.
conspiracy and the organization of rebel movements. Just as the previous colonial
administrations were incapable of controlling the entire border region, the
annexationist Spanish government was unable to monitor, much less control, vast
stretches of borderland against Dominican rebels.52 Therefore, it was no surprise that
the Dominican war of independence against Spain began in the border town of
Capotillo, where the rebel forces capitalized on the proximity to Haiti and its tacit
support in the form of essential war supplies.

The War of Restoration also capitalized on a cross-border trade that saw
Haitians and Dominicans united around common goals. Border towns such as Las
Matas, San Juan, and Neyba were commercial centers where Dominicans traded
livestock publicly to mostly Haitian buyers in exchange for highly desired

gunpowder.53 Both sides benefited from the border trade because it furthered their

particular goals of overthrowing their respective governments from power; Haitians

 

’° Ibid. 156-157.

5' D. Ramon Gonzalez Tablas, Historic de la dominccién y ultimc guerrc de espcric en Santo
Domingo. (Santo Domingo: Sociedad Dominicana dc Bibliofilos, 1974), 117.

52 Ibid. 119. Gonzalez Tablas writes that, “On the Haitian border, along the points called Dajabon,
Capotillo, Piedra Buena, and la Joya, there is a country apparently neutral in which malefactors of both
sides live...without the law reaching them In that zone, difficult to scan by the authorities, because of
the excessively mountainous [terrain], it is not easy to capture the criminals, who in their haste pass
from one country to the other.” 119.

5’ Gandara, Anexién y guerrc en Santo Domingo, tomo I, 385.

49

wanted to remove President Geffard and Dominicans were fighting against a colonial
Spanish government.

In no uncertain terms, Dominicans called for the expulsion of Spanish forces
from Dominican territory. A letter from the Dominican Revolutionary government
confirmed this attitude against Spain and referred to the border as the birth of their
battle cry of fieedom:

Free we have been and fiee will want to remain. You [the Spanish colonial

government] have been deceived believing that you would find here nothing

but docile and tamed Indians who you would rule like a tyrant. . ., like you did

with impunity with the first villagers of this antillean [island], cradle of your

barbarous domination and your bad government; you made it seem that there
was complete [support and] spontaneity in the annexation; now you are seeing
the contrary. The revolution began in [the border town of] Capotillo, with only
twenty Dominicans with hardly any munitions and with few arms, and today,
they have three-fiflh’s part of the nation.54
The War of Restoration represented death, destruction, and mutual animosity between
the annexationist government and the Dominican rebels. Yet, Spanish documents
reveal the strategic importance the latter placed on the border region and its
development despite the war. During the war, one of the most important border
towns underwent considerable urban and cultural transformations. Prized for its
strategic location and possession of an excellent bay that facilitated the flow of
military supplies, the northwestern coastal town of Monte Cristi underwent dramatic

changes under Spanish rule. The Spanish army official Ramon Gonzalez Tablas

described Monte Cristi’s war time transformation:

 

5‘ Ramon Gonzéles Tablas, Historic de la dominacio'n y tiltimc guerrc de espcfic en Santo Domingo,
167. This memorandum was signed by the rebel government’s Foreign Minister Ulises F. Espaillat.

50

The Monte Cristy of today is made up of one hundred and fifty very good

houses some of them with two floors, a slaughterhouse, a wheat mill, two

great deposits of supplies, a pretty and well decorated church and seven

hospitals...In all these works commerce has taken a very active part, that had

opened in establishments of all kinds.”
If Spanish accounts failed to mention the southern border, it was because the most
important and strategic towns along the border were in the north, in addition to the
town of Dajabon, which was a major economic center. Dajabon was the most
important city along the border because of its extreme proximity and historic
commercial ties with Haiti. During the war, although occupied by Spanish forces, the
region developed into an economic corridor for an extensive contraband trade.56

The War of Restoration ended in 1865 with the Dominicans defeating and
driving out the Spanish. Nevertheless, the border conflicts with Haiti regarding issues
of territorial limits and domain persisted.57 In 1874 the Dominican and Haitian
governments, after years of intemecine struggles, signed an anti-colonial treaty
obligating both nations to maintain their sovereignty and mutual fiiendship in the face
of American and European imperialism. The treaty not only called for both nations to
create a fixed border but it made clear that the days of European and American

annexations were gone. Article 3 of the 1874 Treaty stated that, “both contracted sides

were obliged to maintain with all their strength and power the integrity and their

 

5’ Ibid. 25a251.

56Ramon Gonzalez Tablas, Historic de la dominccio'n y ultimc guerrc de espcfia en Santo Domingo,
245.

’7 The Trinity of Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sénchez, and Ramon Mella are the founding
fathers of Dominican independence. Another example of the border’s role and impact on the evolution
of the Dominican nation was during the government of President Buenaventura Baez in the 4 June

1871 battle, where the General and veteran of the War of Restoration, José Maria Cabral was defeated
by President Baez’s army in San Juan de la Maguana “in a batlle in which it is assured that five Haitian

51

respective territories and to neither cede nor to alienate in favor of a foreign power
neither the totality nor a part of their tenitory nor the adjacent islands. . .Likewise they
commit themselves to neither solicit nor consent to foreign domination.”58

The Dominican-Haitian border would continue to maintain its importance
throughout the late nineteenth century. Specifically, Dominican dictator Ulises (Lilis)
Heareaux’s rise to power revived the tradition of the border as a site for anti-
govemment rebellions. Moreover, Heareaux was perhaps the only Dominican
president during his term in office who, traveled extensively throughout Haitian
border towns. His extensive knowledge of the border made him acutely aware of the
growing Haitian presence and what the region’s continued tenitorial disputes could
mean to the sovereignty of his nation. This acknowledgement of Haitian
expansionism into a Dominican tenitory that remained legally udefined, precluded
successful negotiations between the two governments. Legitimate territorial border
boundaries enforced by written treaties would have to wait until the twentieth century,
when the dictator Trujillo would finish what his predecessor began.

In the last three decades of the 1800s, the Dominican Republic was an
independent country fi'ee of foreign military control. Domestically, however, the
Dominican nation experienced its share of revolutions by regional caudillos who,
challenged the central governments in Santo Domingo. Once again, the northwest
border region stood out as a base for political agitation and military insurrections

against central government authority. According to President Ulises Francisco

 

generals participated with [Cabral’s] troops.” See Charles C. Hauch, La Reptiblicc Dominicana y sus
relcciones exteriores, 1844-1882 (Santo Domingo: Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliofilos, 1996), 239.

52

Espaillat, during 1876, his government forces made little progress controlling the
border region due to a lack of arms. “The border towns of Guayubin, Sabaneta, Monte
Cristi, although they are still under insurrectionist control, they [the towns] are against
the movement and are inclined morally in favor of the government of the Republic.
Unfortunately, our [pro-govemment] fiiends of the [Northwestern border] corridor do
not have arms to operate there a [counterrevolutionary] reaction.”59 To make matters
worse, according to Moya Pons, Espaillat “had no organized personal army at his
service.”60

Under President Lilis (1882-1899), sugar became the principal and the most
lucrative export crop in the Dominican Republic. During this time, ingenios
(sugarmills) appeared throughout the traditionally sugarcrich lands in the eastern and
southern parts of the country.61 Under his dictatorship, Lilis expanded the state and
increased economic trading ties with Europe and the United States. The border came
to play an important role in his struggle to maintain and project his power nationally
and internationally. Lilis, whose father was Haitian, was well acquainted with the
border and Haiti. For a while, and prior to becoming president of the Republic, Lilis

had lived in the Haitian border town of Juana Mendez, where he had established a

 

58 See J.R. Roques Martinez, El problemcfronterizo dominico-hciticno. (Santo Domingo: Sindicato
Nacional de Artes Graficas, 1932), pg.33.

’9 Ulises Francisco Espaillat, Escritos (Santo Domingo: Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliofilos, 1987),
349.

6° See Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic, pg.237.

6‘ Although for the most part sugar was not cultivated throughout the border region, there were some
parts where the soil was conducive to the cultivation of sugar. “The border region sugarcane was
produced in places like Guayubin; Bao; Sabana lglesia; Mao; Duverge; Barahona; Las Damas de
Duverge; El Rincon; Enriquillo; Monte Cristi”; and “in Sabaneta and Dajabon, where it was cultivated
and where it is still cultivated with success.” Juan J. Sénchez, Lc ccfic en Santo Domingo, (Santo
Domingo: Biblioteca Taller, 1976), 17.

53

small business”. As president, he was fond of traveling to Haiti and was known to
conduct “lavish and extraordinary galas” during his visits.63 But Lilis, like Trujillo,
was more interested in political and economic power than fostering a genuine
solidarity between the two nations. Lilis’ interest in attaining power was so extreme,
that at one time he even considered invading Haiti.64 He had examined the possibility
of an invasion and had even planned against a possible U.S. response to his
imperialistic aggression. In 1891, Lilis wrote that “[i]n the case that the Dominican
Republic declares war with Haiti, the government of the United States would
determine if Dominican aggression was justified, in the case that was deemed to be,
the United States would facilitate two warships and a one million dollar loan. The
Dominican government [then] would occupy the Mole San Nicolas [in Haiti]?65 Lilis
was a very shrewd politician; as one Haitian diplomat, José I. Pou wrote in 1897, “No
one knows when and up to what point the Chief of the Dominican [Republic] is
sincere.”66 But despite his shrewdness and dictatorial qualities, there were dissident

movements. In 1893, in the northwestern border city of Daj abon, a revolutionary

 

‘2 Victor M. de Castro, Coscs de Lilis. (Santo Domingo: Editora Taller, 1977), 13-14. Castro also
writes that it was in Juana Mendez where Lilis was shot in the right arm and consequently lost his
ability to use it.

63Miguel Angel Monclus, El ccudillismo en Republicc Dominicana, tercera ed., (Santo Domingo:
Editora del Caribe, 1962), 115.

6’ Ibid. Monclus writes that “. . .Lilis, less than any of our leaders was interested sincerely

in the border problem; the times he was moved to act was with the intent to take immediate economic
advantage.” pg.1 16.

65 Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, Ccncionero de Lilis: Poesic, dictcdurc, y libertcd. (Santo Domingo:
Editora del Caribe), 290. The Lilis regime also feared a Haitian invasion, citing that “rumors are
running that our territory will be invaded; the preparations are to fortify the Mole Saint Nicolas and
almost all the points of the Republic. The Haitian arsenals are replete with war supplies; and canons in
all the ports, the same goes for munitions and recruiting is daily. French military instructors have
arrived. The government has eight stearnships at its disposal. Between them three armed for war and
five merchant ships that can be armed at a moment’s notice.” See Federico Henriquez I Carvajal, El
mensajero 1886-1889: Editoricles, estudios varios, enscyos, cronicas. 2do. tomo (La Habana:
Instituto de Historic, 1964), 91.

54

manifesto was written denouncing Lilis’ government and calling for an armed
insurrection. This revolt was called Los Birnbines and, although ultimately a failure, it
was remarkable for the prestigious leadership it brought together.67 Moreover, the
revolt once again demonstrated how anti-govemment forces viewed the border region.
They did not view it as backward or dangerous, as the border was seen by the Santo
Domingo elites, but as an important and strategic platform from which to launch their
anti-govemment rebellions and revolutions.

Lilis’ govemmean authorities along the border, aside from viewing this
region as a hotbed for revolution, also warned of the growmg Haitian population on
the Dominican side. A letter from Lilis’ governor in Monte Cristi, Guelito Pichardo,
underscored this preoccupation and reminded his Commander-in-Chief that the
border’s political ambiguous boundaries was leading to the increased presence of
Haitian military forces in Dominican territory: “The Haitian guard, reinforced with
thirty and a little more still remains on our territory. . .Ifthis is left to continue for
several months in just a short while there will be a small town like the ones that are
improvised in Haiti and we will have lost another piece of land.”68 Dominican
governments like Lilis’ reflected a peculiar schizophrenic policy that displayed, on the
one hand, peaceful overtures to Haiti and, on the other hand, alarm as to what they

perceived was an ever-increasing Haitian presence on the border.

 

‘6 Ibid.

‘7 Ibid.322. Among the leaders who led this uprising were Eugenio de Champs; Gregorio Luperon;

Ignacio M. Gonzalez; Agustin Morales; C.N. de Moya; Pablo Lopez Villanueva; Cayetano Armando

Rodriguez; Horacio Vésquez; and José Ramon Lopez. Demorizi writes that five years later in 1898, a

year before Lilis’ assasination, there was another botched border insurrection, this time with the

gnsuccessfiil Fanita expedition in the port of Monte Cristi headed by Juan Isidro Jiménes. pg.391.
Ibid. 289.

55

At a time when the debate centered around the inferiority of the rural
countryside vis-a-vis the progressive and enlightened cities, immigration had come to
be understood as the remedy that could facilitate growth and progress in the
backlands. One Dominican study from the late nineteenth century concluded that,
“there [in the border] the causes that disturb social harmony are always multiplied,
and it is necessary that the authorities delegate their physical strength and moral
effectiveness to obtain the submission and obedience of everyone. This way, then,
increasing the effective strength of the legitimate [state] authority on the border and at
the same time, lay the foundation of a profitable colonization.”69 Although there was
more than enough legislative momentum supporting emigration to and colonization of
Dominican territory, few tangible results transforming the borders via the creation of
colonies were evident in the nineteenth century. Moreover, the idea of establishing
agrarian military colonies along the border in the 1870s remained just that: an idea
that in the 1880s left Dominicans to “believe that such a useful project had been
abandoned [and] that it will encounter mayor difficulties in its execution.”70

Two years before Lilis took office in 1880, both nations signed a convention
of “loyal fiiendship” and “good will” that was consistent with the spate of previous

bilateral treaties promising eternal cooperation. Just one year following this treaty, a

Dominican government report warned that,

 

”9 See José Ramon Abad, Lc Republicc Dominicana: Reseft'a general geografico-estcdistica. (Santo
Domingo: Irnprenta de Garcia Hermanos, 1888), 274. Some of the places considered ideal to receive
immigrants and establish colonies were in border towns such as Neiba, Barahona, Enriquillo, and El
Cercado.

7° Ibid. 276.

56

The situation of these border towns has placed them in very unfortunate
conditions having to suffer alongside the robbing that feeds our western
neighbors [in a] pacific and gradual invasion. . .for these motives I consider
necessary to adopt very energetic measures that thwart both evils and will end
by establishing a fixed limit between both republics that will be respected by
our border authorities.71
Controlling the border was as difficult for Haitian authorities in Port-au-Plince as it
was for the Dominican authorties in Santo Domingo. A letter from the Secretary of
the Haitian Foreign Ministry, B. Moncién, underscores how difficult it was for the
state, on either side of the island, to monitor these border regions through political
appointees. “Of all the Departments of Haiti, the Fort Liberte one is the most difficult
to govern like all the rest of the points that adjoin the borders. In the almost five years
since His Excellency, President Salomon, came to power, he has had to provide five
governors to the [border] Department of Fort Liberte”,2
In 1887, there was a government commission to study the border which
confirmed Pichardo’s observations of an existing Haitian presence along the border.
This observation should not have surprised Lilis. Lilis was familiar with the border
and, likely, all too aware of the significant Haitian presence throughout this region. In
a letter to the Governor General of the southern province of Barahona, Lilis requested
that Haitian border residents be interviewed in order to get their self-ascribed
nationality: “In all the places that you visit where you find established Haitian

citizens, you will make formal demands from them to declare through a verbal

process if they live in our territory as a Haitian or if they live here adopting the

 

7' Legacion de la Republica Dominicana, Washington DC, Cuestion fronteriza Convenciones e
incidentes 1906-1912. Libro #2, AGN pg.2.

57

Dominican nationality.”73 The poll was intended to gauge the amount of anti-
Dominican sentiment among Haitians in the border. Although the threat always
existed that a military conflict could emerge (and often there were border skirmishes
between Haitian and Dominican troops), both nations usually worked through
diplomatic channels to resolve their differences.74
In 1895, concerns regarding territoriality, contraband, and revolution—all
relevant to the border—eventually led both nations to sign an agreement allowing an
independent arbitrator rule on territorial limits.75 This independent arbiter turned out
to be Pope Leo XIII, who was chosen “to resolve the existing difficulty with respect to
the interpretation of Article 4 in the 1874 Dominican-Haitian Treaty.”76 According
to the 1874 Treaty, Article 4 stipulated that “both signers of the 1874 Treaty formally

binded to establish in a way that conforms to the equity and the reciprocated interests

of both nations the border limits that separate their actual possessions. This necessity

 

72 Letter dates 17 April, 1885. Legacion de la Republica Dominicana, Washington DC, Cuestion
fronteriza convenciones e incidentes, 1906-1912. Libro #2, AGN. Pg. 10.

73 Letter dated August 10, 1887, Cuestion fronteriza dominico-haitiana. Legacion de la Republica
Dominicana, Documentos l862-191011bro 1 AGN, pg.3.

7’ The shift toward diplomatic rather than military options in resolving Dominican/Haitian border
conflicts began with the 1867 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Commerce and Navigation and
subsequent territorial treaties in 1874, 1880, 1884, 1895, 1899, and 1900. See Frank Moya Pons’, “Las
tres fronteras: introduccion a la frontera dominico-haitiana,” in Wilfredo Lozano’s La cuestién haiticna
en Santo Domingo: Migracio'n internacional, desarrollo y relaciones inter-Estctcles entre Haiti y
Republicc Dominicana (Miami,FL: FLACSO, 1992), 19.

75 On the first and second of June 1895, a plebiscite was taken in Santo Domingo concerning the
resolution of the border dispute. The main voting issues were: “that the border crisis be taken to
arbitration; that the arbiter should be empowered as the Pontiff to arbiter the proceedings; and that the
Pope be authorized to secure territorial compensations.” See Federico Velasquez H. La fronterc de la
Republicc Dominicana. (Santo Domingo: Editorial Progreso, 1929), pg.44.

7" Virgilio Hoepelman, Nuestrc vidc exterior: notcs sobre historic diplomdticc dominicana 1 844-1950
(Ciudad Trujillo: “Arte y Cine”: 1951), 135.

58

will be the object of a special treaty and for this end both governments will name their
commissaries as soon as possible.”77

Though the 1874 Treaty formalized a peaceful commercial and formal
relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the controversial issue of the
nations’ territorial limits remained unresolved. This issue would not be resolved until
the 1930s, under the governance of Trujillo over Dominican Republic. The Haitian
government wanted its borders moved up to where they last had unsuccessfully
invaded Dominican territory in 1856. The Dominican government, on the other hand,
believed that the territorial boundaries dividing both countries should revert back to
the 1777 Aranjez Treaty, where the Dominican border extended farther west78.

In 1898, Lilis held a conference with fellow Haitian President Hippolite to
once again have the Pope arbitrate the border dispute but also to assign who
“deserved the appropriate indemnification.”79 Unfortunately the Pope was never able
to rule over the border issue. In 1899 Lilis was assassinated in the town of Moca

before his government was able to reach a diplomatic border solution. Even if Lilis

had survived, it is doubtful that he would have sincerely sought an end to years of

 

77 Pena Batlle, Historic de la cuestio'nfronterizc, pg.397.
7’ Hoelpman, Nuestrc vidc exterio'r, pg. 139. According to one contemporary Dominican scholar, the
1895 arbitration case assigned to the pope “parted from the power given [to the arbiters] by the
[Dominican] people [in the plebiscite]...[and] that the people did not authorize the Executive [branch]
to dispense with [the treaty of] Aranjuez”; and that according to the Dominican constitution of June 2,
1896 article 3: “the territory of the Republic is and will forever be indisputable.” Manuel Machado, La
cuestion fionterizc Dominico-hciticnc, 2nda ed. (Santo Domingo: lrnprenta Escobar y CIA, 1912),
ggs.90-91.
2’ Sumner Wells, La viiic de nabotlt, 1844-1924. Tomo I. (Santiago: Editorial El Diario, 1939), 500.
Also see Haitian scholar J.C. Dorsainvil’s Manual de la historic de Haiti. (Santo Domingo: Sociedad
Dominicana de Bibliofilos, 1979), 247.

59

border conflicts given that he had strategically used the possibility of a border
resolution with Haiti to counter North American influence in Port-au-Prince.80

The new century began with diplomatic border talks stalled due to new crises
enveloping both nations along the border. Between 1900 and 1930, the Dominican-
Haitian border had become home to regional revolutionary movements intent on
overthrowing the central governments in Santo Domingo. Additionally, both the
Dominican Republic (1916-1924) and the Republic of Haiti (1915-1934) experienced
US. military occupations. All the while, numerous unsuccessful diplomatic
negotiations concerning territorial limits between both island governments
characterized this turbulent period.

In 1901 Haitian forces occupied territory near the Dominican border town of
Daj abon, but retreated with the arrival of a Dominican military contingent.81 Border
disputes with Haiti, and political discontent and revolution fiom within, ravaged the
Dominican political landscape. During this time, major resentment against the
governments in Santo Domingo came from the Linea Noroeste (the Dominican
Northwest Conidor), which included the Dominican-Haitian border. Two major rebel
caudillos at this time were Demetrio Rodriguez and Desiderio Arias. They attacked

major northern cities such as Santiago and Puerto Plata.82 Eventually, Rodriguez was

killed and Arias sought refuge near the northwestern border. In 1905, American fear

 

8° Lilis “knew that while the Haitian govemment believed in the possibility of a good deal from the
border dispute, the Americans could not bribe the Haitian government. [Lilis’] tactic consisted then in
sinnllating a disposition to the [border] deal without ever having to arrange it.” See Enrique Apolinar
Henriquez, Reminiscencics y evoccciones Tomo I (Santo Domingo: Libreria Hispaniola, 1970),

g. 1 18.
a Federico Velasquez H. Lcfionterc de la Republicc Dominicana (Santo Domingo: Editorial
Progreso, 1929), 48-49. The town Haitian troops occupied was called Pitobet.
82 Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History, pg.296.

60

of European intervention to collect monies on loans forced the United States to
partially supervise the Dominican Customs Receivership. By 1907, a treaty was
created placing the Dominican receivership under the US. Bureau of Insular
Affairs.83 The Americans now controlled the collection duties of the Dominican
Republic. Meanwhile, Dominican government troops began the bloody pacification of
this region and forced anti-govemment forces to flee across the border into Haiti to
avoid being captured or killed.84

In 1907, the Dominican government finally took official action in the matter
of colonization and gave structure to the border colonization scheme. Passed by the
Dominican Congress, this legislation outlined a series of articles detailing the
character and form of the border colonization. According to the new law, land on the
Dominican side would be utilized by the state to recruit irnmi grant white families.
Article 2 of the congressional legislation specified that, “The sum of $40.00 in
American gold will be allocated every year to bring to the country forty agricultural
families of the white race by the State.”85

In 1911-1912 diplomatic negotiations again failed between both nations,

bringing them to the brink of war over disagreements concerning the demarcation of

 

83 See Bruce Calder’s, The Impact of Intervention. The Dominican Republic during the US.
Occupation of 19] 6-1924 (Austin,TX: University of Texas Press, 1984), 4. According to Calder, a
representative of the United States collected 55 percent to “pay off foreign claimants and remitting 45
percent to the Dominican government.”

Moya Pons, Manual de historic dominicana 449. According to Pons, government troops under
Ramon Caceres (Lilis’ assassin) believed that a scorched-earth policy would cripple the revolutionaries.
The policy was a pyrhic victory and lefi the Northwest region of the Dominican Republic “planted with
the cadavers of animals and its economy completely ruined.”

'5 Coleccio'n de leyes, decretos y resoluciones. Emcnados de Ios poderes legislativo y ejecutivo de la
Republicc Dominicana. Tomo XVIII. (Santo Domingo: Listin Diario, 1929), pg.353.

61

new border limits.86 The point of contention was the southern and least developed
part of the Dominican Republic around what are today the provinces of Bahoruco and
Pedemales. The Haitian goyemment felt that the border limits should extend farther
eastward.87 The Dominican government disagreed, but there was no bilateral treaty
that legally defined tenitorial boundaries. Moreover, political events in Santo
Domingo, such as the assassination of Dominican President Ramon “Mon” Caceres in
1911, added to border tensions and the diplomatic impasse. Both governments
engaged in a series of maneuvers to control the southern region.88
It was President Caceres who told his Congress that the nation’s progress
depended on a statch immigration policy. Only by accepting “a desirable class of
immigrants to the Republic,” Caceres said, could the Dominican Republic ever hope

to harness its full potential.89 The “desirable class” of immigration that Caceres had

in mind focused on white immigrants; a policy that was very popular among many

 

8" This is not to say that the entire country was prepared for war. On the border, the routine of everyday
life continued as the national congress passed a resolution authorizing the municipal authorities in the
northern border town of Monte Cristi to tax alcoholic beverages. “To tax from one to ten cents of each
gallon of alcoholic drinks that was produced or introduced in it for consumption.” See Coleccio'n de
leyes, decretos y resoluciones de los poderes legislativo y ejecutivo de la republicc 1910-1911 vol.20,
(Santo Domingo: ONAP, 1983), pg.52. Also see Gaceta Oficial Num.2107 21 de junio 1910.

’7 Moises Garcia Mella (Santo Domingo: Rafael V. Montalvo, 1923), pg.37. The Dominican South (el
Sur) is known for its aridness vis-a-vis the center Cibao region. In the port town of Enriquillo, in the
province of Barahona, when there is a a lot of wind, along with the “hot sun, it is impossible to stay in
the port, because of the mosquitoes and ants (jejenes) there?(pg.37-3 8). In spite of the harshness of the
land, people owned land in this region, especially along the border. Foreigners, too, owned land, such
as the Spaniard Mr. Parra and an American named Mr. E.E. Dreyfus, who were proprietors along the
Pedemales border.(pg.42).

8” Telegram sent by Dept. of State to US. Legation at Port-au-Prince: “Shortly after the assassination of
Céceres, the Haitian authorities actually moved into and continued to occupy territory east of the
Pedemales River, heretofore in peaceful possession of the Dominican government, under the pretext of
assisting the Dominican government to capture the late President’s assassins near the frontier. It also
appears that the Haitian govemment has taken no action to comply with its plain duty in the matter and
withdraw its troops and civil authorities from the place in question, notwithstanding repeated protests
on the part of the Dominican Minister in Haiti.” See Listin Dicrio, June 29, 1912, pg.23.

’9 Bulletin of the International Bureau of the American Republics, Vol.XXVIII, Nos.4-6 (April-June,
1909), pg. 940.

62

Latin American and Caribbean governments at the turn of the century. These
governments believed that one of the ways to combat their physical, economic, and
cultural underdevelopment was to invite white immigrants to infuse these tropical
nations with “progress.”90 Furthermore, the governments promoting these
immigration policies facilitated the transition and adaptation process of these

irnmi grants in the new country. The Dominican Republic was no different. In the
early 1900s, Dominican immigration law required that the government provide the
newly arrived immigrants with appropriate farming equipment, a monthly stipend,
and several acres of land.91 Despite govemment’s propitious legislation towards non-
Dominican (white) immigrants, the colonization project did not flourish throughout
the early 19003 and the teens.

Between 1912 and 1914, subsequent Dominican revolutions underscored the
importance of the border. These revolutions, as one foreign traveler to the Dominican
Republic wrote, were conducted from military bases on Haitian territory.92 By 1916,
both Caribbean nations were subjected to simultaneous traumatic and violent military

occupations led by United States Marines. Both US occupations reflected economic

 

9° For an analysis of the relationship between eugenics in and immigration policies geared toward racial
improvement in Latin America see Nancy Leys Stepan’s The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and
Nation in Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). For a specific case study see
Winthrop R. Wright’s Cafe con leche: Race, Class, and National Image in Venezuela (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990).

9' Coleccio'n de leyes, decretos y resoluciones. Emcncdos de los poderes legislativo y ejecutivo de la
Republicc Dominicana. Tomo XVIII. (Santo Domingo: Listin Diario, 1929), 353. According to the
document, men and women older than 45 and 35 years of age, respectively, were denied these benefits.
92 Otto Schoenrich, Santo Domingo: un pais con fiituro, (Santo Domingo: Sociedad Dominicana de
Bibliofllos, 1977), pg.100. Originally published in 1918. Years earlier, when the United States
threatened to annex the Dominican Republic in 1871 the border played an equally important role as
both a point of revolution and an anti-govemment destabilizing force. According to military
correspondence, “It is there [in the border] where Cabral operates with a small force of residents that,
according to President Baez, are recruited from Haiti and the government of that country gives them all

63

and political strategies that sought to, in particular, safeguard the Panama Canal fiom
encroaching European powers and, in general, maintain American economic interests
in the greater Caribbean basin. As a result of the occupations, Anti-American
sentiment rose across the island. A wave of solidarity emerged between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic in the face of both US. military invasions. Employing guerilla
war tactics, the Dominican Gavilleros in the eastern part of the Dominican Republic
and the Haitian Cacos in northern Haiti fought against the US. military occupation
forces and used the border as a strategic retreat.93

During the military occupation of both countries, the Dominican-Haitian
border, always a haven for insurgents, again was prominent as it became an asset for
Dominican anti-American insurgency.94 The border’s inaccessibility and distance

from both capital cities made it a perfect meeting place for Dominicans and Haitians

 

types of help.” See Proyccto de incorporacion de Santo Domingo a Norte America apuntes y
documentos (Santo Domingo: Editora Montalvo, 1964), pg.380.

93 See Bruce Calder’s Impact of intervention The Dominican Republic during the US. Occupation of
1916-1924 (Austin,TX: The University of Texas Press, 1984), 133-182. Like the Gavilleros in the
Dominican Republic, the Cacos in Haiti were “northern peasant insurgents whose loose organization
and presumably ill-defined goals caused them to be easily labeled as ‘bandits’ by the US. military and
State Department.” See Patrick Bellegarde-Smith’s Haiti: The Breached Citadel (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1990), 71. Reminiscent of what was to take place more than forty years later in Vietnam, US.
Marines (led by an officer named Lieut. Weder) with Haitian Gendermes’ assistance, according to a
French-bom Catholic priest named Lebidaner, burned between 250 to 300 houses in the Haitian region
called Les Crochus. Apparently, Lieut. Weder believed this region was infiltrated by the Cacos: an
insurgent Haitian guerilla movement intent on forcing the withdrawal of American troops in Haiti.
Therefore he applied a scorched-earth policy. See Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti
and Santo Domingo. Statements by Haitians and Dominicans, and US. Senators. US. Senate
Hearings before a Select Committee on Haiti and Santo Domingo, 67th Congress, 1st and 2nd Session,
1922), pg.850.

9’ During both military occupations American military personnel committed human rights abuses. An
all-white military force composed of many US. southerners, accustomed to a racist and segregationist
US. society, entering black and mulatto societies was a recipe for abuse and brutal violence. An
American, Captain Merckle, ordered four men shot (one with Yaws): “he ordered them to be released
one by one, and he stood off with a machine gun and killed each one, only leaving the man whose ears
had been cut oft“ and whose chest had been marked with crosses. Then he shot each of these men
through the ear and left then [sic] dead on the plain near the road, and the bodies were eaten by the
hogs and dogs.” See Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti and Santo Domingo.

to conspire against the US. occupation forces and reinforce their historic inter-border
collaborative relationship. Thus, in the face of a common enemy, Dominican anti-
Haitianism an ideological lynchpin for Trujillo’s dictatorship, was at a very low point.
Meanwhile, between 1919 and 1922, the US. military government in Santo Domingo
attempted to resolve the historic border conflict between both nations by suggesting a
border commission to the American ambassador in Port-au-Prince. This delegation
would comprise two Dominicans, two Haitians, and, in contrast to the selection of the
Pope as the arbiter in 1895, the President of the United States would be the final
arbiter.95 By 1922, however, the US. government believed that such an initiative was
not appropriate and dismissed attempts to find a resolution to the border problem. The
United States had more pressing issues on the island, such as bringing to an end the
Gavillero insurgency in the eastern part of the island and facing harsh criticism from
abroad demanding its withdrawal from the Dominican Republic.

The level of Dominican discontent with the military occupation is reflected in
the laws passed by the US. military government during this time. Laws prohibiting
Dominicans to carry firearms were passed in an effort to maintain order. Additionally,
these laws were a reaction to a perceived threat of imminent danger toward American
troops and an acknowledgment that many Dominicans possessed guns coupled with a

strident dose of Yankee animosity.96 The international campaign against the

 

Statements by Haitians and Dominicans, and US. Senators. US. Senate Hearing before a Select
Committee on Haiti and Santo Domingo, 67th Congress, 1st and 2nd Session, 1922), pg.1144.

9’ Ibid. 50-51.

96 “It will be illegal for any [Dominican] person to import, receive, purchase or in another form acquire
any type of firearm, be they loose parts of firearms or munitions or explosives. . .have them on their
person or under custody, sell or to dispose of in any way or form.” See Coleccion de leyes, decretos, y
resoluciones del gobierno provisional de la repu'blicc. Oct. 21, 1922 hasta Die. 31, 1923 #29. AGN
(Santo Domingo: ONAP, 1983), pg.1].

65

American military occupation and the ruthless guerrilla war in the east gradually
convinced the United States to completely withdraw from the Dominican Republic in
1924. Despite the Marines’ departure from the Dominican Republic, however, the
Americans remained in Haiti until 1934. Thus, Dominican border negotiations with
Haiti through the late 19205 and early 1930s developed with the US occupational
force in Haiti as a backdrop.

In 1924, with the withdrawal of US. troops from Dominican soil, President
Horacio Vasquez passed a law similar to the one established in 1907 declaring the
border open for colonization. This time, however, the Dominican government
authorized a specific commission “in charge of writing and formulating a colonization
plan of these regions with immigrants fi'om Spain, the Canary Islands and the Balearic
Isles or Hispanic-Americans of the white race.”97 Overall, the Commission’s findings
supported the colonization scheme but also reminded its readers that the ultimate goal
was to “prevent the usurpation of our territory and Dominicanize those [border]
lands.”98 Who was usurping the border? In the govemment’s view, the large Haitian
presence and their continued contact with Dominicans threatened the survival of the

nation. Thus, according to the government, it was important to increase the

 

97 See Coleccion de leyes, decretos, y resoluciones emcnados de los poderes ejecutivo de la Republicc
del No.1 cl 90. Inclusive dell3 dejulio hasta el 3] de diciembre, 1924. (Santo Domingo: J .R. Vda.
Garcia, 1925), pg. 191. This law passed by the Dominican Congress states that the commission would
be comprised in the following order of: the Secretary of Agriculture and Immigration; followed by one
Senator; a Congressman; and the Govemment’s Consultant Lawyer.

9"See Informe que presentc cl poder ejecutivo la comisio’n crecdc por la ley Nam. 77 para estudiar Ics
tierrcs de lcfi'onterc y senalar Ios sitios en que se hcn de establecer Ics colonias de inmigrcntes.
(Santo Domingo: J .R. Vda. Garcia, 1925), pg. 19. The report begins by stating that, “The purpose to
populate the border is connected to the necessity of shortcutting or containing the slow but incessant
advance that the Haitian people have been conducting day after day towards our territory without
having been impeded by the physical condition of the dividing line.”

66

Dominican presence along the border through such initiatives as the colonization
projects.

In the late 1920s, there was a flurry of diplomatic activity and border treaties
aimed at resolving years of misunderstanding concerning each country’s border limits.
In 1929, Haiti and the Dominican Republic signed yet another border treaty formally
agreeing to the definition of their territorial boundaries. The meetings to discuss this
treaty turned very contentious as the countries disputed each other’s claims as to
appropriate placement of the fixed border. As the unsuccessful negotiations were
conducted, Haitian officials submitted a proposal requesting that the contested
borderlands remain an extension of Haiti. The justification for the proposal’s claim
was that there was a tenured Haitian presence in the area, who had lived there for
years. The presence of Haitians gave them, in their view, the right to possess the
land.99

Treaty meetings were suspended due to this Haitian proposal. In the eyes of
Dominican officials, the treaty undermined the country’s constitutional and territorial
sovereignty. The Haitian proposal challenged Article 3 of the Dominican
Constitution, which explicitly stated that “The territory of the Republic is and will be
unequivocally. Its limits, which comprise all that before was called the Spanish part of
the island of Santo Domingo and the adjacent islands, are the same as in the 1777

Treaty of Aranjuez.”loo Thus, at the conclusion of the treaty meetings the countries

 

99 See Moises Garcia Mella, A Irededor de Ios tratcdos I929 y I 935 con la reptiblicc de Haiti. (Ciudad
Trujillo: Listin Diario, 1938), p.21.
'°° Ibid. 6.

67

10’ While the nations remained at

were unable to agree on the border’s limits.
loggerheads over the controversial 1929 border treaty, a new force on the Dominican
political landscape was emerging. The budding force would forever change the
landscape of the Dominican-Haitian border and the relations between its two people.

At its withdrawal fiom the Dominican Republic, the United States left behind
an institution called the national guard. As it did for Nicaragua and Haiti, this body
often served as the United State’s surrogate army and police force. In lieu of invading
every time a political crisis arose in a Latin America or Caribbean nation, the native
but US. trained soldiers would maintain order. It is from this military institution that
the dictator Rafael Trujillo emerged to control the nation for thirty-one years.

A former cattle thief and National Guard officer from the non-border southern
city of San Cristobal, Trujillo rose to power in 1930. Under his rule, the government
set in motion a plan to secure control of the border, which allowed for the violent
removal of Haitians followed by state policies to Dominicanize the border. Trujillo,
unlike Lilis, was unfamiliar with border life. He was an outsider to the border and his
knowledge of and experience with Haitians stemmed from his days as a camp guard at
a sugar mill in San Pedro de Macoris. Simulating his tyrannical predecessor Lilis, in
Trujillo’s view, Dominicanizing the border also meant limiting the Haitian presence.
Thus, during Trujillo’s first term in office (1930-1934) new immigration laws were
passed discouraging blacks in general and Haitians in particular of entering the

Dominican Republic. Overall, nevertheless, Dominican foreign policy toward Haiti

was cordial, fiiendly, and collaborative during the early 19303. It appeared that

 

‘°‘ Ibid. 11.

68

despite the military wars fought almost eighty years before, a new age of fiiendship
and collective interaction would replace the historic tensions and misunderstandings
that had plagued the relations of these two republics. Indeed, the first seven years of
the Trujillo dictatorship were marked by little antagonism and high mutual praise
between the two countries and their leaders. Since independence was attained, this
period would also mark an all-time low in the historic prejudices harbored by

Dominican against Haitians.

69

Chapter 2
Border Colonization, Anti-Haitian Immigration, and Border Treaty Negotiations

The 1929 Border Treaty appeared to represent the end of border conflicts between
the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti. Both Haitian and Dominican leaders
hailed the treaty as the beginning of a new relationship of cooperation and understanding.
The long history of diplomatic disputes that had engulfed these two nations for centuries
was now on the verge of being settled. The 1929 border treaty held great promise because
of the credibility that the principal mediators--Dominican President Horacio Vasquez and
Haitian President Louis Bomo—-brought to the negotiations. The 1929 border treaty came
to fruition, in part, because both presidents had cultivated a mutually fiiendly relationship
and broken away from the traditional squabbles and misunderstandings previously
associated with border negotiations. The treaty, however, failed to definitively resolve the
question of Haitians living inside Dominican territorial limits. Instead, the issue became a
major source of contention between the two governments. In any case, talks concerning
the 1929 treaty would soon be overshadowed by Trujillo’s rise to power and his personal
agenda to transform the role of the border from a “backward and dangerous” region to a
progressive and sovereign extension of the Republic. This chapter examines how
Trujillo’s colonization of the border after 1930 was as much a defensive mechanism
against his enemies as it was a campaign to consolidate the nation. Trujillo’s
intensification of a colonization program that had been inherited from Vasquez’s
government represented a history of attempts by Dominican governments to colonize the
border. Moreover, the state’s renewed interest in and control of the border revealed
something more than an intent to secure a region that had traditionally served as a stage
for anti-govemment movements. Under Trujillo, the state would draft anti-Haitian and
anti-black immigration legislation in an attempt to limit the ubiquitous Haitian presence

along the still undefined border. These attempts by the state to gradually distinguish
70

Haitians from Dominicans would conclude in a violent campaign of ethnic cleansing that
would mark this episode of border attention as radically distinct fiom previous efforts.
Furthermore, in this chapter I also refer to Dominican newspapers and examine the
border negotiations and meetings that took place between 1933 and 1936 to reach the

final settlement demarcating the territorial limits of both republics.

Dominicanization of the Border Region: 1930-1934

The rise of Trujillo to power ushered in a wave of political discontent that forced
many of his opponents to flee across the Haitian border. As in previous years, Haiti and
the border became a haven for revolutionaries. In this case, anti-Trujillistas escaped and
used Haitian territory along the border as a base to plot the dictator’s downfall. For the
fledgling dictator, the border was seen as a serious and uncontrollable threat to his power.
According to scholar Bernardo Vega, “Trujillo was bothered by the support that the
Dominican exiles received there [in Haiti] not only of the free and independent press but
even some elements within Vincent’s own government.”1 Although Haiti and the
Dominican-Haitian border were both fertile ground for anti-Trujillo conspiracies, the
US. military government in Haiti and its policy of stripping all Haitians of their weapons
reduced the possibilities of a rrrilitary confrontation between Dominicans and Haitians.2
Nevertheless, fear of reprisals from Dominican exiles became a good reason to secure
control of the border through colonization efforts.

Under Trujillo, colonization of the border was exercised through the creation of

agricultural colonies. By 1930 the colonies, originally established by President Horacio

Vasquez and operating under the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture’s Colonization

 

lVega, Trujillo y Haiti, pg.55.
2Ibid., pg.60.
71

Section, numbered nine.3 Documents from the early 1930s offer a glimpse into the type
of Dominican who yearned to be a colonist. The documents have a record of each
person’s name, age, marital status, number of children, nationality, name of colony, and
the number of hectares each colonist would receive. In their contract with the State, the
colonists were required to honor a set of obligations for the duration of tenure on the
govemment-owned lands. For the first ten years of their stay, colonists could not
purchase, own, or sell the land they toiled.4 Despite this prerequisite, many people
applied for and received contracts to cultivate land along the border. 1932 colonization
documents of the northwestern border province of Monte Cristi show that most colonists
were single Dominican males between the ages of 18 to 42. Most colonists received an
average of 10 to 20 hectares to farm, although some received up to 50 hectares.5
Dominican men, be they single or married, were not the only persons obtaining contracts
to colonize the border. Women, as well as foreigners, also appear in the documents as
recipients of state lands. The women’s ages, as well as the number of children women
declared on their contracts, span a wide range. There were some married women, such as
Sofia Tavérez Justo, who according to the colony’s administrator Guido D’Allessandro’
in Villa Vésquez shows she was twenty-three years old and received 15 hectares. There
were also women like the 45-year-old Maria Reyes, a single mother of eight, who was
granted 8 hectares. For the most part, land contracts do not appear to have been granted to
Haitians. However, I did come across two cases where Haitians naturalized as Dominican

citizens had their contracts approved.6 In the first case three individuals named S.

 

3 See C. Harvery Gardiner, La politica de inrnigracion dc dictador Trujillo. Estudio sobre la creacion de una
irnagen humanitaria. (Santo Domingo: Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Ureiia, 1979), pg. 14.
4Secretaria do Estado de Agricultura E Inmigracion y Secretaria de Estado de Agricultura y Comercio,
Seccion de Colonizacion Leg. 1933. AGN.
SIbid. 21 March 1932. Foreigners, too, were awarded contracts. Although comparatively fewer than
Dominicans, there were contracts granted to Finnish single men in the early 19305 in the colonias of Villa
Vésquez and Capotillo. Apparently these particular documents only divided individuals by nationality and
categorizations by race was not mentioned.
6Ibid. I found an even older women in the contract of Marcelina Vda. Gonzalez, (a widow) who was
granted 28 1/4 tareas on 17 March 1932.

72

 

Belizea, Telisma Teispol, and Semera Telismo were approved as colonists. According to
an official army letter, the Secretary of State of Agriculture and Commerce had given
permission to these persons “for living and having grown coffee plants in these grounds
which corresponds to the Mariano Cestero colony.”7 The second case involved F ilosten
Jean Luis, a Haitian with Dominican citizenship who sought approval for a land grant
along the border. A letter by the army official in charge of the agrarian colony to his
superior states that “Mr. Jean Luis is a well-known inhabitant recognized by the best
persons of this place; also he was recommended by the colono Juan de Dios Rodriguez.”8
Despite the number of Haitians granted contracts to farm on the border as
colonists, Trujillo continued to encourage white immigration to the Dominican Republic.
Like past presidents Ramon Caceres and Horacio Vésquez, Trujillo made it clear that
border colonization was crucial in the nation’s development. New legislation established
by Trujillo required that at least 25% of the colonists be white.9 In addition to setting up a
quota that required that a certain percentage of colonists be white under Trujillo, laws
discouraging black immigrants fi'om entering, working, and settling in the Dominican
Republic were established. Ironically, due to a resurgence of sugar in the world market,
the Dominican government came to depend heavily on mostly black, immigrant, sugar
field laborers. Thus, the Dominican government was unable to fully implement the anti-
black immigration laws. The American-owned sugar mills that depended heavily on the
mostly Haitian and West Indian laborers viewed the laws as a threat to their economic
well-being and paid the fees and to avoid Haitian deportations from the sites. Those
Haitians outside the reahn of the American-owned and operated sugarcane mills,

however, were subject to deportation. Indeed, in 1932 several thousand Haitians were

 

7Ibid. Letter dated 15 October 1932 from Second Lieutenant Leonidas Ramirez Colonial Administrator for
the northern fiontier in the town of Restauracion to Ce'sar Perez A., Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and
Colonization of the Northern Department.
8Ibid. Letter dated 31 August 1933 fi'om second Lieutenant Domingo Lantigua, administrator of the
colonies in the northern border in Restauracion, to the Chief Inspector of the Colonization and Cooperative
Project.
9Vega Vol 2, pg.234

73

deported from the Dominican Republic.

Trujillo’s immigration law required that “all foreigners be they cane cutters or not
in order to enter the country [DR] had to pay $6.00 and every year had to pay $6.00 for
permanent residency.”10 This entrance and residence fee was very expensive and served
to single out undesirable non-white immigrants. The law, modeled after similar racist
anti-immigrant laws extant in the United States at the time, also excluded Chinese
immigrants and persons from Afiica who were not of the “Caucasian race”. Both of these
groups were required to pay a $300 entrance fee and another $100 to reside in the
country.11

A second law established by Trujillo required that at least 70% of all employees
of businesses in the Dominican Republic be Dominican. This meant that most of the
laborers in the sugarcane industry who were Haitian and West Indian would have been
dismissed causing a severe shortage of workers and an economic disaster for the US
owned sugar mills. Yet once again, the sugar industry along with the persuasive
American Diplomatic Corps in Santo Domingo persuaded Trujillo to rescind the law and
change it to allow foreigners to constitute up to 70% to 75% of all cane cutters in the
sugar industry. ‘2

Every attempt by Trujillo to limit, or prohibit black and Haitian immigration was
counteracted by American sugar interests. As one American Vice-consul wrote at the
time, Trujillo’s project to blcnquear or whiten the nation had been unsuccessful thus far.
“The population of the [Dominican] Republic consists in great part of people of the black
race and despite the favorable regulatory measures to the immigration of people of the
white race during the last four years the majority of people who have migrated to this

country are of the black race.”l3

 

l°Vega Vol I. pg.133.
llIbid. Failure to pay these fees brought a penalty of “three to six months in jail or a fine of between $100
and $200.”
l2lbid.234-235.
'3Ibid.235.
74

Border Negotiations

It appears that when the Haitian and Dominican presidents Louis Bomo and
Horacio Va'lsquez signed the 1929 Border Treaty, they recognized that demarcating the
Dominican-Haitian border would be easier on paper than the actual process of physically
dividing geographic space. The treaty established a border commission comprised of
qualified individuals from both nations who would work together to decide the territorial
boundaries of the countries. ‘4 Neither the drafters of the 1929 border treaty or the
subsequent border commission, however, realized that demarcating the border disrupted
communities and the unique way of life that had developed throughout hundreds of years.
More importantly, the 1929 treaty failed to address the border residents who would be
affected by potential geographic reorganizations. For Dominican officials, the fear laid in
absorbing Haitians who lived in remote places that were now, thanks to the 1929 treaty,
part of the Dominican territory. According to one Dominican scholar, all the people
living in the border region of La Miel “would be considered Dominican citizens and we
would have a part of our Dominican population by the [1929] treaty law [as nothing but]
true Haitian; Haitians by custom; by race and by language; with the right to spread and
extend themselves to all the confines of the country; and with the vocation of the highest
public positions reserved to the nationalists [natives]?15

Although anti-Haitian, the preceding quote speaks to the quandary faced by

Dominican officials who recognized that border limits were, perhaps, hollow due to the

 

1"‘It is a sincere wish of the Dominican Government that the Haitian Government order the conclusion of
the work that awaits the Haitian Section, and thus that both Governments arrive within the text of the
[1929] Treaty at an agreement about the existing difficulties so that, finally, in the shortest time possible,
the old and confused dispute can be canceled and both States can fulfill their destinies through the
protection of a solid and sincere friendship that will permit them to tighten their economic and moral ties.’
Rafael L. Trujillo, Discursos, menscjes, y proclcmcs Vol.1 (Santiago: Editora El Diario, 1946), pg.70.
l58cc Moises Garcia Mella, Alrededor de los tratcdos, 1929 y 1935 con la reptiblicc de Haiti. (Ciudad
Trujillo: Listin Diario, 1938), 34.

9

75

significant number of Haitians living and working throughout the Dominican border and
beyond, particularly in the sugarcane fields. Dominican officials quickly faced the
inevitability that no matter where the borderlines were drawn, there would always be
Haitians living in Dominican territory. This was a reality that would permeate state
policies of incorporation straight through to the 1937 Haitian Massacre.

As the decade of the 19305 began, Haitian officials withdrew from the border
talks even though these negotiations were required under the 1929 treaty. The Haitian
government argued that the border treaty, signed under Bomo’s administration,
undermined Haitian sovereignty by setting up Dominican territorial markers that
encompassed Haitian communities. The Haitian government claimed that extant Haitian
communities were residing on Haitian soil. Moreover, Haitian diplomats such as Abel
Leger believed that the “1929 Border Treaty was contrary to the Haitian Constitution and
violated the 1915 treaty with the United States since it ceded Haitian tenitory and
explained that the report by Haitian members of the Border Limits Commission said that
the latter’s Dominican members wanted to take territory away from Haiti.”16 Another
setback to the border demarcation mission was the fall of both presidents, President
Vasquez and President Bomo, from power.

By 1930, the political landscape had changed dramatically on both sides of the
island. In Haiti Stenio Vincent had replaced Bomo and in the Dominican Republic Rafael
Trujillo deposed of Horacio Vasquez in a bloodless coup d’etat. Both leaders were, in
many ways, forced to govern cautiously because Haiti remained under US. military
occupation until 1934. Uncle Sam notwithstanding, Trujillo pressed on early in his first
six years of power to negotiate a permanent border treaty with Haiti’s President Stenio

Vincent.

 

l"Bernardo Vega, Trujillo y Haiti Vol. 1 (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Dominicana, 1988), 123.
76

Presidential Meetings and Border Treaties

In the midst of agrarian border colonies, an extreme dependency on Haitian labor
for Dominican sugar fields, and pressure from exile groups both in Haiti and Cuba, the
prickly issue of resolving the Dominican nation’s territorial limits had not been resolved.
Publicly, Trujillo’s principal motive for seeking a final border resolution with Haiti was a
concern with preserving the country’s national security. Because the US. occupation of
Haiti limited his options, Trujillo initiated a series of encounters with his Haitian
presidential counterpart to establish permanent territorial limits of the two nations.

The first of the Trujillo and Haitian President Stenio Vincent meetings took place
in October 1933 in the Haitian border town of Juana Mendez (Ouanaminthe) and its
Dominican sister town of Daj abon. In Juana Mendez, both presidents had lunch and
promised future fraternal cooperation between the island nations. During this first historic
meeting between Dominican and Haitian presidents, there were no formal treaties signed,
but they did sign “an agreement of mutual support to avoid being attacked from the
neighboring country’s territory by their enemies.”17 The meeting did represent a very
important step in laying the foundations for the subsequent meetings and final border
treaty of 1936. In November 1934 Trujillo, for the first time in his life, visited the Haitian
capital city of Port-au-Prince. This was the second time these presidents met and despite
resounding optimism throughout both diplomatic camps of an impending settlement, the
leaders failed to reach a final border agreement. The point of contention stemmed from
the 1929 Border Treaty. Initially, the 1929 agreement was satisfactory to all parties,

seeing that both presidents were signatories. The problem, as pointed out by the Haitian

 

l7Bernardo Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, 173.
77

government, was that the new boundary incorporated Haitian border communities such as
La Miel within the Dominican State. Thus, after the 1929 treaty, the Haitian government
refused to honor this agreement, claiming uti possidetti or effective occupation. Since
there were Haitians who had long settled border territories now considered Dominican by
the treaty, Haiti had the right to claim these communities as an extension of their soil.18
Conversely, the Dominican government believed that the 1777 Treaty of Aranjuez, the
first border treaty ever drafted, held precedent over any other treaty and clearly placed
these contested Haitian communities within the limits of the Dominican Republic.19
Indeed, for the Dominican government these Haitian communities, whose inhabitants
included Dominicans of Haitian-descent, were illegally occupying Dominican lands
without a legal title. prossession is 9/105 of the law, then the Haitian government had a
very strong case. Indeed, the territory in question had been occupied by Haitians for
several generations. Nevertheless, the Dominican government insisted on the
communities’ withdrawal and attempted to resolve the issue through peacefill mediation
with Haiti.

The negotiations surrounding the Dominican-Haitian territorial boundaries
between 1929 through 1936 were complicated. Both presidents visited each other’s
capital on more than one occasion to resolve the aged question of where one nation ended
and the other began. Finally, after several hundred years of frontier, border disputes, and

diplomatic meetings, a definitive border accord was finally reached.

In Port-au-Prince, Trujillo proclaimed:

By the very nature of things and by the comprehension that your destinies have
both peoples, between Haiti and the Dominican Republic there does not exist nor
can be created problems that affect the national honor. Pending problems typical
between bordering neighbors that undoubtly will always reach a friendly and

 

l8Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, pg.186.
l9See Federico Velasquez H. chronterc de la Republicc Dominicana, (Santo Domingo: Editorial
Progreso, 1929), pg.55.

78

 

definitive solution are the only differences that confront our peoples and those
studied and considered by our Governments with cordial and understanding spirit
having been modified will not but strengthen even more the roots of the fraternal
fiiendship happily reigning between both countries and governments.20

In February of 1935, Vincent reached an agreement with Truijllo that was more
propitious for Haiti than for the Dominican Republic.21 According to Vega, Trujillo
actually ceded more land than stipulated by the 1929 Border Treaty. Driven by the need
to control the border and secure his power in a traditional autonomous region and proned
for insurrection, Trujillo offered Dominican land for national security. Says Vega,
Trujillo “gave the Haitian government 666,076 hectares lands that Horacio Vésquez had,
in 1929, succeeded in having the Haitians, recognize as Dominican!”22 Nonetheless, the
official was already celebrating the unprecedented success of the new accord. One

influential Dominican daily wrote,

Trujillo and Vincent; the Dominican Republic and Haiti, without cowardly
hesistancies, penetrated by a high obligation of their functions, illuminated and
persuaded by the strictest idea of country, have fixed not a border but a bridge of
cordiality without reticences...for the brightness of their history and gloriousness
for the equanirnity of their decisions.23

Indeed the 1935 border treaty elevated Trujillo’s international status for resolving a
problem that had endured for many centuries. For Trujillo, this new legitimacy as

peacemaker emboldened with a new legitimacy as statesman led him to express interest

20Trujillo, Discursos, menscjes, y proclcmcs, vol. 2, pg.105.

21”From the East his [Vincent’s] friend, President Trujillo, came to visit him, beautiful, arrogant, elegant

energetic and overall charitable.” See Listin Dicrio Nov. 14, 1934, pg.1.

22Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, pg.230. As Vega reminds us there are many Dominicans, particularly

conservatives and Trujillo apologists that believe that Trujillo was responsible for resolving the border

dispute yet in light of how much Dominican land Trujillo actually gave in this treaty Vega asks if

historiographically speaking should the Dominican leader “continue to receive this credit?”

23See Listin Diario March 8 1935, pg.8. Another article stated that “Santo Domingo and Haiti two

struggling and expert countries that ignore nothing because they have suffered everything have now given

in the present hour an example to the world worthy of imitation.” See Listin Dicrio March 6, 1935, pg.6.
79

in mediating other border conflicts, such as those in the South American Chaco region.24

Following this monumental agreement, Trujillo would visit Port-au-Prince twice,
once in March and another in May of 1936, while Vincent returned to visit his
counterpart in Santo Domingo in April 1936. In March, President Vincent hosted a
banquet in the National Palace in Port-au-Prince in celebration of the Dominican-Haitian
Border Agreement. During the banquet, Vincent toasted his guest (Trujillo) and

exclaimed:

It is for this reason that on a recent occasion, addressing the Dominican Congress,
I underscored the idea that this solution so longed for tended to strengthen the life
of the State because when Dominicans and Haitians are free of rancor and
prejudices, they offer themselves to work together for their own prosperity. The
world will contemplate how civilization and progress motivated by the most
energetic and loyal cooperation between men achieved happiness throughout the
preferred island of Christopher Columbus.25

Having been signed by both presidents and ratified by each representative’s national
congress, the 1936 border treaty was complete. After years of unsuccessful diplomatic
exchanges, military conflicts, and political crises originating with European colonization,
the island of Hispaniola was officially divided on paper and territorial boundaries were
now politically and geographically definitive.

Trujillo’s first seven years in office can be categorized as a mix of ineffective
state immigration/colonization policies. The govemment’s efforts to whiten the border
yielded little success yet a successful and surprisingly amicable diplomatic relationship
toward Haiti emerged at this time. Furthermore, unlike the post-massacre period, an
examination of the Dominican newspapers of the time confirmed that there was hardly

any trace of anti-Haitianism during these first few years. The tone of the articles

 

2‘ See Listin Diario March 15, 1935, pg.7. The unprecedented task of unending the centuries-old border
conflict even moved some Dominicans to “the conclusion that he [Trujillo] deserves the Nobel Peace
Prize.” A prize he never received let alone nominated for.
25See Rafael Trujillo, Discursos, mensajes, y proclamas. Vol.2, pg.275.

80

published between 1933 and 1936 was not only festive, but demonstrated a belief that a
roadblock for mutual cooperation had been removed. Ulises Heureaux, J r., son of the
famous Dominican dictator Lilis, wrote that in terms of the “irritating frontier
question...everything was defeated. The terror of many years now does not exist. With the
double firmness of the last Protocol [1936 border treaty] Act all the fears and all the
misgivings have disappeared.”26 Trujillo and Vincent were seen as heroic saviors and
symbols for peace on an island where both countries had experienced their share of US.
occupations and internal revolutions. It appeared that genuine peace had arrived in
Hispaniola. As one Dominican newspaper commented at the time, “For the Dominicans,
like the Haitians, Trujillo and Vincent personify a single symbol. They are the glorious
end with which God has sculpted definitively the jewel that he once threw in the

Antillean Sea to embellish this western hemisphere.”27

The Tide Turns

Just before October many, on both sides of the island, were convinced that a
golden age of intra-island cooperation was beginning.28 Even Trujillo, who after 1937
would adopt racist, pro-Nazi tendencies, had proudly proclaimed his Afiican heritage.
His affirmation was a resounding confirmation that he too, like his maternal grandmother
Diyetta Chevalier, was Haitian.29 The Dominican press also reported Trujillo’s unabashed
pride for his Haitian/black heritage. Praising the peace process and the border treaty

resolution, one Dominican article stated that what “gave the [treaty] Protocol its worth

 

2“Sec La Opinion April 23, 1936, pg.1.
27Scc Listin Diario March 17, 1936, pg. 1. The article continues, “For them [Trujillo and Vincent] will be
the glory of an inalterable peace in this favorite land of Columbus.”
28 “The Honorable President Trujillo and the Honorable President Vincent have signed today at ten in the
morning, the definitive border agreement protocol.” See, “Fue firmado ayer el protocolo final del arreglo
fronterizo,” in Listin Diario, March 10 1936, pg. 1.
2”“1 am proud to announce before my fellow citizens and before the world, that a high proportion of African
blood runs through my veins”. See Vega’s, Trujillo y Haiti, pg.24l.

8 l

and that liquidates definitively the question of the border is that it was signed by a
Dominican president who declares with pride to be of Haitian stock.”3O Sadly, the joyous
feeling was ephemeral on the island of Hispaniola, which was to join the ranks of other
countries of the early twentieth century in the legacy of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is difficult to grasp how a foreign policy that appeared to be pro-Haitian could,
in a matter of months, change course dramatically and conclude in massive violence.
Even as early as March 1937, six months prior to the massacre, Dominican newspapers
continued their praise of inter-island solidarity. During the festivities for Dominican
Independence Day in February, a group of prominent Haitian senators is quoted as
saying, “On this solemn day our hearts beat in unison with the hearts of our Dominican
brothers.”3 1 Several days later, the first Congress of Dominican-Haitian Intellectual
Cooperation was held in Santo Domingo, commemorating the one-year anniversary of
the 1936 border treaty.

In spite of its celebrated successes, the border treaty failed to give Dominican the
state authority over the border region. Residents of the border region remained very much
autonomous and beyond government control. Furthermore, the border region remained a
multicultural and bilingual zone that was more oriented toward Haiti than to Santo
Domingo. This reality undermined Trujillo’s efforts at consolidating state control over
the border and soon led the dictator to order a military campaign to destroy Haitians
principally throughout the border region. There were no major signs to hint at an
impending slaughter and the killings represent a traumatic event in the history of the
Dominican border region. Without precedence, the massacre left thousands of dead and
wounded Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent and displaced many more as

survivors escaped to Haitian territory. Once the Haitian presence was killed or chased

 

30Sec Listin Diario, March 28, 1936, pg. 1.
3 ISee Listin Diario March 3, 1937. Once again Trujillo and Vincent were praised as the “island’s heroes”
for bringing about mutual cooperation. See La Opinion, March 13, 1937, pg.4.

82

from Dominican territory, Trujillo would finally and effectively colonize the border

region for the first time in the history of his country.

83

Chapter 3
A Genocidal Massacre and an International Scandal

Twenty-two years afier the Armenian genocide; four years afier the slaughter
of thousands of peasants in El Salvador; a few weeks before 300,000 Chinese were
murdered by Japanese soldiers in Nanking; and a few short years before the genocide
by the Nazis, Dominican military and civilian forces under Trujillo’ command
repatriated and killed approximately 20,000 Haitian men, women, and children.1 For
Haitians living in Dominican tenitory, especially in the border, the months between
September 1937 and January 1938 must have been a nightmare. What had started out
as deportations of Haitians fiom the Dominican Republic in May and June of 1937
ended in what is perhaps one of the western hemisphere’s most brutal examples of
ethnic cleansing in the twentieth-century.

In October of 1937 Trujillo, who had shaped a proactive and neighborly
foreign policy toward Haiti, was responsible for instigating a genocidal massacre that
left thousands of Haitians dead. No one would have predicted that carnage would
erupt in the last months of 193 7, shortly following seven years of close diplomatic
relations, mutual visits, and public accolades in the print media. The killings would
become the foundation for an official Dominican racist discourse, which initially
denied that a massacre of Haitians ever took place. The Dominican government would
argue that, in reality, the “massacre” had been a series of violent skirmishes resulting
from Dominican farmers’ efforts to defend their farms and properties from Haitian

thieves. Once the image of Dominicans as victims of Haitian invaders was solidified

84

by the government, the Dominican crusade to reclaim the border from Haitians began.
The massacre became an example of the negative effects that government laxity and
neglect over a region could produce. The disinterest from the government was held
accountable for producing an environment of violence and anarchy in the border.
Following the massacre, the Dominican government would capitalize on the historic
anti-Haitian animosity and prejudice to Dominicanize the border. The govemment’s
aim was to demonize Haiti and the mechanism was to establish state institutions and

to disburse official propaganda that generated ideological discourses against Haiti.

The Calm Before the Storm

Prior to the massacre, the only sign of impending danger was the deportations
of Haitians, which had begun in May of 1937. However, there was no indication that
the repatriations would lead to a massacre.2 On the heels of the expulsion of
thousands of Haitians from the island of Cuba in 1936, the Dominican government
initiated the repatriation of Haitians as part of its quest to Dominicanize the border.
Ever since the early twentieth century, the Dominican sugar industry had come to
depend heavily on Haitian laborers. The first Dominican census of 1923, conducted
under the supervision of the US. military government occupying the island, counted

28,258 Haitians in the entire country.3 For Dominican sugar mill owners, Haitian

 

' Although not as violent, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans during the 19303 were forcibly repatriated
to Mexico by the U. S. government.

2According to Vega, from May 1937 and the several subsequent months prior to the massacre, 8, 000
Haitians were deported to Haiti. See Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, Vol I p,g. 306.

3Martin F. Murphy, Dominican Sugar Plantations. Production and Foreign Labor Integration. (New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1991), 76.

85

workers provided a cheap, reliable and consistent source of labor. For Trujillo, on the
other hand, the growing numbers of Haitians in the Dominican Republic undermined
his project to create a new national identity; one that would project Dominicans as
being of Spanish descent.

By the 19303, a worldwide depression had lowered world sugar prices. The
depression intensified the Dominican-based U.S. sugar companies’ demand for more
cheap Haitian labor. Trujillo was aware of the Haitian population’s increase, even as
he tried unsuccessfully to implement exclusionary immigration laws against Haitian
immigrants. Nevertheless, the continued dependency of sugar mills on Haitian
workers only served to increase the numbers entering the Dominican Republic. By
1935, the number of Haitians in the Dominican Republic had increased to nearly
52,657 out ofa total population of 1,479, 417.4 Most of the Haitians in the
Dominican Republic at the time were concentrated in the sugar plantations of the east
and the border provinces. The population along the border had also been growing
since the eighteenth century. Between 1908 to 1920, the population in the northern
border town of Monte Cristi climbed from 48,000 to 67,073. During the same period,
the population in the southern bordem town of Barahona, where a sugar mill had been
built, more than doubled from 22,000 to 48,182.5

It was in the context of countering the rapid growth of Haitian-born workers
that Trujillo and his government promoted a policy in favor of (white) immigration.

Under Trujillo, white immigrants—specifically Spanish immigrants—were preferred

 

4 Suzy Castor, Migraciones y relaciones internacionales: el caso haitiano-dominicano (Ciudad
Mexico: Facultad Ciencias Politicas y Sociales, UNAM, 1983), pg.61.

86

because they were thought to be the most culturally compatible with Dominicans. In
the grand scheme of Trujillo’s nation-building program, Spain was to become the
source from which Dominicans inherited their culture and language. According to
Trujillo’s Director of Immigration, success of this immigration policy hinged on not
only white immigrants but also immigrants from the Iberian motherland: “from the
point of view of ethnicity, it is necessary for it to be DISTINCTLY SPANISH...for its
cultural linguistic similarity.”6 In mostly black and mulatto Dominican Republic, the
construction of race, particularly under Trujillo, was traced to indigenous and Spanish
origins. In order to promote a Eurocentric Dominican identity and dismiss the black
and mulatto majority, the Trujillo regime officially sanctioned the use of the word
“India” to define mestizos. Although the Tainos had disappeared from Hispaniola in
the seventeenth century, the India became the commonly used term to describe a
person who was neither black nor white. Under Trujillo, the category of India
appeared in the cédula (national identification card) to describe one’s complexion.
The term was conveniently utilized by the regime to classify many dark-skinned

Dominicans as Indians. The Dominican Republic was not alone in its practice of

 

5 Frank Moya Pons, “Nuevas consideraciones sobre la historia de la poblacion dominicana: curvas,
tasas, y problemas,” Eme-Eme Nov.Dic. #15 (1974), pg.26; total page numbers=3-28.

6 See Relaciones Exteriores Leg.216. Correspondencias recibidas de Sept. a Dic.: Letter from Reynaldo
Valdes, Dir. of Immigration June 4, 1937. AGN. Ironically, Valdes is not interested in all-white
inclusive irrrrnigration but a specific/European white immigrant. He writes, “Whereas the Nordic races
lack all the advantages and evidently need to be rejected as much as the Jews and the Semites from any
immigration plan directed and protected by the [Dominican] state; the Finns brought here a while back
are a recent example of their inadaptibility to our means.” Even Asians were seen as undesirable. One
Dominican ofi'lcial wrote that “During 1936 there has been one Chinese irmnigrant every week just
through this port. I don’t think that any other country is giving presently that reception to a race that
although composed of workers is undesirable because they never become consumers; that they do not
mix with the natives is an advantage because that type of mixture is always inconvenient. Any limits
that is placed on this popular immigration will always be good in my humble opinion.” Letter from
Dominican Consul in New York Rafael Espaillat de la Mota to Sec. Foreign Relations,

87

manipulating ideas of race and applying it to domestic and foreign policy. During the
19303, several Latin American countries had adopted policies that limited
immigration. Like Trujillo, some Latin American leaders and their nations pursued a
policy of blanqueamienta/whitening of their countries. Since the turn-of-the-century,
elites in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba had supported immigration laws that
prohibited immigrant blacks from entering their countries while espousing the
settlement of European foreign-bom whites.7 However, not all the countries espoused
a pro-Spanish immigration policy like the Dominican Republic. In predominantly
white Argentina, where most Indians and Blacks were either killed or incorporated
into society, the preferred immigrant did not originate in Spain. The dynamics were
such that Spain, a dying empire, was seen as responsible for the degenerative state of
affairs in Latin America. Consequently, the most desirable and coveted people in
Argentina were Anglo-Saxon immigrants.8 The main difference between the
formation of elite racial policies in the Dominican Republic and the aforementioned
countries, however, was Haiti’s principal role as the “invader” in Dominican
historical memory. Under Trujillo, historic Dominican prejudices against Haiti and a

concomitant Dominican “de-racialized social consciousness” fused to implement

 

Correspondencia recibida de consulados dominicanos en 1937. Correspondencia recibida y enviada,
Leg.227.

7 In Brazil for example, “The Constitution of 1891 specifically banned African and Asian immigration
into the country, and the national and state governments made the luring of European immigration into
Brazil a priority of national development.” See George Reid Andrews Blacks and Whites in 550 Paulo,
Brazil [888-1988 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 52.

8 See Aline Helg’s “Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880-1930: Theory, Policies, and Popular Reaction,”
in The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940. Ed. Richard Graham (Austin,TX: The University of
Texas Press, 1990), pg.40. Of course Italian migrants known as golondrinas also contributed
Significantly to the development of Argentinian society. See Peter Winn, Americas: The Changing
Face of Latin America and the Caribbean. (The University of California Press, 1999), 104-5.

88

violent state policy and transform the border.9 Therefore, Dominicans participating in
the killings were the “protectors” of the national territory against another invasion of

black Haitian forces.

He Stomped His Foot and Announced the Massacre

The 1937 Massacre was so spontaneous that it took many Haitians and
Dominicans, unprepared for such intense violence, by surprise. However, the violence
was premeditated and well-organized on the part of Trujillo and his military machine.
Throughout the months of August and September, Trujillo traveled the border region
visiting and inspecting communities. On October 2, Trujillo attended a dance held in
the second floor of City Hall in the border-town of Dajabon. According to a eighty-
five year old Dominican native of Dajabon who witnessed the event, Franciso
Antonio Espinal, Trujillo stomped on the floor with his foot and exclaimed that “two
to three Haitians had to be eliminated in every town, that way the rest would be scared
and go to Haiti.”10 Although the massacre had begun in late September, Trujillo’s
October 2nd remarks accelerated the killings. The following day, the twenty-four year
old Espinal, who is black and worked in the post office, was ordered by an army

Captain named David Carrasco to remain in his office for eight days. Espinal states

 

9 See Silvio Torres-Saillant’s “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity,”
Latin American Perspetives, Issue 100, Vol.25 No.3 (May 1998), pg.139.

‘0 Audio interview with Francisco Antonio Espinal in Dajabon, Jan.l999. In January and the Summer
of 1998, after receiving permission from the Michigan State University Committee on Research
Involving Human or Animal Subjects, I conducted more than 40 audio and video interviews in the
northern and southern border provinces of the Dominican Republic. The interviewees ranged from 60
to 90 years of age and most were farmers. Those varied from participating in the actual killings to
guiding Dominican army patrols to the location of Haitians. Most participants were eager to answer my

89

that he was responsible for receiving and transmitting telephone and encrypted
telegraph messages during this period. He was unable to read the secret military
information and forbidden to leave.ll During Espinal’s forced stay, thousands of
Haitians were killed and many more were forced to leave their homes and flee the
Dominican Republic. Haitians who had resided in the Dominican Republic for many
years were killed mostly by Trujillo’s military but civilian volunteers also
participated. Using machetes and minimal firearms, to avoid future accusations of
organized military murder, the Dominican soldiers killed Haitian men, women, and
children. Not even the internationally recognized Boy Scouts organization was spared.
According to a State Department memorandum, “Haitian Boy Scouts were among the
Haitians killed at Dajabon, Monte Criste [sic] and other places in the Dominican
Republic. The Scout headquarters has just received a very comforting letter from Dr.
Rowe, Director, General of the Pan American Union. The Intemat’l. Scout Office in
London has asked for a detailed report on the gravity of the situation. Requests aid
and protection from the [U.S.] President”.12 Throughout the month of October,
Haitians attempted to reach and cross the border to safety. Many Haitians were killed
because they chose to remain until it was too late or as they returned after fleeing in
an effort to salvage their belongings. Most of the residents who were targeted during

the massacre found it difficult to leave the only home they knew in the Dominican

 

questions which began with general inquiries about their experiences during the Trujillo era and
gradually got more detailed concerning the massacre and the post-Dominicanization border project.

Ibid. Espinal is representative of older border Dominicans who are bilingual and very familiar with
Haiti. Dominican medical doctor Miguel Aquino also conducted brief oral histories in the border
region with Espinal among others. See his most recent English translation from the Spanish in
Holocaust in the Caribbean: The Slaughter of 25, 000 Haitians by Trujillo in One Week. (Waterbury,
CT: Emancipation Press, 1997.

90

side of the border. Many had established themselves in the Dominican side over the
years and had accumulated homes, businesses, land, and familial ties. In fact, many
had been born and raised in the Dominican Republic, making them Dominicans of
Haitian descent. According to one scholar, most of the communities along the border
were constituted by prototypical bicultural border families.l3 Longtime border
resident Ramon Antonio Blane (F ilande) reminded me that in several border-towns
Haitians were the majority and considered Dominican territory their home. He says
that, prior to the massacre, “all this was Haitian. Here there were only three
Dominican houses. Afier that it was all Haitian. These farms (read lands) were all
Haitian [here in] Loma de Cabrera We all got along very well here.”14 Testimonies
like these are important in suggesting a strong Haitian presence throughout the border
prior to the massacre. Furthermore, beyond speaking to the overwhehning Haitian
presence along the border, personal testimonies reflect the manner in which
Dominican men systematically searched, rooted out, trapped, and slaughtered
innocent human beings. When asked if he participated in the killings, F ilande denied
it adamantly. He stated that soldiers were in the practice of inviting civilians to search
for Haitians. Offers which Filande claims to have declined. F ilande’s refusal to
participate means that he and many others had a choice not to participate in the
slaugher of Haitians. Although individual experiences vary, most persons interviewed

stated that Dominicans were urged by soldiers participate in the killings. Refirsals to

 

'2 Memorandum from the Department of State to M.H. Mcintyre, Secretary to the President, December
29, 1937. OF Official File Box #162-A, Haiti 1935-193 8, FDR Presidential Library.

'3 According to one scholar, most of the Haitians living throughout the Dominican border provinces
were “second-generation.” See Lauren Derby’s, “Haitians, Magic, and Money, 1900 to 1937,” Society
for Comparative Study of Society and History 1994, pg.508.

91

participate represented risking any possible reprisals.15 One of the most candid
persons I interviewed was Pedro Leclerc Batista in the small northwestern community
of Capotillo, in the province of Dajabon. A small dark-skinned man in his eighties,
Leclerc was shockingly comfortable sharing his stories about participating in the
killings of Haitians. In his testimony, Leclerc justified the massacre by recounting
nineteenth-century Haitian cruelties and their ubiquitous presence along the border.
Leclerc recounted how he and a team of five other men were organized to participate
in the massacre.16 He and his men “did service”(servicio), going out at three in the
afternoon into the mountains looking for Haitians and returning in the early morning.
He killed many Haitians and states that he individually buried at least forty people.
Leclerc claims that throughout the month of October, his group killed a total of more
than two hundred Haitians.l7 Leclerc still remembers where several graves hold the
decomposed remains of hundreds of Haitians buried by soldiers and civilians.18 Many
horrific events surrounding these killings presaged the larger mass murder perpetuated

just a few years later during the genocide of European Jews in Nazi Germany.

 

" Interview with Ramon Antonio Blane in Lorna de Cabrera, Jan. 1999.

'5 None of the persons I interviewed offered evidence to show that those who refused to kill were
punished. However, there were apparently “volunteers” who participated in the killings with the
military and others whose only job was to guide the soldiers. Bienvenido Gil was a guide who, in a
newspaper interview, said he refused to follow the orders given by a Corporal Peguero, who ordered
the killing of three toddlers.

Gil told the Corporal: “Shit, look, I am not that type of man. For you to order me to do that you should
do it yourself because I am not a man who has killed.” After several refusals, and after the Corporal
himself refused to kill the children, a man named Elonginio Rosa “took them by the arms to the
mountains and took care of the problem.” See Listin Diaria May 23, 1999, pg. 14A.

'6 Interview with Pedro Leclerc Batista in Capotillo near Dajabon. Jan. 1999. These men were Bruno
Fernandez (deceased), Antonio Aren, Eusebio Cordero(deceased), Teofilo Pérez, and Anecleto
Cordero.

‘7 Ibid. Asked if he used any depressants, such as rum, to make it easier to kill, Leclerc said no.

'8 Ibid. Some of these unmarked graves, such as Canal de Juan Calvo (between Lorna de Cabrera and
Dajabén), lower part of the Juan Calvo Hill, have now been covered by water canals and pasture.

92

Witnesses to the massacre state that in some cases Haitian corpses were
burned to eliminate all evidence of foul play. It is important to note that not all the
corpses were burned. Many were buried in make-shift graves in remote and
mountainous forest regions away from the gazing eyes of curious citizens. In any case,
the smoke that was produced by the burning bodies was visible to some Dominican
towns-people. According to native Emilio Diaz of Las Clavellinas, in one of several
small southern towns between Neiba and La Descubierta that straddle Lake
Enriquillo, it was clear that Dominican soldiers were burning Haitian bodies to
eliminate any evidence that a crime had occurred:

They brought down the Haitians over there but they took them mistakenly to

the firewood...and they took them to the water [the edge of the lake] and there

we (us being children [12 and 13 years of age]) were able to see the black
smoke and the next day my father went to see what was happening and said
that what they saw there was very terrible: the pieces [burnt debree from the
corpses] in and outside of the water. Afterwards they told me that the Haitians

[who before being killed] cried out ‘sefior, muflé papa’ [for mercy]. Most

people in town saw that black smoke.19
During one interview, a participant remembered that in order to more efficiently bum
the bodies, the Dominican soldiers and their civilian counterparts made a small

incision between the cadavers’ toes. Then they would place a lighted match or

burning wooden stick in the incision within the foot, whereupon the flames gradually

 

'9 Video interview with Emilio Diaz alias Nino. May 1999. 74 years old. Interestingly Emilio claims
adamantly that the killings dming his childhood took place in March of 1937, almost six months before
the massacre in Dajabon. It is inrportant to examine Diaz’s assertion because, as we examine the
massacere in more detail, we see that although highly organized by the military, it varied in its
application depending on the region. Richard Turits has suggested that another massacre occurred in
early 1938 in the south long after Trujillo stopped the massacre. I have met some older people in the
south who have corroborated this second massacre of Haitians in early 1938.

93

- consumed the bodies.20 In this case, ovens were not used, as they were with the Jews
in Nazi Germany. The goal of extermination, however, was one and the same.
Everyone thought to be Haitian during this time—including children—risked
being killed. A former principal and primary school teacher in Dajabon, Diego
Blanco, lost over half of his 105 students during the killings. After the massacre sixty-
five boys and girls of his classroom were either killed or fled to Haiti.21 Gruesome
stories like this were not isolated during the Haitian Massacre. In the southern town of
La Descubierta, S. Ramirez recounted how he and his civilian companions had to
demonstrate to their superiors (army officers) that the ammunition they received was
not wasted. Therefore, for every Haitian killed, Mr. Ramirez had to present the
victim’s ear.
The proof ?: because I could leave with a shot-gun cartridge and I could kill
pigs and I bring back three [human] ears but I can’t say that I had to make four
or five shots because it could be that in the first shot I could have killed him or
killed two in two shots and the rest [of the bullets] could have been for

something else then they [the military] would again give me those cartridges
but it wasn’t like ‘I already killed’—you had to prove you had killed.22

 

2° Video Interview with with ninety-nine-year-old Guamacito Pérez Gomez alias Manon, resident of
Los Rios near Neiba. May 1999, during the period of two months I conducted video interviews with
elderly Dominicans on the border who participated directly and indirectly in the massacre and who
gave their impressions or recollections of life under Trujillo’s dictatorship. The video interviews will
be deposited at the Dominican Studies Institute in the City College of New York, in New York City, for
researchers.

2‘ Unfortunately, by the time I reached Diego Blanco’s home in Dajabon. Jan. 1999, he was senile.
However he did leave his account of the massacre a few years ago. The above excerpt was taken from
Jose Israel Cuer H. Documentos del canflicta Dominica-Haitiana del 1937 (Santo Domingo: Editora
Taller, 1985), pg.46. I did speak briefly to his octogenarian wife, who told me a recurrent story told by
border Dominicans that in a savannah near Daj abon Haitian children were thrown in the air and caught
by the soldiers’ bayonets and then thrown atop their mothers corpses. She also told me that she helped
saved six Haitians by hiding them under a bed and that her husband’s business was burned down.

22 Video Interview in La Descubierta, June 1999.

94

The distribution of weapons by the Dominican army to civilians for the purposes of
persecuting and killing Haitians contradicts the government’s denials of complicity in
organized state violence. When the world later learned of the massacre and of the
victims who had suffered gunshot and machete wounds, Trujillo would claim that the
massacre was simply a border skirmish between Dominican and Haitian residents.23

To no one’s surprise, it would be the Dominican exile community that would
turn world attention to this crime and present it as yet another example of Trujillo’s
thirst for power and total disrespect for human life. News of the killings and the
impending crisis that was mounting between Haitian and Dominican governments
convinced the exile community in New York City that Trujillo’s downfall was
imminent. The belief was so strong that the name of Angel Morales, a prominent
Dominican exile, circulated in the New York City press as the next presidential
candidate in elections that would be held as soon as Trujillo fell from power.24 But
Morales did not witness the predicted fall of Trujillo. It would take twenty-three more
years before the exile community would see a democratic transition in the Dominican
Republic after the assassination of the dictator.

Trujillo’s ability to retain power for many years and carry out a full-scale
organized, collective slaughter for several weeks, required control of the army. The
institution of the army or ejercito nacianal, above all the rest, explains how Trujillo
could have logistically committed the collective murder of thousands of Haitians and

remain in power for such a long period of time. Under Trujillo, this institution was

 

’3 Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, Vol. 1. pg.36l-362.
2‘ Bernardo Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, 193 7-1938. Vol.II. (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural
Dominicana, 1995), pg.170.

95

transformed into a modern organization that served to maintain his power as an outlet
for the mostly poor young volunteers. Enlisting in the army represented an
opportunity for social mobility. Many of the new recruits were between eighteen and
twenty-five years old and came from very poor socio-economic conditions.” For the
average enlisted man, joining the army meant having a steady income while gaining
social prestige within his community. It also meant going through a process of
indoctrination where soldiers were expected to pledge their allegiance to Trujillo fi'om
the moment of recruitment. Therefore, by the time of the massacre, these young
soldiers had been indoctrinated to carry out orders—any orders—in the name of
Trujillo and the country. These young soldiers also comprised a rapidly growing army
who had increased from 2,125 men in 1929 to 3,029 men in 1938 out of an overall
population of 1, 479, 417.26

During the massacre, nearly 3,000 soldiers could not all be stationed
throughout the border. Thus, the killing of 20,000 Haitians relied on the crucial
support of civilians.27 Many soldiers were unfamiliar with the border region and
relied on long-time civilian residents of the region to guide them in locating and

killing Haitians. Many relied on the rural police or alcaldes pedaneos—usually former

 

2’ Valentina Peguero, “Trujillo and the Military: Organization, Modernization and control of the
Dominican Armed Forces, 1916-1961,” Ph.D. diss. Columbia University, 1993, pg. 194; 196.
According to Peguero, new recruits also had to be “at least five feet six inches tall, with good physical
and mental health and no personal or family records.” In other words, have no police record of criminal
activity or political dissent against the regime.

26 Ibid. 230. During the Trujillo regime only three national censuses were taken: 1935, 1950, and 1960.
Initially and according to a 1943 law, the national census would be conducted every fifteen years. At
the time of writing, I was not able to locate the 1935 census. However, the 1950 census does offer the
statistical population figure for 1935: 1,479,417. See Tercer censo nacional de poblacion 1950
Republica Dominicana Direccion General de Estadistica Oficina Nacional de Censo, Ciudad Trujillo,
1958.

2’ Ibid.

96

soldiers who became the highest authority in the villages or towns. The rural police,
alongside the volunteers, became the state’s eyes and ears and facilitated the army’s
“search and destroy” missions against Haitians. In all and according to scholar
Valentina Peguero, aside from the army’s more than 3,000 soldiers, the government
could count on a force of 10,000 men in the police force and a corps of civilian
reserves.28 Men like ninety-nine year old farmer Fermin Medina remembered being
invited by army officers, specifically lieutenants, to participate in the massacre. Asked
why he participated in the massacre, despite being a civilian, Fermin replied:
Trujillo [read the military] placed a shot-gun in my hands to kick the Haitians
out...no [I was not a soldier] but I was very much liked by the chiefs. I worked
with the military on the patrols. Every day the patrols were changed...when
those [men] left a patrol, there was another one [to substitute] it. [We were]
five or six persons [in the patrol] and armed. With a 12 caliber shot-gun. I
went twice.”29
Many border residents were torn emotionally by witnessing the rounding-up
and killings of Haitians and black Dominicans of Haitian descent, some of whom
were longtime fiiends. Yet many remained silent. Husbands, wives, children, and
entire families were separated because intermarriage between Dominican and Haitian
border residents was very common. Moreover, many Dominicans of Haitian descent
Were also forced to cross the border into Haiti for fear of not being able to prove they

Were Dominican.30 Those Dominicans that were not affiliated politically with the

r€=gime and who were asked to volunteer had little choice. In a dictatorial society

 

 

28 .
Ibid.

29 Video Interview in La Descubierta, June 1999. Also see Cuello 's Documentos del canflicta

Dominica-Haitiano del I93 7, “Yo conozco todos los puntos...” pg.45.

97

where arbitrary arrests were common, civilians who did not follow military or police
orders were subject to, at a minimum, being arrested. In essence, saying no to the
military was tantamount to treason against Trujillo and marked you as his enemy.3 '
Many border Dominicans never participated in the massacre because they were not
asked to help by the military and never volunteered to scout Haitians in the forests or
kill them. Many interviewees recalled that people had to obey orders by killing or
witnessing atrocities during the massacre, even though you found the killings morally
reprehensible. Ninety-nine year old Manon told me the following story:
Personally I saw it [the burning of Haitian bodies]and it filled my heart with
sorrow but I couldn’t speak. I can’t say ‘don’t do this’ because they were the
chiefs. I could not say to them don’t do it because they were the big people
and they were the chiefs. I was with them because they were taking me. What
I use to do was turn my face, I turned my face so as not to see certain things. I
myself had a small Haitian boy which I found [prior to the massacre] in one of
those hills and I raised him and I had him in my house and when the
“remova ” [i.e.massacre] came it was to take him to Haiti and I got tired of
arguing with the sergeants who were friends of mine saying: ‘oh, leave him’; it
was no use but I think that on the road they killed them, they killed [all of]
them on the road.32
It is difficult to imagine the beautiful Dominican border landscape dotted by
unmarked and makeshift bloody graves with the stench of charred human flesh
permeating the quiet countryside. As Trujillo biographer Robert Crasweller writes,
“Bodies clogged the river. Bodies were piled into obscure little valleys. Bodies lay in

Village streets and on country roads and in gentle green fields. Trails of blood lay on

dusty country lanes up and down the border. Blood dripped from trucks that carried

 

 

31°9See Orlando Inoa, “Hulda de negros dominicanos durante la matanza de 1937,” El Sigla May 18,
93, pg.7.
:; Video interview with 3. Ramirez in La Descubierta, June 1999.

Video interview with Mahon, June 1999.

98

 

[)0

Oil:

corpses to secluded ravines for disposal?” It is difficult to imagine what went
through the minds of Haitians attempting to escape from Dominican territory. As
previous scholars like Garcia, Cuello, Vega, Turits and Derby have shown, oral
testimonies provide valuable information on historical events where victims’ voices
are ignored. After collecting video histories of Dominican border residents who
directly or indirectly participated in the massacre, I traveled to the northwestern
border of Haiti and conducted video interviews with survivors of the massacre a year
later.34

The oral testimonies of the massacre allow us to capture, if ever so
superficially, the feelings that loomed over the border region during the time of the
massacre. One of the persons I interviewed was seventy-five year old Dominican-bom
Antoine Joseph. Like many border residents, Antoine’s parents were Haitian and
Dominican. Most of the interviews were conducted in Spanish. He recalled that no
one knows why the massacre began. It “started on a Wednesday but in Daj abon on
Sunday October 5th.”35 Like many others were to tell me, upon hearing news of the
killings Joseph and his family, similar to many Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian
descent fled their communities and towns. Many families, like them, made their way
to the border. Their hope was to reach the border, cross it, and safely reach Haitian

territory without being stopped by the roving military and civilian killing squads.

 

33 See Robert D. Crasweller, Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1966), 154-155. According to Turits, makeshift refugee camps were established
on the Haitian side of the border where the wounded arrived. Several of these sites were Terrier Rouse,
Grand Bassin, Savan Zombi, Dosmont and Thiote. See Turits’ “Foundation of Despotism,” pg.488.

3‘ The video interviews in Haiti were conducted during the early part of August 2000. I would like to
thank Solange Pierre, the Haitian Consul in Daj abon Jean Baptiste, Jeremiah, and Adela in the
Consulate for introducing me to the interviewees.

35 Video interview with Antoine Joseph in Juana Mendez, August 2, 2000.

99

Whether you were near the territorial limits or separated by hundreds of miles, the
goal was to cross the border without being killed. Many of the persecuted spent
several fearful days and nights hiding in the woods as they made their way to the
border. It was during these days of clandestine uncertainty that Antoine says he saw
cadavers of those massacred. “I saw people on the ground [dead]. I was looking for
pecans, you know children love pecans, and I saw various people laying on the ground
with blood and old clothes. I got scared and I went down to a ravine...where we were
hiding and I told my father and they came to see. It took us four days to cross over all
the while living and sleeping in the mountains.”36

Despite a ubiquitous fear, the interviews also echoed similar conversations
with Dominicans where some Dominicans are portrayed as risking their lives in the
face of potential military reprisals in order to assist Haitians trying to reach the
border. During the eight days he and a large group of Haitian men, women, and
children were hiding in a pasture making their way to the Haitian border, now eighty-
two year old Leonor Foronn recalled how some Dominicans brought them food like
“milk, eggs, plantains, yuca, sweet potato, yautia, peas, rice...we did not experience a
lot of hunger.”37 Despite stories like these of Dominican hurnanitarianism, most

Haitians walked several days foraging in the forest without outside help as they made

 

3” Ibid. Most of the survivors were never treated for their psychological trauma whose impact is still felt
years later. Antoine says, “I am not going there [to the Dominican Republic]. I remember everything
that happened. In my very dreams everytime I am dreaming, I am nmning, fleeing from a Dominican
with a machete in his hand is running after me...that is why everytime I think about it--that is why I do
not go.”

37 Video Interview with Leonor Foronn. Aug.2, 2000 in Juana Mendez. Born in Haiti around 1918 and
raised in Santiago de La Cruz near the border in the Dominican Republic. F anrul also recalled waiting
for a Haitian truck as they were hiding to take them across the border. Although he says the truck
arrived at 4am, it is not clear how this truck was allowed to enter Dominican territory during the

100

their dangerous journey toward the border. A salient example is the testimony of now
the octogenarian madam Augustin, who narrated to me her personal experience
during the massacre. The daughter of Haitian parents in Puerto Plata, Augustin

traveled through mountains and forests for almost a week until she reached Haiti.

I came walking. Everybody ran. They fled and left all their belongings. A lot
of people. We walked about 5 to 6 days because you could not go out during
the day or the night. At night everyone one was one group and searching
where to exit the country. We arrived in a place called Balbao and from their
we returned to our country—all of us. [What did you eat during those 5 to 6
days?] When you are in such a mess like that are you going to have time to be
hungry? When you find yourself in such a mess a little bit of casave, a piece of
bread, bit of sugar and you make sugar water, place bread with that and you
can last 5 or 6 days, it’s like that.38

Many who escaped the northern Dominican border region arrived in Juana Mendez—
the first Haitian city after Dajabon. Eighty-nine year old Ernesto Jose, born and raised
in Dajabon of Haitian parents, remembers his older brother who was a school teacher
warning his family after he returned from the infamous dance celebrated in honor of

Trujillo’s arrival to the border town.

Naturally I crossed the border the next day. In customs they asked me for my
cedula (identity card)—I still had not reached my sixteeenth birthday. They
[the Dominican authorities] did not agree. I showed them my birth certificate
and they took it and kept the certificate. But I still thought that I was not
sixteen. I was born in 1921 and left in 1937. I was born on November 10,
1921 and left Dajabon in 1937. I crossed with my mother because I was a
minor.39

killings. “The truck was full...[the truck] entered through Juana Mendez...the driver of the truck was
Hakim”.
:: Video Interview with odiwi soguise in Colonic, Gran Bassin. August 17, 2000.

Video Interview with Ernesto Jose Aug.3, 2000 in Juana Mendez.

101

The scene at Juana Mendez, with the constant stream of people pouring in
during those October and November months, was surreal. Ernesto Jose recalled seeing
Haitian refugees arriving in Juana Mendez severely injured. “They came in large
numbers. They came tied almost like an ox tied to an anvil. They had them bound by
rope and sometimes they managed to escape [from the soldiers]?40 While in Juana
Mendez seventy year-old Geraldo Moises, the son of a Haitian mother and Dominican
father and raised in Daj abon, remembers that although he did not see any injured
persons he “heard many stories of people who were injured.” Yet, at night, since
Daj abon and Juana Mendez (Ounaminthe) are border towns separated by a very small
and narrow river, Jose recalled listening from Haiti the cries from the dying on the
Dominican side. “When we went to sleep a lot of screams on the other side: ‘knife! ’
The Haitians screaming ‘amue! ’ I lived near the river?41 During this time, the
hospital in Juana Mendez received the wounded and dying as they struggled to reach
Haitian territory. One of those persons who managed to reach Haiti was sixty nine
year old Carlos Antonio (Calixte Antoine). Like many of the refugees, Antonio was
born in Dominican Republic (Puerto Plata) of Haitian parents. He traveled five days
to reach Juana Mendez. There he recalled seeing in the hospital the constant arrival of
the wounded .

I hear from the wounded that they [Dominicans] are killing many people but I

never saw this [killings] with my own eyes. Yes there were a lot of people in

the hospital, they were brought there, I saw this with my own eyes. There were
many wounded people, a lot of wounded people, a lot of wounded. Men and

women who were alive and ran but when they escaped were badly wounded.
The wounded that I saw did not die but were placed in the hospital and were

 

4o .
Ibld.
4' Video Interview with Geraldo Moises in Juana Mendez August 16, 2000.

102

treated. There are some who lived and others who died because they could not
withstand the injuries.42

Many Haitians in Dominican territory tried desperately to warn their loved ones but
the spontaneity of the massacre prevented them from doing so. The following letter,
written by a Haitian, was intercepted by the Dominican authorities. In this letter he
warns his mother, who lived in the southern province of Azua, of the massacre which
was already taking place along the border and feared, in what proved to be a justified
fear, that it would extend beyond the border.
“My Dear Mother, Hello. It is with a heart filled with happiness that I write
you this letter since I cannot enjoy the pleasure of seeing you. They have killed
at least thirty Haitians in Dajabon, and I believe that they have killed Racine.
Do whatever is possible to leave before the month of January, its the last
warning that has been given to kill all the Haitians that still are left in the
Dominican Republic. If you do not leave--you are the one that knows. Alberto
is not in Dajabon, he is in Haiti. There are no Haitians in Dajabon. You can
send me the peso by mail. Hurry-up to come before the month of January.
Your son that loves you.”4
The killings continued throughout the month of October, even though both
Dominican and Haitian governments signed a diplomatic communique with
assurances of their continued good relations. Unsurprisingly, both sides used
diplomatic hyperbole in an attempt to contain the situation and convince their citizens

and the rest of the world that what occurred in the border was only a spontaneous

outburst between Haitian peasants and farmers. The communique was signed by

g

42 Video Interview with Carlos Antonio in Belé: a rural hamlet near the town of Gran Bassin. August
17, 2000.

43 Letter from Eugenio Tassy to his mother Emilia Bazile, Oct. 7, 1937. Ejercito Nacional Leg.253,
#95. AGN. This letter leads one to conclude that there were more literate Haitians corresponding with
each other between countries than previously documented. Indeed in the document Tassy tells his
mother that he received all the letters she sent him How was Tassy able to write his letter with the

103

Haitian Foreign Minister Evremont and Dominican Secretary of State of Foreign
Relations, Joaquin Balaguer. The letter was vague stating there were some “incidents”
in the northern Dominican-Haitian border of an “exaggerated” nature. It proposed an
official investigation of the events by the Dominican government but assured its
readers that cordial relations between both countries continued uninterrupted under
the respective Dominican and Haitian Presidents Trujillo and Vincent.”4 The letter
was surprisingly low-keyed and deceptive, down-playing the bloody events which at
this time were taking place throughout the Dominican border. While Trujillo was
trying to diffuse the powder keg he himself lit, Dominican archival documents reveal
that the Dominican military was involved heavily in a conspiratorial operation. A day
after the October 15 communique, an Army document outlined nine points to its

members to maintain strict vigilance throughout the border region:

Maintain the [border] line almost closed and practice vigilance to whomever
enters the Province, even foreigners [presumably tourists]. For this end, utilize
civil authorities and friends, not military personnel; an absolute control of the
line in such a way that anyone that touches the territory is watched; control
over the priests. Visit them frequently and motivate them so that they can be
on our side; probe prominent Haitian residents in the territory through civilian
fiiends; persons who frequently travel to Haiti to exchange money should do it
in Santiago; Control all correspondence that goes or comes from Haiti;
Control the postal and telegraphic correspondence directed by the Customs’
employee; Treat well the Haitian Consul and maintain fiiends entertained,
thus absorbing all his time, in order so that he will not investigate; and that the
Law act every time that an encounter occurs and process descriptions of the
event and send to the Secretary of J ustice.45

¥

impending massacre surrounding him? Most likely, he was writing from Haiti which often sent its
autgoing Dominican mail through Dajabon.

Relaciones Exteriores. Correspondencia Recibidas. Sept. to Dec. 1937. Leg.216. AGN. This official
diplomatic communique was signed in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo) respectively by the Haitian
Foreign Minister in the Dominican Republic, Evremont Carrié, and Dominican Secretary of State of
foreign Relations, Joaquin Balaguer.

5 Instructions from Army’s Northern Department in Dajabon to the Official Commanders of the fourth
and Nineteenth Army Corrrpany, October 16, 1937. See Ejercito Nacional, Leg.258-A, Exp.76. AGN.

104

During these tense weeks, Dominican newspapers were censored by the
government from publishing any information surrounding the massacre. Ironically,
throughout the month of September in which Trujillo’s army gradually begun its wave
of killings, newspaper editorials focused on issues promoting peace. One Dominican
editorialist portrayed his country as a promoter of peace and goodwill as it encouraged
peaceful negotiations to resolve a Nicaraguan-Honduran tenitorial dispute.46 There
was also the strengthening of relationships with European Fascist powers like those in
Germany and Spain. The burgeoning fascist ties between Hitler’s Germany and
Trujillo resulted in the inauguration of the Instituto Cientifico Dominico-Aleman
(Scientific Dominican-German Institute). Supposedly, the objectives of the Institute
were to, among other things, study Dominican flora and fauna, oceanography,
biology, geology, geography, and Pre-Columbian archeology.47 While Trujillo built
alliances with a country that had already begun the systematic marginalization of
Jews, nothing in the Dominican press gave the slightest indication that a genocidal
project to exterminate Haitians was taking place. In essence, because of government
censorship, events were kept secret.

Most Dominicans, particularly those far removed from the border, were
Oblivious to the events throughout the border. Not surprisingly, the nation’s attention

Was focused on Trujillo’s 1938 reelection campaign. Readers sent their articles to

 

 

2: See Listin Diaria September 11, 1937, pg.2.
See Listin Diario September 27, 1937, pg.2. Aside from having closer ties with Germany, Trujillo at

this time not only began to apply Hitler’s racist Views of racial superiority to Haitians but he also
finned imitating the German leader’s style of dress and distinctive mustache. See Eric Paul Roorda,
Genocide Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy, the Trujillo Regime, and the Haitian Massacre of

105

newspapers urging a third term for their President.48 One article is particularly
ominous since its author’s words were published at a time when the massacre was in
full-swing. “Now in this historic moment, the nation gets ready, ready to erase a sad
and nebulous past to surrender itself with faith and love to the reconfiguration of a
new and happy homeland with all the beautiful contours of a perfect nationality.”49
Although many Dominicans as well as the international community were oblivious to
the ethnic cleansing project campaign, Haiti bore the brunt of the massacre as it
received thousands of survivors that were fleeing Domincan soil.

In the international community, Haitians were the first ones to learn of the
killings and see beyond Trujillo’s incessant denials of Dominican complicity. Haiti
witnessed, first-hand, the multitude of people escaping from the Dominican Republic.
Even as early as October 9, six days before both countries issued the famous
diplomatic communique, President Vincent was complaining to Dominican
diplomatic authorities stationed in Port-au-Prince about hundreds of Haitians fleeing
from the Dominican Republic.50 However, throughout the entire ordeal President

Vincent did not demand explanations fi'om the Dominican government. His reaction

to the massacre was slow and passive. Vincent feared a potential military

g

1937, ” Diplomatic History, Vol. 20, N0. 3, 1996. Also see Bernardo Vega’ 3, Nazismo, fascismo, y
falangisma en la Republica Dominicana. (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Dominicana, 1986.
8"The reelection of the Honorable President Trujillo 1s more than a political necessity, a biological-
_Social need for the Republic. It is the glorious culmination of a radiant historical process whose
Illustrous stages mark the road of the Republic towards an achievement of its highest aspirations.”See
Listin Diario September 13, 1937, pg. 2.
9Originally written on September 30 but published in See Listin Diario on October 4,1937, pg. 6.
false see “Hacia la reeleccion presidencial del generalisimo Trujillo Molina,” Listin Diario September
1937, pg. 2.
so Jose Israel Cuello H. Documentos del conflicto Dominica-Haitiano de 193 7. (Santo Domingo:
Editora Taller, 1985), pg.3 13. This invaluable book is a compilation of primary documents diplomatic
correspondences between Haitian, American, and Dominican officials and declarations by Dominican
and Haitian military, police and civilians.

106

confrontation with the more heavily armed Trujillo and feared a palace revolt against
his government from the already disenchanted and politicized Haitian Guard? 1 In
fact, the situation in Haiti was becoming increasingly tense through mid-October. The
events increased pressure on Haitia fiom the international community to learn the
truth of the extent of the massacre. This pressure, in tum, would eventually pressure

Trujillo to settle with the Haitian government. The settlement, however, would not

take place without a diplomatic fight.

The International Community Learns of the Massacre

News of the massacre was slow to reach the United States since Dominican
newspapers were under strict government control and censorship. For Dominican
readers, their first encounter with the “border skirmishes” occurs when the diplomatic
communique of mutual cooperation is published verbatim a day after both
governments sign the agreement?2 Throughout the months of October, November,
and December the Dominican government continued its denials of having anything to
do with the massacre. On the eastern part of the island, while there was no mention of
the killings in the press, Haitians continued to systematically die. Conversely, the

Western part of island—Haiti—experienced increasing protests against the massacre.

“ See Robert Debs Heinl Jr. and Nancy Gordon Heinl, Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian
People, 1492-1995. (Lanham,NY: University Press of America, 1996), pg.503. See also Richard Lee
Tm’iSts’ “A World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed,” Paper presented at the Latin American & Caribbean
Studies Evening Seminar Series, Fall 2000: Ethnicity and Migration in the Caribbean, September 26 at

107

b

At times, these protests were manifested in “anonymous pages with a palm of fire
against Vincent and his government and at the same time against the Dominicans.”53
In order to maintain control of the politically delicate situation that was evolving, the
Haitian government began arresting “agitators” who were expressing their anger over
the killings. Consequently, Vincent, weary of losing control of the situation,
prohibited public manifestations in Port-au-Prince.54 News of the massacre, and its
resulting unrest in Haiti and deafening silence in Santo Domingo, spread beyond the
island of Hispaniola. Cognizant of the damage that ongoing events could have on his
image, Trujillo continued his incessant denials and refuted all accusations made
against his government. Most importantly, Trujillo and his coterie of diplomats lied
repeatedly to their most important economic and political ally in the western
hemisphere—the United States. Trujillo denied that he had any knowledge of the
massacre and described the alleged “massacre” as a series of minor “incidents”
between Dominican farmers and Haitian bandits. However, while Trujillo tried to
convince his American counterpart that the killing of hundreds, and later thousands,
of Haitians was an exaggeration, Roosevelt received sobering news of the carnage
from his ambassador in the Dominican Republic, R. Henry Norweb. Although
Norweb did not personally travel to the border and survey the damage, he assured

Roosevelt that a massacre was indeed taking place along the border. His report relied

on the investigation of a Major Norris, who at the time was the Auditor of the

 

the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, pgs. 38-39. Turits writes that “If troops were sent to the
frontier, the palace would be lefi vulnerable to attack.”

52 See “Comunieado para la prensa,” Listin Diario October 16 1937.

53 Cuello H., Documentos de lcanflicto Damincano-Haitiano de 193 7, pg.3 l9.

5‘ Ibid. 324.

108

Receivership General of Dominican Customs. Norweb confirmed to the President of
the United States, through diplomatic correspondence, that a massacre had indeed
taken place contradicting Trujillo’s official denials. Norweb writes that “apparently
with the approval of President Trujillo, a systematic campaign of extermination was
directed against all Haitian residents in an area from some thirty kilometers south of
Dajabon north to Monte Cristi. The drive was conducted with ruthless efficiency by
the National Police and Army.”55 Dominican complicity was now confirmed despite
Trujillo’s incessant denials and self-portrayals as a victim. Norweb writes that prior to
writing his letter to Washington, Trujillo had stopped the massacre during the first
week of October. However, interviews with elderly participants suggest that the
massacre continued intermittently through January. Nevertheless, as Norweb
recounted, “The very fact that the campaign of murder was halted instantly in
accordance with the President’s [Trujillo’s] wish clearly implies a degree of
governmental responsibility for what happened.”56

Even in the midst of an extermination project and a repressive dictatorship,
some Dominicans risked their lives to save Haitians. Like other cases of genocide and
genodical massacres, there were those who felt compelled to help, support, or rescue
those being persecuted. Ordinary people like the deceased Don Eduardo and his
widow Dona Estela Bogaert personally saved a number of Haitians by creating a

clandestine network to rescue Haitians. The operation surreptitiously transported

 

5’ PSF Box 70 State: 1937 FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY. pg.2. Norweb writes that, “On three
successive nights groups of Haitian men, women and children were herded to the end of the customs
wharf at Monte Cristi and there despatched by the soldiers. They were clubbed over the head and
girown into the sea where the sharks completed the task by destroying the evidence.” pg.3.

Ibid. pg.4.

109

Haitians to an American starch factory in a community called La Yuca between the
city of Santiago and the province of Mao in northwestern Dominican Republic.
Sanctioned by the American Consul, the plant’s Finnish manager and fellow
accomplice had raised an American flag and declared the factory American territory.
During the night, trucks with safe-conduct passes secretly transported Haitians to the
border.57

It is worth noting that not all Haitians in the Dominican Republic at this time
were at risk.
There were Haitians who did not flee and went untouched by the wave of terror.
Those Haitians lived in U.S.-owned sugar bateyes during the massacre and were not
killed. Trujillo was not about to provoke the wrath of the American business interests
by eliminating their cheap source of labor. Therefore, Dominican soldiers stayed clear
of all U.S.-owned sugar mills. According to Vega, another reason why Haitians in the
bateyes were unharmed was their isolation fi'om Dominican society. They were
mostly single men who were not “cattlerustlers”, an underlying rationale for the
killings, and were less likely to mix with the overall population. Vega writes that
those Haitians living in these “batey-ghettos” were subject to strict controls for
entering and leaving the country. Furthermore, because these Haitians lived far from
the border, their presence did not undermine Truillo’s border plan.58 Furthermore,
and ironically, during the month of November, as the massacre waned, the Dominican

government imported more Haitian and West Indian workers to its cane-fields.

 

’7 I am indebted to Ricardo J. Bogaert and his mother for sharing this information with me concerning
their humanitarian participation during the massacre. E—mail Correspondence with Ricardo J. Bogaert,
March 3, 1997.

110

Authorization was given to two sugar mills in San Pedro de Macoris—Ingenio
Porvenir and Ingenio Santa F e—to import 300 and 1,200 “non-caucasian” workers,
respectively, from Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean.59

By late October, several weeks into the massacre, the international media
picked-up on the story. The New York Times first ran the story, but it made no
mention of a massacre. Instead, the brief article described a “border clash between
Haitians and Dominicans in which several of the former were shot.”60 But the truth
would slowly be known to the world. A few days later, The New York Times ran
another brief article this time saying that more than 300 Haitians were, in fact, killed
along the border.61 Reporting from Port-au-Prince, the New York Times
correspondent wrote that the killings provoked anger among many in the Haitian
capital. Dominican-Haitian relations, which for the last seven years had been warm
and cooperative, took a tum for the worse. Already in Port-au-Prince, Haitians were
threatening reprisals against Dominicans. “As a result all public demonstrations were
forbidden. Police squads patrolled the cities to disperse all gatherings?”2 Once the
international newspapers and their readers focused their attention on the massacre,

Trujillo went on the defensive denying that his army had perpetrated a bloody

 

58 Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, pg.398-399.

59 Letter from Mayor General Jose Garcia M.M. to Secretary of State of Foreign Relations, Nov. 11,
1937. AGN. Besides Haiti, workers came from “St. Kitts, Tortola, St. Martin, Martinique, Antigua,
Virgin Islands, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and the nearby islands.” See Secretaria de Estado Interior y
Policia. Chronologico Nov.1 to 15, 1937. AGN.

6° “Haitians Reported Shot by Dominican Soldiers,” New York Times, October 21, 1937, pg.17.

6' “Hundreds of Haitians are Reported Slain for Seeking Work in the Dominican Republic,” The New
York Times, October 25, 1937 pg.1. See also “300 Hundred are Reported Slain in Dominican Border
Uprisings,” The Houston Post October 25, 1937, pg. 13.

62 Ibid. Dominican oflicials were well aware of these articles. A telegram fi'om the Dominican
Ambassador in Washington, Andrés Pastoriza, informs Santo Domingo of this article in the American
press. See Relaciones Exteriores Leg.232, 1937. October 25. Along the border, Haitians also tried to

111

massacre. The diplomatic offensive had begun. Foreign Relations Minister Joaquin
Balaguer presented an official version of the events in a confidential letter to all
Dominican foreign service members abroad in which he recounted Trujillo’s trip to
the border, his shock at the large presence of Haitians throughout the border, and his
military order to begin deportations of Haitians: “Armed patrols were sent all along
the border and immigration officials backed by army forces began to carry out, in the
strictest way, the martial law, which had been applied without difficulties of any kind,
and in a peaceful and normal way.”63 Through Balaguer, the government now
suggested, despite previous denials of any knowledge of the killings, that the army
was in the vicinity during the massacre undertaking a border army operation intent
only on the deportation of Haitians. He suggested that the so-called massacre
perpetuated by the army was in fact a spontaneous outburst of rogue and vindictive
Dominican civilians who harbored virulent anti-Haitian feelings after years of being
victimized by Haitians thieves.
In some cases, however, civilians who are residents of that [border] zone and
who had been victims of robberies and other acts of vandalism perpetrated by
Haitians, also residents of the same zone, and no doubt emboldened by the
presence of army patrols spread throughout the northern border to protect
Dominican interests, committed bloody acts of retaliation, even perpetrating
various inhumane acts that our government has hurriedly condemned in the

most energetic means, imposing on the guilty parties the most severe
sanctions.64

resist this wave of violence by “using machetes and injuring some Dominicans that were installing a
telephone line.” See Ejercito Nacional Leg. 31, Exp. 182 Oct. 31, 1937. AGN.

:RE Leg. 216 1937. Correspondencias recibidas de Sept. a Dic. AGN.

6‘Ibid. Although such information might exist, I was not able to find any information on the
distribution of army soldiers throughout the border. We still do not know how many many, military and
‘3me men, participated in this project of extermination.

112

Not surprisingly, Balaguer failed to mention that the massacre was a collective and
mostly civilian operation with civilians serving as crucial guides and assistants for the
army in their search and destroy missions of Haitians. All participated in the
slaughter. Many in the international community were skeptical upon hearing
Dominican denials of complicity in the massacre. One group that could not be
persuaded by the official version of the events that came fiom the Dominican
Republic was the Dominican exile community. They intensified their attacks on
Trujillo and his dictatorship with new fodder. In a letter to President Vincent, a group
of Dominican exiles condemned the Haitian massacre and called for a complete
investigation of the murders:
In the good name of the Dominican people, we consider our unavoidable duty
to declare to the Haitian people through you [President Vincent] that we are
convinced that the Dominican people did not participate and repudiate the
massacre of Haitians perpetrated by President Trujillo who for seven years has
assassinated and jailed thousands of Dominicans and also is assassinating and
jailing hundreds of foreigners.65
Even Afi'ican-American groups in the United States rallied behind Dominican exile
demands for justice. In a letter to the Dominican Ambassador in Washington, the
National Negro Congress made it clear that they were in solidarity with Haiti and
expected a full inquiry into the Haitian massacre by the dictator Trujillo:

Your Excellency cannot ignore that the National Negro Congress is an
association representative of the people of color of the United States. The

 

 

6’ The cablegram was signed by several prominent Dominican exiles, such as Dr. Angel Morales,
fQImer Vice-President of the League of Nations; J 036 Manuel Jimenez, former Minister of Land and
Fmalice; Persio Franco, former Chief of Business Affairs in Washington DC; Jaime Sénchez, ex-
Senator; Dr. Ellis Cambiaso; Dr. Jiménes Grullon, and Gustavo Estrella Urefia. See RE Asuntos
Varios-Micelaneus, Correspondencias Recibidas, Leg.229, Nov. 9, 1937. AGN.

113

organization is interested, quite naturally, in the affairs that affect the people

of color in this country and the rest of the countries. With the fact that a great

number of citizens of Black origin live in Haiti and the Dominican Republic,
your Excellency will find this the principal reason why the National Negro

Congress wants to throw the most possible light over these deplorable

events.‘56
Nevertheless, the Dominican legation in Washington was not concerned with the
opinions of an African-American organization. The state of race relations in the
United States at the time made it clear to them that the Afiican—American lobby had
little influence in either Washington DC. or American foreign policy circles. Being
challenged by the Black press in the United States of its complicity in the crime was
one thing for Dominican officials, but it was quite another when the white press
began to inquire about the killings in the Dominican Republic.

As early as November, President Roosevelt was publicly addressing questions
conceming the massacre and having meetings with Dominican and Haitian diplomats.
Asked if he was following closely the diplomatic crisis in Hispaniola, Roosevelt
replied: “Yes and no. I am familiar with it as it goes along?”7 But Roosevelt knew
much more than he let on. Ever since Ambassador Norweb informed him of the
bloody killings, Roosevelt was very concerned for the stability of that region. During
this time, war raged on in Franco’s Spain and Japan was expanding throughout Asia.

In Hitler’s Germany imminent European invasions were being planned and Latin

American alliances, albeit informal ones (like the Dominican-German Institute), were

x

66 Letter from Max Yergan representative of the National Negro Congress to Ambassador Andrés
Pilstoriza. Dec. 9, 1937. RE Asuntos Varios. Micelaneus Universidades y Colegios, Leg. 229.
Complete Presidential Press Conferences of F. D. R. Vol. 9-10, 1937. (New York: Da Capo Press,
£972), pg. 330. Roosevelt had recently met Haitian Foreign Minister George Leger at the White House
or tea

114

being accumulated. Thus, it was imperative that Roosevelt assist both countries by
finding a peaceful solution and show the world that the Western Hemisphere was
united against F ascism.68 This effort proved to be a major test for Roosevelt’s Good

Neighbor Policy of non-intervention.
Trujillo’s Recalcitrant Stance Against International Mediation

The diplomatic initiative to reach a settlement began when Vincent asked the
government of Cuba, Mexico, and the United States for assistance. In a letter to
F.D.R., Vincent acknowledges both the killings and the Dominican govemment’s
intransigence at reaching a settlement. Vincent writes, “I do not hesistate in the name
of my Government to have recourse to the good offices of Your Excellency’s
Government to aid in a just and prompt solution of the sharp difference now existing
between the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.”69 Roosevelt quickly
responded to Vincent’s request in the affirmative and wrote to Trujillo. In the letter to
Trujillo, FDR informs Trujillo that the United States “and the Governments of Cuba
and of Mexico stand ready to tender-their good offices if Your Excellency feels

disposed to accept these fiiendly services.”7O

 

‘58 According to Roosevelt’s ambassador in Santo Domingo, Ellis 0. Briggs, “Although Trujillo’s
dictatorship represents the negation of many of the principles to which the United States suscribes,
promotion of his overthrow is not the responsibility of the American Government nor would such
action be consistent with our present cormnitments with respect to non-intervention.” See “From the
Second World War to the Cold War: 1944-1954,” in Exporting Democracy: The United States and
Latin America, Themes and Issues ed. by Abraham F. Lowenthal (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1991), 49.

69 Official File No.162 Haiti 1935-1938, Correspondence between President Vincent and President
Roosevelt. F.D.R. Library.

7° See Telegram from Roosevelt to President Trujillo Nov. 14, 1937. Foreign Relations of the United
States. Diplomatic Papers 1937. Vol.V The American Republics. (Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 1954), pg. 136.

115

By that November, the international press and governments were paying close
attention to the massacre. Hence, Trujillo had no choice but to confront the
accusations leveled against him. In Dominican newspapers, editorials began
mentioning the massacre and blamed anti-Trujillo exile groups for fabricating stories
suggesting that Trujillo, with Hitler’s support, wanted to invade Haiti.71 Initially,
Trujillo would not accept arbitration. He, as well as his diplomats, insisted that no
massacre had taken place on the Dominican-Haitian border. The pressure kept
mounting and Trujillo’s government was repeatedly forced to publicly deny the
Dominican govemment’s involvement in the “incidents” along the border. Dominican
Ambassador to Washington Andres Pastoriza went as far as to send a telegram to the
New York Times absolving his government from any wrong doing.72

Controlling the press in one’s own country was easy. Manipulating a foreign
press hungry for a gruesome news story, however, would prove to be very difficult for
Trujillo. After weeks of confidential meetings in Washington, an investigative
commission composed of Dominican, American, Mexican, Cuban, and Haitian
representatives was proposed to visit Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haitian
officials accepted the proposal for the commission on December 3. Everyone waited
for the Dominican officials to accept the proposal.73 Knowing full well that accepting

an international commission on Dominican territory would expose the bloody

 

7‘ See Listin Diaria Nov. 5, 1937, pg.2

72 Pastoriza writes, “The Dominican government has not mobilized troops nor has had any reason to do
so because the incident at the border is considered as closed with the exception of the investigation that
is customary in incidents of such a nature where guilt is presumed in order to establish responsiblities
and to determine judicial sanction against the guilty parties.” See The New York Times Nov.7, 193 7,

g.36.
9’ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1937, pg. 139.

116

massacre, Trujillo stalled for several days. He was buying time to play his next card,
which would allow him to avoid responsibility for the massacre.74

On December 11 the Dominican government rejected the Commission and,
instead, issued a lengthy memorandum reaffirming the October 15 communique. The
communiqué prevented all representative governments except Haiti and the
Dominican Republic from participating in the investigative process. In reality, Haiti
too was excluded from the investigation of their murdered fellow Haitians. The
Memorandum urged for the “Continuation of the investigation already begun and

”75 and included a series of guarantees

greatly advanced by the Dominican government
that required the Dominican government to establish a judicial process with the
necessary magistrates and matching funds.76 Although clearly in opposition to the
document, the Haitian government failed to give an audible response to the
memorandum and remained silent. However, by then the Haitian government was

prepared to sever all diplomatic ties to the Dominican Republic for dragging its feet.

The decision to break all relations would dramatically escalate the already tense

 

7‘ Dominican government officials like Balaguer, also who publicly denied the massacre, were
converting this border violence into a patriotic defense of the nation. Congratulating Ambassador
Pastoriza, Balaguer wrote that Trujillo was “pleased by his valuable, timely, and intelligent manouvers
in favor of the country’s international image in the face of the abusive and slanderous campaign that
determined Haitian officials have been making.” See RE Leg.216, Correspondencia Recibidas de la
Secretaria dc Estado de la Presidencia. Letter from Secretary of State of the Presidency Joaquin
Balaguer to Ambassador Andres Pastoriza, Dec.2, 1937. AGN.

7’ Memorandum de los Ministros Plenipotenciarios de la Republica Dominicana en Washington, a los
representantes diplomaticos de los Estados Unidos de América, Estados Unidos de Méjico, Cuba, y
Haiti, relativo alas medidas que pueden adoptarse para evitar rozamientos entre la Republica
Dominicana y la de Haiti con motivo de la solicitud de mediacién hecha por el Gobiemo Haitiano el
dia 12 de Noviembre, 1937. (Ciudad Trujillo: Irrrprenta Listin Diario, 1937), pg.20. The Memorandum
was also published in Dominican newspapers. See “Memorandum Dominicano a los representantes de
los E.E.U.U., Mexico, y Cuba en relacion con el caso fronterizo,” Listin Diario, Dec. 14, 1937. pg.1-7.
7‘ Ibid. pg.20.

117

relations between the two nations and undermine F.D.R.’s Good Neighbor Policy.77
In the midst of a debate that was nearing climax in Washington, killings of Haitians
persisted, albeit on a smaller scale, throughout the border. In the meantime, Trujillo
drafted a memorandum demanding the arrest and trial of the “guilty” parties instead
of identifying himself, his army, and guilty civilians as the agents who had actually
participated in the killings. Trujillo ordered several men to be recruited from the
border to pose as the perpetrators of the massacre. These men were called reservistas
and were reputable members of their communities. They were told what to say during
the trials and imprisoned in Monte Cristi for six months. But as one interviewee told
me, this Charade was “for the international community...those people in jail were
treated with all the care; including some money every month to send to their families.
The day of the verdict, when they left free men, every one of them was given a sum
between 50 and 100 pesos”78: a small price to pay in the mockery of justice and the
deaths of thousands of innocent Haitians. Anti-Dominican demonstrations continued
in Port-au-Prince and along the Haitian border. According to one diplomat in Haiti,
there was widespread fear that the Dominican Republic would invade and widespread
anger against Dominican Republic. Hearsay of Dominicans being killed in Cap

Haitien circulated in the international press.79

 

77 RE Leg.232 Cables sent from special envoys Pastoriza and Troncoso, Dec. 9, 1937. AGN.

78 Interview with Professor Marneito, Jan. 20, 1999, in Loma de Cabrera. Following the massacre,
Trujillo sent judges to the border in preparation for the upcoming farcical trials that ceremoniously
convicted the “alleged killers” to 15 and 20 years of prison. Needless to say, the “accussed” were
released soon after. See Vega, T rujilla y Haiti, Vol. I. pg.433, #86; and Cuello’s Documentos del
conflicto Dominica-Haitiano de 193 7, pg.38. °

79 See New York Times, Nov. 10, 1937, pg.18. Reports of an Army Captain Flores and Consul Paulino
(both Dominicans) being killed by a “riotous demonstration” Haiti circulated at the time. However,
other somces cite that the deaths of Flores and Paulino was a spurious charge by enemies of the
Dominican government. See Cuello’s Documentos del canflicto Damnico-Haitiano, pg.337.

118

Trujillo, nevertheless, continued to deny any participation in the killings. The
Dominican government along with the Dominican press reported that rumors of a
massacre were untrue and that the only ones responsible for the “bloody clashes were
Dominican farmers and Haitian thieves.”80 As Haiti pushed even firrther for a multi-
country-rtm investigation, the Dominican government felt more threatened. Slowly,
Dominican official opinion—especially encouraged by the press—moved towards the
right and began to define the border in “us” versus “them” terms. As early as
December, the first signs of an official anti-Haitian ideological propaganda that had
remained minimal in the last seven years of the regime emerged:

The majority of these ‘Dominicans’ [read Haitians] who effectively are so

because of the Jus Solis, in reality do not have the habits, customs, nor the

spirituality of a traditional Dominican, has Spanish ancestry and by the look of
things anyone could affirm that these individuals are of Haitian nationality.

And to make matters more confusing these individuals are carriers of two

tongues, handling better the patois (Haitian Kreyol): the language in which

they developed when they were children inside the home.81
Before things escalated even firrther, the Haitian government invoked the 1923
Gondra Treaty and the 1929 Convention of Conciliation on December 14. These two

inter-American treaties required the diplomatic assistance of several Latin American

countries to resolve disputes. To prevent international inspectors from entering

 

’° Listin Diario Dec. 8, 1937, pg.1.

8' Listin Diario, Dec. 10, 1937, pg.6. Dominican press was now writing that Haitians were “slaves that
multiply under the sensual sun of Ecuador in celestial promiscuity without limits of any type; from here
comes the brutal population increase and also the brutal bloody fetichism of those people.” See Listin
Diario, Dec. 28, 1937, pg.6. Haitian invasions of Dominican territory were not only subsituting
Dominican native labor but were now also “impoverishing our race.” See La Opinion March 17, 1938,

pg.7.

119

Dominican territory, Trujillo was forced to accept arbitration on December 18.82
However, Trujillo never apologized or accepted responsibility for the massacre that
had been committed. With the assistance of the Papal Nuncio in Santo Domingo,
Trujillo was able to settle out of international court, paying an indemnity of $750,000
to the Haitian government.” This figure was reduced to $550,000 and was paid to
Haitian officials. None of the Haitian victims or their families ever received direct
monetary compensation for their suffering.84 The Haitian government did, however,
establish several agricultural colonies to resettle the survivors of the massacre. Many
of the survivors who arrived in Juana Mendez were resettled in the colonies of Gran
Bassin. This rural hamlet is two and a half hours west of Dajabon. Several of the
survivors interviewed lived in the colony since their arrival after the massacre in
1937. One stated that “after [the massacre] the government with the money paid by
Trujillo for each head of person who died became property of the state. Then the
[Haitian] government gave a small house and three hectares of land,” to the
survivors.85

The enormous international pressure and well documented stories of the

massacre served to discredit Trujillo and forced him to step down as the presidential

 

82 Foreign Relations, 1937, Vol.V, pg. 140. Trujillo never acknowledged his guilt and the agreement
only referred to people of Haitian nationality who “lost their lives or received injuries, contusions or
wounds of another nature.” See signed copies in French and Spanish in RE Leg.241. Correspondencia
recibidas de la presidencia, Jan. 25, 1938.

83 See George Pope Atkins, “The United States and the Dominican Republic During the Era of
Trujillo,” Ph.D diss., The Arneican University, 1966, pg. 109.

8’ Crassweller, Trujillo, pg.159. Some of these monies were used to establish colonies (in the hills of
Comissaires, Dosmond, Biliguy, between Maissade and Saint-Michelle d’Atalaye) on the Haitian
border to maintain this region populated But there was no mention of any survivors who received cash
monies from the settlement. See Juan Manuel Garcia “Mediacion de la iglesia resuelve conflicto
origina matanza de haitianos,” (3) !Ahora! No.934 (19 October), 1981, pg.64.

120

candidate in 1938. Yet, nothing in the speech as he declined the presidential
candidacy referred to the massacre—the very event that forced his resignation in the
face of world condemnation. “First, I desire to reiterate formally and categorically, my
intention, already made public on several occasions in the past, to renounce public
office in order to enjoy once more the peaceful quiet of private life. In the next
general elections, therefore, I will not be a candidate for the Presidency of the
Republic,” he said.86 Hence, Trujillo escaped punishment from a genocidal act that
should have been settled in a court of law and exposed his crimes to the world. On 31
January, an agreement between Dominican and Haitian governments formally and
peacefully settled their differences. Even within the writings of the settlement,
Trujillo refused to accept responsibility or governmental complicity in the killings.
“The Dominican, government which for its part does not admit that the Dominican
State is in any way responsible, but will on this point abide by the findings of the
judicial inquiry, which is not yet concluded, agrees to terminate by a settlement all

dispute.”87 This settlement absolved Trujillo of all responsibility for the crimes and

 

8’ Video Interview with Leonor Foronn. And J acqeslain: 50 years old whose grandparents were
survivors and grew up in the colonic of Colonic near Gran Bassin and Terra Rouge; see als Vega,
Trujillo y Haiti, Vol.II, pg.366.

“RE Leg.247. AGN. “Presidente Trujillo Molina Declines to Be a Candidate for Reelection. Important
Message to the Dominican People,” Jan. 8, 1938. pg.3. Trujillo would remain the power behind the
scenes, even recommending his succcessors: President Dr. J. B. Peynado and Vice-President Dr. M. de
J. Troncoso. Trujillo exclaimed, “These are my candidates and as such I recommend them favorably to
my fellow citizens.” pg.6. They both won.

87 League of Nations Treaty Series. Treaties and International Engagements Registerd with the
Secretariat of the League of Nations. “Dominican Republic and Haiti, Agreement regarding Frontier
Questions and the Settlement of all Disputes resulting from the Events which have occurred during the
Last Months of the Year 1937 near the Frontier between the Two Countries.” Signed at Washington,
January 31st, 1938. Vol.:CLXXXVII, Nos.:4328-4349, 1938, 176. The agreement also “liquidates and
terminates definitively by means of a settlement all claims whatsoever on the part of the Haitian
Government or persons of Haitian nationality against the Dominican Government or against persons of
Dominican nationality.” Four years later the Dominican government continued to avoid responsibility
for the massacre, stating that it was “caused by bands of Haitians rmrauders that have always roamed

121

protected him and his government fi'om any potential firture lawsuit concerning the

massacre.

Why the massacre in 193 7?

Several factors help explain why the massacre occurred by late October and
November of 1937 and not earlier in 1933 or 1935. By 1937, Trujillo had finally
resolved a border agreement that establishing, once and for all, fixed tenitorial
boundaries between the two nations. The Dominican government had spent years
protesting Haitian border settlements believed to be illegally encroaching Dominican
soil and, thus, violating Dominican sovereignty. The Haitian government, on the other
hand, had maintained that because Haitians had settled this region for years without
Dominican interference the land was assumed to be an extension of the Haitian
Republic. The 1936 border settlement gave Trujillo the legal justification to deport
and then massacre Haitians. Trujillo could then claim that by illegally residing on and
stealing in Dominican territory, the Haitian settlements were in clear violation of the
treaty. Another reason that helps explain the timing of the massacre was the outrage
Trujillo experienced during his trip to the border in late 1937. During his visit to the
border in the months of August and October, Trujillo witnessed the high proportions
of Haitians living and working in this area and realized that his project to
simultaneously Dominicanize and de-Haitianize the border through agrarian colonies

and deportations had not been successful. The sight of a large Haitian presence along

 

around the border regions, raiding Dominican territory and depriving native farmers of the fruits of
their toil.” See the Consulate of the Dominican Republic’s, “Bulletin of Information on Dominican-
Haitian Border Incidents,” New York City, 1941, pg.2.

122

the border after the border settlements; the high incidence of a contraband trade
(during this trip Trujillo was constantly told of Haitians stealing cattle and selling
them it Haiti); and the increased autonomy of border military personnel who profited
from illegal Haitian immigration, confirmed Trujillo’s fears that the territorial
agreement was only good on paper.

Two additional reasons help explain why the massacre occurred in 1937: the
1936 deportations of Haitians in Cuba and the 1934 US. withdrawal fi'om Haiti. The
deportations of thousands of Haitians from Cuba through “compulsory repatriations”
resulted in higher number of people in Haiti who were unemployed and searching to
integrate themselves back into Haitian society.88 Many of the repatriated Haitians
migrated to the Dominican Republic. By 1937 the Dominican Republic was feeling
the strain of Cuba’s deportation policy. Along with the increased number of persons
crossing the border, the U.S.-Marines withdrawal from Haiti in 1934 essentially
removed the major stabilizing force on the island that had checked Trujillo’s power
for the past seven years. By 193 7, with the Marines no longer physically patrolling
and controlling Haiti and Haiti’s military weakness in the face of a better-equipped
Dominican army, Trujillo was able to carry out a genocidal policy without fear of
direct American or Haitian retaliation.89 Like Cuba, Trujillo could have continued
Haitian deportations without resorting to violence. However, Trujillo realized that

throughout the years the border had become so integrated culturally and economically

 

88 See Marc C. McLeod, “Undesirable Aliens: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in the Comparison of
Haitian and British West Indian Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1912-1939,” Journal of Social History
Vol.31 No.3 (Spring 1998), pg.607.

8’ Vega, Vol.2. There was also the racist Nazi ideology and National Socialism which influenced
Trujillo (kissing the flag, dominicanizacion ect).

123

that only through state violence could he begin to fundamentally Dominicanize this
region. Thus, the killings were really a declaration that the border was less Dominican
and more Haitian than what Trujillo had originally envisioned. For Trujillo, collective
violence was a feasible and low risk strategy to undertake in this case. Not only did
Trujillo control his nation through the repressive state institutions, he avoided
destabilization by the massacre by capitalizing on his countrymen’s historical memory
of Haitians as the enemy. 90

Once Trujillo ordered an end to the killing of Haitians, the project of
incorporating the border region into his expanding and modern state began. After
seven years of fiiendly relations between both countries, the massacre became the
turning point for the Dominican state to project a new image of itself and of Haiti.
The massacre would, as Benedict Anderson has written, become the catalyst for re-
remembering and reinventing the Dominican past.91 Under Trujillo, the state
reclaimed the border as a region to be modernized and protected from Haiti. [No
longer would the border be neglected and considered a problem zone, as had been the
historical view by government officials in the capital of Santo Domingo. Following
the massacre, the border project accelerated the ongoing Dominicanization of the
border that had begun back in the early 1930s with the agricultural colonies and
deportation policies. The difference between pre-1937 and post 193 7, however, was

the violence of the massacre, which officially transformed Haiti and its culture into a

 

9° According to Turits, anti-Haitianism “does help to explain how the Haitian massacre could be
organized and political stability maintained”, by Trujillo’s authoritarian govemment. See Richard
lmits’ “A World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed,” pg.44.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities Reflections of the Origins and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1991), 202.

124

threat to Dominican sovereignty and identity. A radical shift in policy, from the
strengthening of political ties with Haiti and Trujillo’s acknowledgement of his
Haitian heritage to a policy where Haiti came to represent a cultural, racial, and
religious threat to the Dominican nation, took place. Indeed, most persons interviewed
expressed that, prior to the massacre, Haitians and Dominicans along the border
mostly got along well with each other.92 There was no official Dominican propaganda
that either demonized Haitians or incited Dominicans to hate or fear their western
neighbors. In fact, according to scholar Bernardo Vega, anti-Haitianism was absent
from the political discourse. “We have not been able to find any anti-Haitian
publication of a racist or political type in any newspaper, Dominican magazine or
book during the first seven years and nine months of the dictatorship. On the contrary,

”93 The massacre, then, came to

the official propaganda was always pro-Haitian.
justify the state’s program to Dominicanize the border against Haitian encroachment
through a project of modernization.

Thus, the massacre set the tone for a new official discourse that portrayed
Haiti as the Dominican Republic’s historical nemesis. Capitalizing on a shared
collective memory of the various nineteenth-century Haitian invasions, the state
absorbed the border and transformed it from a rural, illiterate, and diseased region to a

place where new and modern hospitals, schools, and cultural centers could be found.

The official plan of nationalizing the border could now begin. One year after the

 

92 Most of the people I interviewed on both sides of the border recalled that collaboration and tolerance
was the norm prior to the 1937 Haitian massacre. My interviews also confirm earlier oral histories
narratives conducted by Richard Turits and Lauren Derby.

93 Bernardo Vega, “Variaciones en el uso del antihatianismo durante la era de Trujillo,” Listin Diario
October 24, 1995, pg.1.

125

massacre, the state project to Dominicanize the border as a way to impede Haitian
immigration had begun. In September of 1938, an article appeared in a Dominican
newspaper that anticipated Trujillo’s plans to contain the increasing flow of Haitians
crossing the border into Dominican Republic and the acceleration of a state-building
project underway:

The Haitian people have a population twice our number, in a territory that is

half our size; circumstances that place pressure fi'om them on us...We cannot

oppose another remedy to that pressure besides the material and geographic

border, another remedy that we could call an ethnic border destined to prevent

that advance of people determined by the growth of that country,

prolific by race and temperament.94

New Dominican border provinces were created and the Haitian names of
towns and villages were substituted with Spanish names. A construction boom
followed and government and municipal offices were built to unequivocally
demarcate the state’s presence along the Dominican border. The role of the military
and police was intensified to primarily control the population and secondarily to serve
as an immigration security force limiting Haitian penetration. Religion was used by
the state as a mechanism to Christianize and convert Dominican border residents into
Catholic citizens who would combat the equally popular Haitian religion of Voodoo.
Catholic clergyrnen would travel throughout the border performing baptisms,
confessions, and marriages while preaching the virtues of Christianity and its
correspondence with being a good Dominican. Moreover, inigations canals and

roadways were constructed to raise agricultural production and allow for easier access

to this remote region.

126

More than any other single event prior to it, the massacre changed forever the
dynamics of Dominican-Haitian political relations. This well-organized government
military orchestrated genocidal policy changed how Dominicans and Haitians border
residents viewed each other as well as their relationship with the central government
in Santo Domingo. Most Dominican soldiers, often sharing similar complexions as
their Haitian victims, carried out the massacre mainly with machetes. Although the
written sources were not available, there are indications that most soldiers
participating in the massacre were not fi'om the border region.95 October 1937 marks
one of the earliest examples of refugee migration prior to World Ward 1]. Thousands
of Haitians and/or Dominicans of Haitian descent fled to Haitian territory to avoid
being killed by Trujillo’s soldiers. Unlike survivors of other genocide and/or ethnic
cleansing crimes today, Haitian and Dominican survivors have not filed suit against
Trujillo or the government for the past acts. Many survivors have died and most who
remain are too old, too sick, or senile to offer their testimonies let alone testify. Even
if they could testify, litigants must exhaust all legal remedies in their home country—
Haiti—to be heard in the regional Inter-American Court of Human Rights.96 Their
continued silence shows Trujillo’s success in avoiding culpability for this crime
against humanity. Furthermore, the killings ushered in the modernization of the
border. For the first time in the history of the Republic, Trujillo initiated a
nationalistic plan to fully incorporate the border region into the Dominican nation.

The border region would become integrated with the rest of the country and lose

 

9‘ Listin Diario, Sept. 11, 1938, pg.6.
9’ Turits, “A World Destroyed, A Nation Irrrposed,” pg.36.
9° See David Padilla, “A House for Justice in Costa Rica,” Americas, (Jan-Feb. 1996), 56-57.

127

much of its historical autonomy and remoteness. Following the massacre, the border
became the site for the emergence of state institutions that would lead the way in

educating residents about their new role as Dominican citizens.

128

th

C
0‘»

Chapter 4
Reoccupying the Borderlands

Once the killings had ceased, Trujillo ordered the most extensive colonization of
the border ever seen in Dominican history. During the next twenty-five years, the border
went from being a neglected and underdeveloped region beyond the control of the
Dominican state, to a region of newly demarcated provinces and towns. The active role
pursued by the Dominican state, through the creation of new provinces and the renaming
of old towns with Haitian names to Spanish ones, to the proliferation of agrarian border
colonies, all represented a government policy which sought to eliminate the Haitian
presence. In this regard the post-1937 project to Dominicanize the border was an
extension of the massacre. The region most closely linked and viewed as an obstacle to
the nation’s progress would now be the site of a nationalistic crusade by the Dominican
government intent on undoing almost five hundred years of interdependent relations. The
growth of urban towns along with the establishment of government and cultural
institutions that spread the ideals of Dominican nationalism and anti-Haitianism became
the focal point of Trujillo’s state-building plans along the border. This chapter examines
the workings of border colonies, which became the part of the foundations employed by
the state to Dominicanize the border. By utilizing a variety of archival documents from
the Dominican Army to the Department of Agriculture, I show how the state created new
border provinces to officially demarcate its territory and strengthen its jurisdiction
throughout this region. This chapter also presents a portrait of life within these colonies
and how it ofien contradicted the official government’s propaganda that portrayed these
settlements as idyllic and isolated bastions of the new border life. I also show how the
border’s ethnically diverse local population and its insistent economic and social relations
with Haiti undermined the state border project.

Despite the enormous investment by Trujillo’s government to eliminate the

129

Haitian presence from the border, geography made it difficult for the state to police the
border. Moreover, the state confronted a local economy and familial linkages that made it
difficult to sever ties between Haitians and Dominicans. It is this economic and cultural
fluidity, which I argue, and as the govemment’s own documents confirm, made it very

difficult for the Dominican state to fully Dominicanize this border region.
The Creation of Provinces

One of the first things Trujillo did after the massacre was to re-map the border
through the creation of new provinces. Nationalizing the border region meant increasing
the administrative importance of these once marginal territories. Prior to the massacre
there were three Dominican border provinces: Barahona in the south, Azua in the center
and Monte Cristi in the north.1 The names of the provinces, like many monuments at the
time, directly or indirectly referred to Trujillo, who was called the “Benefactor” or
“Liberator”. For example, in 193 8, a year following the massacre, the first border
province was given the name Benefactor in the name of Trujillo.2

In the northern part of the border, in towns such as Daj abon and Lorna Cabrera
(where intense killings of Haitians had taken place), the state created a new province in
the name of the dictator: “The Province of the Liberator was created by the National
Congressional Law number 1521 encompassing the towns of Dajabon, Lorna de Cabrera

3
and Restauracion [and] inaugurated January 1, 1939.”

 

1
See J osé Chez Checo, La Repdblica Dominicana y Haiti: Sintesis histo'rica de su problema fionterizo.
(Santo Domingo: Coleccion Historia Total, 1997), 32.

2Vincente Tolentino Rojas, Historia de la division tenitorial 1494-1943. Edicion del Gobiemo
Dominicano. (Santiago, RD: Editorial El Diario, 1944), 366. The small towns of San Juan de la Maguana,
Las Matas de Farfan, Villa Elias Pifla, Banica, and E1 Cercado all conrprised this new province. Later, on
Sept. 16, 1942 these towns, along with El Llano, were absorbed into the newly established province of San
Rafael.

3Memoria Que al honorable Presidente de la Republica Dr. MJ. T roncoso de la Concha Presenta e1

Mayor General José Garcia, M.M. Secretaria de Estado de 10 Interior y Policia Relativa a las Iabores

realizadas en el departamento a su cargo durante 21 mm 1939. (Ciudad Trujillo: Editorial La Nacion,
l 30

oi

TI]. '1th

R no a“ e

These new border provinces were created as a bulwark against Haitian
immigration and were seen by many Dominican officials as a new cure-all for the
endemic chaos associated with the frontier. It was not enough for Trujillo to eliminate
physically Haitians along the border. The space that separated both nations had to be
demarcated to demonstrate territorial sovereignty. As one Dominican scholar in the early
1940s wrote, the creation of new border provinces was meant to reverse the many years

of Dominican cultural and economic interaction with Haiti.

The creation of the border provinces in Daj abon and Benefactor is the most intelligent
[step] toward the peaceful solution of the problem that constitutes for the Dominican
Republic the obligatory vicinity of a people that with distinct customs with a population
double in number and with a rudimentary agriculture and lack of means of production has
the tendency to overflow toward the Dominican half with great danger to our ethnic and
economic improvement.4

Afier these first new provinces were created, Dominican political officials praised
the success of the project in a language reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing that took place

during the massacre. The border was now:

A region completely clean of foreign invasion, its lands purified, its customs
sanitized, enlarged and dignified for the Republic. Everything has bloomed like a
work of wonder because everything good comes from itself. The cattle rustling
that before was an uncontainable scourge in all the northwest border has
disappeared with great speed, since cases are barely registered and those that are,
are isolated and sporadic.5

 

1940), pg.384.

Prior to this, the Libertador province was called Dajabon. It would lose the name of Libertador only after
Trujillo’s death, when the province and its provincial capital were renamed Dajabon.

‘ Vincente Tolentino Rojas, Historia de la division tenitorial, 1492-1943, pg.282.

‘ Ibid. 385.
131

In 1942, a new border province of San Rafael was created and named after
Trujillo.6 In that same year, another border province to the south named Bahoruco was
created. Unlike prior to the massacre, where there had been uninhabited stretches of land
or towns beyond state control with Haitian names the landscape became increasingly
demarcated by “legal municipalities, district municipalities, provincial capitals and
provinces”? Throughout the early 1940s the Dominican state elevated the legal status of
many rural hamlets and villages across the border. The status of many border towns was
raised to signify the change in government policy and show that rather than be relegated
to back-water hamlets border residents would receive the same serious attention as other
regions in the interior.

In order for the nationalization of the borderlands to be successful the border had
to project the presence and strength of the Dominican state. Yet, many border towns that
were now incorporated into the Dominican Republic after the 1936 treaty and the
subsequent 1937 massacre retained their historic Haitian Creole names. Therefore,
Trujillo, cognizant of this irony, and with the help of the Congress, passed laws that
replaced the Haitian names of southern border towns with Spanish-sounding Dominican
names. More than a score of towns had their names changed from Creole to Spanish.
Some of these towns were in the southern communities of Neiba whose names were
changed from “Jean Sapit to Agapito; in Barahona, Cailon was changed to Caonabo; E1
Yimbi to La Altagracia; in the region of La Descubierta, Calinga to Joaquin Puello;
Toussaint to Granada [and]...In Pedemales: Bucé Creol to El Cercado; and Madam Jean

8
to Doiia Juana.”

 

6Ibid. 438-439. Even in the late 19405, Trujillo continued to consolidate the border region through the
incorporation of more lands that were beyond the administrative reach of the state. In 1948, following
Trujillo’s request, the Dominican Congress voted to “create a great extension of our southern border

territory in the San Rafael Province.” The law was to take effect in 1949. See La Nacio'n Oct.24, 1948, pg.5.

7See La Nacion March 5, 1947, pg.9.

aSee Coleccion de leyes, resoluciones decretos y reglamentos de los poderes legislativo y ejecutivo de la
reprilica de enero a diciembre de 1943. Vol.1. Poder Legislativo: No. 150 a1 No.473. (Ciudad Trujillo:
lrnprenta 1.1L Vda. Garcia, Sucesores, 1945), pg.404-405. This was not the first time a Dominican

132

Interestingly, not all state-building initiatives to transform the border came fiom
political elites in the capital of Santo Domingo. Perhaps in the spirit of patronage some
local border community leaders were also vigorously supporting Trujillo’s nationalization
border project. In a letter to the Secretary of the Interior and police, the President of City

Hall in Enriquillo, Eural de Terrero Jr. wrote:

In the course of the past year this town hall submitted to this honorable high office
a list of the sections of this locality for the ends of changing exotic names...[.] a
requisite that was not fulfilled thoroughly since various places were left with
strange names which conflict with the Dominicanization of the border
implemgnted by the distinguished Chief of State, Generalisimo Dr. Trujillo
Molina.

The move to name new provinces and rename old ones was but the first step in
reclaiming the border. Once Trujillo had replaced the Creole names of border towns with
Spanish names and, simultaneously, created new provinces along the frontier, he
intensified the policy of establishing colonias agricolas (agrarian colonies), which had
originated back in the mid-19205 under President Horacio Vésquez. Back then, a study
had been conducted to examine the feasibility of establishing agrarian colonies along the
border for immigrants. This study singled out ten border sites as potential locations of

10
future immigration colonization by “white” Dominicans to reclaim the borderlands.

 

govemment changed the names of border towns. As early as 1884, during Ulises Heaureaux’s presidency,
the town of Petit Trou or Petritu was renamed Enriquillo after the the great Cacique Taino leader. See
Mario Concepcion, “Nombres primitivos de pueblos dominicanos,” Eme-Eme Estudios Dominicanos #16
(Jan-Feb, 1975), pg.101. pgs.99-108.

9 See Secretaria de Interior y Policia, 5/16-5, 1944. AGN. The townhall authorities suggested changing the
names of Materesa for Maria Teresa; Caleton for Las Delicias; Juancho for Bucaral; and Chene for El
Progreso.”

loThe names of the colonies were Capotillo; Carrizal-Taberno; Guayajayuco; El Guayabal; La Jagua;
Guayabo e Isidro Martin; Hondo Valle; Hatico-Pedro Alejandro; Los Pinos de la Descubierta; Banano. See
Informe que presenta al poder ejecutivo Ia comision creada por la Iey num. 77 para estudiar las tierras de
Iafrontera y senalar Ios sitios en que se hon de establecer las colonias de inmigrantes. (Santo Domingo:
Imprenta de J .R. Vda. Garcia, 1925), pg. 8-17.

133

By the time Trujillo came to power however, these colonies were languishing on the
fiontier. The worldwide depression of the 1930s forced the Dominican government to
underscore the colonies’ importance to the agricultural production of the nation rather
than to see them as strictly buffers to Haitian immigration.

In the early 1930s, the worldwide depression forced Trujillo to promote these
colonies as a way to increase the country’s agricultural production. According to scholar
Orlando Inoa, these colonies under Trujillo (called Colonias Agricolas Penales) were
controlled by the military and relied on forced labor, usually prisoners, to cany out the
project of Dominicanizing the border.11 Moreover, unlike the Vasquez government, the
objective of these colonies focused on productionist goals rather than pursuing a strict
racial policy to “whiten” the border with white immigrants.12 The goal of the colonies
was to increase agricultural production at a time when a worldwide depression debilitated
many economies, including Hispaniola’s. Taking this argument further, scholar Richard
Turits also believes that the major reason that explains border colonization during the
Trujillo regime was not ideologically racial, but the pursuit of land reform. Turits writes

that:

While longstanding racial and nationalist discourses remained present throughout
the Trujillo regime, becoming virulent in exceptional periods and in moments of
conflict with Haitian presidents, agricultural colonies were established largely in
pursuit of the regime’s broad, fiequent, and somewhat successful efforts at
agrarian reform.l3

 

11

See Orlando Inoa’s Estado y campesinos al inicio de la era de Trujillo (Santo Domingo: Libreria La
Trinitaria, 1994), 164. Inoa writes that in 1933 Trujillo decreed that the “Army should produce for the
nation no less than 50% of what it invests in its maintenance.”

12See Orlando Inoa, Estado y campesinos al inicio de la era de Trujillo. (Santo Domingo: Libreria La
Trinitaria, 1994), pg.164. Inoa writes that even during Vésquez’s term in office, aside from the colonies
away from the border in Bonao and Pedro Sénchez (E1 Seibo), the majority were located on the border
“with predorninantely Dominican farmers.” pg. 160.
l3Turits, “The Foundations of Depotism: Peasants, Property, and the Trujillo Regime,” pg.434.

134

Some scholars have also seen establishing agrarian colonies as centers of
agricultural production as a buffer against Haitian immigration by the Trujillo
government. For example, scholars like Bernardo Vega, argue that the agrarian colonies
were part of a larger program to Dominicanize and “whiten” the border and not
necessarily established as a project of agrarian reform.l4 Conversely, Richard Turits
writes that the main reason for establishing agrarian colonies along the border was an
agrarian reform project “largely in pursuit of the regime’s broad, frequent, expanding
agriculture, and ‘modernzing’ the peasantry.”15 I believe that both arguments are valid
and they do not have to be mutually exclusive from each other. The Great Depression
forced many countries including the Dominican Republic to implement drastic measures
such as agrarian penal colonies to increase agricultural production.16

Yet aside from the possibility of state profit, anti-Haitianism prior to the massacre
was evident in the immigration policies of the Dominican Republic. Like other Latin
American countries, the Dominican Republic had promoted white immigration, while
attempting to the influx of black laborers. However, as we have seen, the problem with
the whitening argument is that the Dominican sugar industry’s need for cheap Haitian
labor at this time, which effectively neutralized any anti-black immigration legislation.

Following the massacre, the colonies’ role was transformed from one of
agricultural production to one of barriers against Haitian immigration. The army
continued to transport prisoners to the border but not all were forced laborers. In some
colonies, prisoners were free of military supervision and lived and worked as seemingly
free persons.17 And not all of these prisoners that were transported to the border were

men. A year afler the massacre, Dominican army records show clearly the itinerary

 

l
4Bernardo Vega, Truijillo y Haiti Vol.II (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Dominicana, 1995), 24.

15
See Richard Lee Turits, “The Foundation of Depotism: Peasants, Property, and the Trujillo Regime
(1930-1961),” Ph.D. diss. The University of Chicago, 1997, pg.434.
6
Inoa, Estado y campesinos, pg. 174.

17Ibid. 179.
135

involved when delivering a prisoner to the frontier colonies but unfortunately without
specific reference to the crimes committed. According to one army private, the military
“will be responsible for the custody of the prisoner Justina J iminian and will proceed via
railroad from this city [Puerto Plata] up to Santiago, and upon her arrival will deliver this
prisoner to the oflicial in charge of the public jail of the ‘San Luis’ Fort, who has been
transferred to be sent to the border colony.”18 Aside fi'om controlling the movement of
prisoners, the army served as an institution that regulated the behavior and morality of
border colonists. Sexual behavior under Trujillo’s border project had to coincide with the
image of how the new Dominican border resident should behave. During the
Dominicanization of the border, those women, whose sexuality did not conform to
traditional roles of patriarchy, were seen as dangerous to the colony. Moreover, their
behavior as we shall see was so much more subversive and threatening to the new
national identity being created because it was associated with what was considered a
lascivious Haitian culture, which Trujillo was trying to eliminate.

For example army documents also reveal how certain individual behavior,
particularly by women, warranted banishment fi'om the agrarian colonies. Alicia Montero
and her four children represent several cases where the state expelled or attempted to
expel families or individuals from the border region because they undermined local
authority. In this case, Alicia Montero and her children were sent to the colonia Pedro
Sénchez in the east because her lifestyle was perceived as threatening to the army’s
authority in the border: “This woman has always found the way to live in concubinage
with members of the Army or the Police. With her withdrawal from Hondo Valle, we can

avoid possible [embarrassing] contact with strangers who find themselves outside of the

 

”Letter fi‘om Capt. A. Mota Commanding Officer 8th Co., 7 Sept. 1938. EN 1938 Leg.277 exp.81. AGN It
seems Santiago was the gateway city for prisoners being transported to the border. The military was clearly
responsible for this operation, as seen by the conclusions of these letters that say, “according to the orders
of the army’s Chief of State.”

136

country.”19 Although the documents did not reveal Alicia Montero’s final outcome they
do allow us to see how the state attempted to enforce the state’s prescribed gender roles
by prohibiting (excessive) monogamy by female concubines.

Another threat to the border colonies, despite the obvious rupture caused by the
massacre, was the persistent contact between Dominican and Haitian border residents. If
success in Dominicanizing the border depended on severing inter ethnic and economic
relations, then as early as 1945, it was clear that this project was not succeeding. Military
orders were given to prohibit Dominicans in the colonias agricolas in the southwestern
most province of Pedemales fi'om entering Haitian territory “no matter the reason they
allege to justify their crossing.”20 However, the cultural and especially economic linkages
throughout this region proved more powerfill than any military or administrative policy of
exclusion. For centuries, Dominican and Haitian border residents had collaborated in
extensive trading relationships, which, in spite of Trujillo’s attempts to destroy these
economic ties, continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s and even to the present. And,
despite the army’s attempts to control this trade, Dominicans continued to patronize
Haitian markets. In an attempt to control and regulate the border trade, the military asked

its members to ask:

All Dominicans who will cross the border to make purchases in the Haitian
markets to leave their cedulas [identity papers] in the hands of the designated
Army’s agents and that they will not be returned until they return from the Haitian
markets at which time the military authorities will inspect the purchased articles in
these markets in order to confirm if what they can bring can be brought into the
country without paying customs duties, confiscating as contraband those articles

 

l9A report from Lte. Col. F. E. Caamano CD. of the Northwest Department to Trujillo, 21 August, EN
Leg.47 Exp.101 1943. AGN. As we can see the movement of people who went to these colonies
(voluntarily or not) was not only east to west but also from west to east. The colonia Pedro Sénchez was
located in what is today the Province of El Seybo (Seibo) in the eastern part of the island. See “Report
written by Capt. Amable A. del Castillo to the Jefe de Estado Mayor.” EN Leg.24 exp.64, 1941, pg.3.
AGN.

20Letter from Mayo General Federico Fiallo. EN Leg.59 exp. 101 23 May, 1945. AGN.
137

that are brought illegally.”

Controlling the border was extremely difficult for the Dominican state and the
army. The state was attempting to control and regulate a fluid circulatory migration that
had existed for hundreds of years through settlements of Dominicans and Haitians.
Between 1930, when Trujillo came to power, and 1945, forty colonies (not all limited to
the border) had been established along with 9,211 colonists out of a total population of
2,135, 872.22 Much was at stake: the success of Trujillo’s border project and its goal to
limit, if not eliminate, all Dominican-Haitian contact; the potential for an exile invasion
from Haitian tenitory; and the clandestine contraband trade, which undermined the
State’s objective to control the border’s economy. All of these made border security
paramount. Therefore, Dominicans, depending on where they were along the border
markets were prohibited from entering Haiti to visit the markets before six in the morning
and could not return on the same day after six in the aftemoon.23

Dominican authorities could not control the contraband trade. Despite Trujillo’s
plan to curb Haitian influence throughout the Dominican border, many Dominicans chose
to visit the more than a dozen Haitian markets as their best and closest alternative to

24
obtain goods. One government report clearly outlined Dominican dependency on

Haitian food markets. According to the report, other food crops barely reached the levels

 

2' EN Leg.31 exp.66, Surninistro de recopilacion de leyes y reglamentos. Trafico en la frontera del oficial
leyes Carlos Gaton Richiez to Commandant in the Northern Dept. in Elias Pina 28 Dec. 1942. AGN. This
law was based on the 1942 Protocol Agreement Article 2 requiring those who crossed the border to visit the
Haitian markets to only buy and not sell.

22Inoa, Estado y campesinos, pg.173. For Population figures see Tercer censo nacional de poblacion de
1950 Direccion general de estadistica Ciudad Trujillo, 1958, pg.xiii.

23
EN Leg.31 exp.66, Surninistro de recopilacion de leyes y reglamentos.

24Ibid. By the early 1940s, there were 16 Haitian border markets servicing their Dominican clientel. These
markets were in Fort-Liberte, Perrier, Ouanaminthe, Capotillo Haitiano, La Miel, 1a Melchora, Castilleur,
Tormsique, San Pedro, Belladere, Cornillon, Glove, Fond Verettes, Tete a L’eau, Banane, and Anses-a-
Pitre. The document also stated that at the time the two major crops that were exportable beyond the border
region were rice and peanuts (mani).

138

of regional consumption, yet most of these crops came from Haitian markets.25 Second
there were colonias, such as Mariano Cestero, which were not self-sufficient because they
relied on exported food from the interior. One government inspector underscored this
problem, describing how every two weeks an army truck would supply the military
soldiers and penal colonists, but that the businessmen of this colony were excluded from
these dealings. The inspector recommended that a supply truck from Santiago visit the
colony weekly and that the merchants be allowed to purchase these goods from the
colonists, then sell them to other towns throughout the border.26 Although we will never
know if this plan was carried out because the documents do not reveal this, life in the
colonias was as difficult to control as the interborder trade.

The state’s control of movement among border Dominicans extended to those
who lived in the colonias. All colonias had an encargado who was in charge of
administering activities and movements, like granting permission to leave the colonia.
Penal colonist Felix Valbuena asked his encargado de colonia for permission “for ten
days to go over to the city of Santiago to see his mother who, according to his own
declaration, is sick in that city.”27 Valbuena knew all-too-well the consequences of not
asking for permission--arrest. Two individuals who lefi their respective border colonies
without permission were Antonio Vargas and Bruno Sénchez. These two residents of
Monte Cristi became fugitives and faced arrest orders.28 But why did they leave without
permission? Most elderly Dominicans interviewed never mentioned colonists running
away from their colonies. Eighty-four—year—old colonist Fidel Bennings had only good

and favorable memories of the colony under Trujillo:

 

2’See EN Leg 31 exp. 67, Sept 5,1942 AGN.
:EN Leg. 31 exp. 67, Sept. 8, 1942. AGN
:See Secretaria de Agricultura Industria y Trabajo Leg. 419 exp. 1909-1910. AGN.

28Letter from Governor of Monte Cristi to Police Capt. Delio A. Fernandez R., Dec. 20, 1937. See
Gobernacion de Monte Cristi #80 exp. 83. AGN.
139

When I arrived here everything was about Trujillo. He gave us everything: Plants
to grow and seeds. He gave us subsidies. Listen, subsidies came here bi-monthly;
there were tractors; there were machines; there were implements for the tractor to
work the land. That was the help that Trujillo gave us...They used to give us
twenty-five pesos twice a month. They brought it to us here, to every house.29

Aside from the prisoners who had no choice in the matter, there were Dominicans
who, with the promise of free (state) land in government-sponsored colonias, asked the
authorities, often in writing for parcels of borderland. There were many people like
Argentina Villalona (N inina) who wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Huberto Bogard
asking for between “10 to 15 hectares to guarantee the sustenance of my five small boys
that weigh upon my shoulders and without means with which to take care of them at the
present time.”30 There were as many women as men who took the initiative to write to the
Dominican government authorities and plead their cases. Some were not interested in
land, but in basic necessities of life like comfort through the night. Ana Joaquina J iménez
of Capotillo was one person who depended on alms and asked the government officials to
help her, since she didn’t even have a blanket to cover her “nor anything to sleep in; I
would appreciate it if you could give me as a gift a bed equipped with a blanket and a
little mattress, two sheets, one pillow, two mosquito nets and three chairs.”31

Many applicants were campesinos or farmers but unable to secure land to
cultivate their crops. J osé Arias from Santiago, a farmer and a painter, married, and father
of 'eight children, asked the department of agriculture for “a parcel of land in one of the

agrarian border colonies...[and this] opportunity to return to the farm would resolve a

 

29 Video Interview in the Colonia Mixta between Neiba and Duverge, June 1999. I asked Fidel Bennings if
he had to sign anything to receive the money and he responded that he did not. “No sir. Money in cash.
Cash.”

30Sec. Agriculture Leg. 16 1945, Nov. 23, 1945. AGN. Others were bolder in their requests. Carmen de
Acosta de Alvarez asked the government for “100 hectares so I could work them with my husband and
children.”

3
1Sec. Agriculture Leg. 223, 1952, 27 May, 1952. AGN.
140

great wish that I have always had and had not found due to lack of land.”32 The
government granted many requests to prospective farmers but despite the free land,
according to frustrated officials, some colonists abandoned their lands and thud defeating
the purpose of the colonies’ existence and Trujillo’s goal to make the border more
productive. One official in this colony, Mayor Andres J. Monclus, suggested that a
written order should stipulate that if the amount of land assigned to a person was not
cultivated or being prepared for planting that the land should be “automatically forfeited
and his right over it would revert to the colony’s administration.”33

What makes these documents so important is that they Show how poor rural
Dominicans wrote letters to the state, replete with grammatical errors, but nevertheless
exercising their right to seek and maintain a better life through the colonies. Often the
letters were frank and assertive, reflecting self-assuredness on the part of the writers, as in
Manuel J iménez’s letter to the Secretary of Agriculture. In the letter, J iménez, who had
suffered from a chronic hernia for the last seven years, had his ten hectares of land taken
from him and given to his supposedly slanderous enemy, Domingo San J iménez. He
defended himself and asked the state authorities to disclaim negative rumors against him
by speaking to the colonia’s respected men about his impeccable honor.34 Thus we can
see that, although Trujillo’s dictatorship was repressive, it did allow Dominicans to voice
their concerns, as long as they were not directed in any way against the regime. Yet life in
the colonias was difficult. Despite the great deal of government propaganda portraying

the colonies as a successful example of border colonization, things on the ground were

 

32Ministry of Agriculture 10 Bis, June 11, 1944. AGN. The farms, unlike the large U.S.-style ranches, were
really parcels of land distributed to the colonists. Although there were prisoners who comprised part of the
colonias’ population, in most cases they had freedom of movement and were integrated with the rest of the
colonists. Colonias were settlements of houses that adjacent to farmlands where colonists/farmers
cultivated their crops. Many of the colonias’ status today have been elevated to municipal towns.

33EN Leg31 Exp. 67, Sept. 4, 1942. AGN. Thus when “a new aspiring colonist arrives to these [abandoned]
lands [the colonists] allege beforehand to the administrator: ‘acquired rights’ prohibiting this official to give
an opportunity to this new colonist so that he can work these lands.”

Sec. of Agriculture Leg.32, July 6, 1946. AGN. The respected men in the Colonia Benefactor were

Francisco Dia [sic] Pancho, Ramon Reinoso, Pedro Molla [sic], and Bentura [sic] Perarta.
141

much different.

Hard Times in the Colonias

Many of the colonists along with prisoners who arrived at the state agrarian
colonies were unprepared for the difficulties that were involved in living and working at
these sites. As in cases of land reform such as homesteading, many colonists believed a
government propaganda that portrayed the colonies as a paradise. Moreover those
colonias along the border provided an even more difficult challenge because of the
regions isolation and arid climate. One investigative military report on the border

concluded that,

I convinced myself that the penal colonists as well as the colonists go there [to the
border] blindly believing that they will find tranquility in their misadventures and
a peaceful, secure future and prosperity. The inhabitants dreamed that the border
colonization was an obvious source of enrichment for its people and hard-core
Trujillistas, like in a god, wait for the pardon of their sins as a blessing fiom
heaven.35

A surprising dynamic to the border colonies was that prisoner and non-prisoner
colonists lived together. Essentially prisoners started many of the border colonies. Elderly
border residents I spoke with told me that many of the border towns were founded by
prisoners who were transferred to the border as part of Trujillo’s colonization scheme.
One man even told me that many prisoners brought their families with them to live in the

border.36 These prisoners enjoyed freedoms otherwise denied to them in a regular prison

 

3’ Informacion sobre la situacion dc colonos y de presos en la frontera. EN Leg.3l exp. 67, Oct. 26, 1942.
AGN.

36Interview with “Juanita” in the Caribe Tours bus station of Dajabon. June 1999. The town near the the
provincial capital of Dajabon, Lorna de Cabrera, and the outlying and srmller rural municipalities of La
Joya, Capotillo, Don Miguel, and La Peilita were all founded by prisoners.

142

or colonies in the interior. One fieedom and perhaps the most important one for prisoners
was being able to move freely in their new surroundings. Prisoner border colonists were
not constantly monitored or isolated from the rest of the general population. Moreover,
they received the same benefits as other non-criminal colonists from the government.
According to one eighty-five year F autina Andujar, whose husband managed a store in
Loma de Cabrera, the colonists from the nearby colony would arrive every Saturday to
obtain food supplies. She remembered that ”Trujillo ordered the construction of houses,
he sent a bed, a cow, a pig and one mill to every prisoner’s little house; the prisoners had
their liberty; they could leave to where ever they wanted.”37 As in most colonies, the
government to facilitate the transition to border life subsidized the residents. Once a week
the colonists in Lorna de Cabrera went to town to obtain goods from F austina Andujar’s
husband’s store. The colonists, among them prisoners, would “purchase” their goods with
a special ticket. The store manager would then send the receipt to the authorities in Santo
Domingo for reimbursement. Then a check from Santo Domingo would be sent to the
storeowner for the costs incurred by the colonists.38 But not all colony experiences were
alike. The supervision of the colonies still remained under strict and authoritarian control
of the military and there were accounts of abuse and violence.

In the early 19405, prisoner/colonist J osé Polanco from San Francisco de Macoris
said how he was transferred to a colonia in the northern border, where he was paid a
ration of six pesos “and in the morning what they gave us for food was one boiled
comcob, at noon another comcob, and at night they gave us nothing.”39 Aside from
surviving on limited food rations, prisoner/colonists were also subject to physical abuse at
the hands of the military guards for crimes such as robbery. For some these colonies

quickly became nightmares. Despite the idyllic government portrayal of the colonies,

 

37
38Interview with Angela Andujar January 1999 in Lorna de Cabrera.
Ibid.
39
Informacion sobre la situacion de colonos y de presos en la frontera. EN Leg.3l exp. 67, Nov. 7, 1942.
143

violence was ever present in the form of interrogation and tortured. Some of these
colonists’ testimonies were recorded by the Dominican military. Abuse at the hands of the
military was not surprising since the colonies were an extension of a dictatorial state,
which forcefully enforced its laws and controlled its citizens through repression. One
declaration from Army Captain Aquiles Ramirez Romero tells of how a Captain Cocco

punished both penal and non-penal colonists:

They used to bring prisoners from the colonies accused of robbing chickens,
kettles and other things they are used to stealing, and the same ex-Captain Cocco
took a rubber whip nicknamed the “German Soldier” and punished them with it.
Besides giving them a whipping, he used to lock them up for ten to twelve days
and afterwards sent them back to their lands.40

Perhaps as a way to ameliorate tensions that most emerged among the colonists and
deflecting frustration aimed at either the border project or the state, was the way in which
government allotted special recreational privileges to the colonies. Trujillo allowed the
penal colonists to participate in entertainment activities on the weekends that were
prohibited everywhere else. Writing to Trujillo’s brother Secretary of State, Hector B.
Trujillo, Secretary of State for the Presidency Arturo Logrofio wrote that by President’s

Trujillo’s orders:

In the state’s agrarian colonies located in the border region, the army, like the
National Police and the rest of the authorities of all classes, must abstain from
pursuing the diverse games of dice, cockfights, and dances (because neither the
cockfights nor the dances are subjected to taxes) from Saturdays in the afternoon
until Sundays at nine in the evening, as long as these diversions always take place
within the referred agrarian colonies.“

 

’° Ibid. Nov. 23, 1942. In another case of robbery Manuel Jiménes Firpo was “cancelled as a colonist in the
Colonia Benefactor not for intrigues but for misconduct in selling a certain quantity of peanuts that he
borrowed for planting.” See Sec. of Agriculture Leg. 32, July 6, 1946. AGN.
" According to Logrofio, Trujillo allowed “this tolerance” for border colonists because it was easier to
monitor dissent within an enclosed area such as a colonia than have them roaming around the border and,
perhaps, into Haiti. Without the colonias, the colonists “would surely go and find in other places” diversion
of any kind. See Sec. of Agriculture Leg.93:362, exp.581 Jan. 20, 1938. AGN.

144

These activities represented a small but significant part of daily life on the border.
The official government position never mentioned these incidents but promoted an image
of border colonization as a system “comprising measures that assure a maximum
protection of those who are assigned sufficient lands according to the size of the
family.”42 The geology of the region also contradicted the govemment’s image of the
border as a land of plenty. One of the first things you notice as you enter the border region
is the abundance of goats, rocks, and speed bumps. The borderlands are the country’s
most arid regions, which is why it posed such a serious challenge to the colonists as they
tried to grow food. Although the government initiated a campaign to construct an
irrigation system throughout the border, farmers vented their frustrations on Trujillo,
blaming the heat and lack of rain for their periodic crop loss.

In a letter to Trujillo, a frustrated farmer, Manuel Maria Morel (Tolan) writes:
“Generalisimo: the drought in this region of the northwest line has tortured us in an
incomparable way, burning the articles of primary necessity that we had planted, since we
live at the mercy of the waters and it has not rained for several months.”43 And it was not
only peasant farmers who found it difficult to survive let alone thrive, but also upstanding
colonists who embodied the success of the govemment’s colonization program. Many, as
some did, considered leaving the colonies. In order to convince these colonists not to

leave for greener pastures, one colonial administrator wrote Trujillo and suggested that

these individuals receive a small check from the Dominican Party.

Moreover I understand that this help would result in a great political propaganda
which I believe to be very necessary in this part of the border, if every time that

 

42
Cumplimiento del gobiemo Dominicana a las resoluciones de la III Conferencia Interamericana de
agricultura reunida en Caracas, Venezuela, Sec. Agriculture Industry and Labor Leg. 18, 1945, pg.35. AGN.

43
Sec. of Agriculture, Leg.7, April 27, 1944. AGN.
145

these good fiiends leave because their situation here is bad, many will follow
them despite that I help them equally with the purpose of maintaining this region
with the most number of people.44

It was not easy to live on the border and it was not cheap. Food prices as well as
the cost of living were comparatively more expensive. Food was imported into the border
fiom the interior of the country. Transportation was expensive due to the poor road
system. Moreover, World War II inflated food prices everywhere. Colonial administrators
addressed the economic crises gripping the border during these years in their official

writings. In 1945, one of these administrators wrote that the

Economic situation is one of this colony’s most fundamental problems since the
new colonists do not know anyone and I have to use my salary in many cases to
encourage them; and also the small store (bodega) that exists almost always
maintains its doors closed for the fact that it has its capital in the street in the
hands of the colonists, who most of them do not want to pay [the store].45

Some colonists, however, said that the storeowners, instead of selling the
customer an entire pound, worth of food for one peso, were in reality only selling three-
fourths of a pound, thus forcing the customer to pay more for less. According to the
report, there were no regulations or controls, at least in this colony, to monitor abuses by
merchants, prompting government regulations to regulate prices in all the colonies. The
following is a list of materials and their cost before and after the authorities stepped in to

lower and control the prices: In 1945 in the Colonia Mariano Cestero near the provincial

 

“ EN leg.3l Letter from First Lieutenant Camilo Suero Heureaux in Pedemales to Trujillo, August 1, 1942.
AGN. Maintaining the colonists in their colonies was part of Trujillo’s larger goal of, not only increasing
agricultural production during the depression of the 19303, but also as a mechanism to control the social
mobility while limiting rural to urban migration. Indeed Inoa suggests that during Trujillo’s first fifteen
years in power there was “an ample and sustained tendency towards pesantazization.” See Inoa’s Estado y
campesino, pg.229.
’5 Confidencial report of Colonia Mariano Cestero by Alvaro A. Caamano Mella.
Sec. of to Secretary of Agruiculture. Agriculture Leg. 1 8 April 25, 1945. AGN. Alfredo Espin President of
the Dominican Party’s Comunal Junta wrote Trujillo saying that in a local meeting at the agrarian colony of
Hipolito Billini he wrote that out of all the inhabitants the majority “lacked economic resources.” See Sec.
of Agriculture Leg.384 exp.695 July 4, 1939. AGN.

146

capital of Restauracion in the province of Libertador, rice was 15¢ a pound reduced to
13¢; sausage 40¢ to 35¢; sugar: 10¢ to 9¢; cigars 65¢ to 3¢; chocolate: 2¢ to 1¢; Soap
12¢ to 10¢; herring 40¢ to 35¢; matches 3¢ to 2¢ 1/2; and cigarettes: 15¢ to 10¢.46

In another penal colony, this time in the southwestern border region the problem
was not price regulation for food staples and provisions, but the exportation of border
cattle to other parts of the Dominican Republic. Local officials wrote to the agricultural
ministry to prohibit the exportation of cattle outside of their region because it reduced the
amount of meat being consumed by the border’s residents. The message, which asked for
government intervention and the implementation of price controls, stated that “sometimes
even three days pass without meat and presently in the Francisco del Rosario Sénchez
agrarian colony it’s been ten days that there is none.”47

Ever since Trujillo’s rise to power, the state policy to increase agricultural
production along the border to export to the interior affected traditional patterns of
Dominican farming. No longer just subsistence farmers, these colonies forced many
Dominicans to plant more export crops such as rice and beans and fewer traditional crops
such as plantains, sweet potato, and yuca. One military official in the northern border was
blunt in his observation that “colonos and their families are hungry and malnourished due
to the lack of traditional crops, passing a great deal of their time that they should devote
to the Colony, going outside of it and looking for other provisions”, to eat.48

Aside from the colonies there was a concomitant project after the 1937 massacre
(discussed in chapter five) to develop a military, religious, educational, and cultural
curtain against Haitian immigration. Several months after the massacre, the Dominican

Secretary of Agriculture called for a reorganization of the border agrarian colonies’

functions. By 1938 there were five agrarian colonies established throughout the border.

 

“:Sec. of Agriculture, Leg. 18, April 25, 1945. AGN.
4
48EN Leg. 47 exp.101. Sept. 2, 1943. AGN.

EN Leg. 31 exp. 67, Sept 4, 1942, pg.2. AGN.
147

They were Juan Pablo Duarte, Mariano Cestero, Trinitaria, Capotillo, and Hipolito Billini
all with plenty of land for multi-crop agricultural cultivation. There the government
funded and planned churches, schools, a post office, civil and government houses,
butcher shops, commercial houses, sanitary brigades, a military outpost and even an
airstrip for planes in Juan Pablo Duarte near Enriquillo.49 By the next year, the
government was conducting surveys in the southern border for the creation of more
border colonies. But like many parts of the world, the success of border colonization

depended on securing and maintaining a consistent supply of water.
Securing Water to Secure Colonias

One of the most important criteria for selecting the location for the colonies was
securing and controlling water supplies and its accessibility particularly the southern
border, which has the lowest level of rainfall in the entire country. In the southwestern
colony of La Florida, the lack of a water supply temporarily halted its construction.
According to the government inspection team leader for southern colonization: “My
opinion, with respect to this colony, is to annul it for its complete lack of water. The
nearest water is found at a distance of 8 kilometers in the site called Atesusi. This
colony’s installation should wait until it is determined where it will get its water
supply.”50

Trujillo’s border plan could not succeed without to irrigate the agricultural fields
that grew the crops to sustain a local and regional market, while sustaining a population
whose presence was to presumably stop or at least limit the flow of Haitian immigration.

The Trujillo government even contracted international consultants to examine the

 

49Sec. of Agriculture Leg.24l, exp.395, August 12, 1938. AGN. Each colony had its own farming
equipment, farm animals and their share of colonists. The number of colonists in these five colonies were
607 including women and children and foreign nationals as well but most were Dominican.

”Sec. of Agriculture Leg.396 exp.842, March 21, 1939. AGN.
148

possibilities of increasing water supplies along the border. One such consultant was
Howard A. Meyerhoff, who surveyed the southwestern border region of what is today the
province of Pedemales. Meyerhoff surveyed the region both by land and air, and
suggested that increased water quantities along this section of the border could be
obtained and thus “this large area could be transformed into a veritable garden?“ By
1945 there were eleven irrigation canals along the border that supplied water to the
various provinces on the frontier.52 Once the water supply was secured, the surveying
team recommended the construction of modern houses.

For Trujillo, transforming the border was very much about infrastructure and
creating an architectural border, so to speak that clearly demarcated both nations. The
first border was the international boundary demarcated by stone markers and military
posts. But these dividing points were too sparse for such an extensive border to clearly
delineate both countries. How could one tell they were in Haiti or the Dominican
Republic without these visual markers?

One way to mark the territorial limits of the Dominican-Haitian border was
through the construction of houses. For Trujillo, the Dominican border began when
wooden houses replaced the traditional rural pahn-roofed bohio dwellings common
throughout the island but now associated with Haiti as a symbol of backwardness. Never
mind that the bohio was also common in the Dominican Republic, Trujillo viewed the
border as a site of contestation where his engineers would oversee the construction of
wooden and cement houses with zinc roofs to underscore the difference between a

primitive and modern countries. As one Trujillo sympathizer from Spain remarked during

 

”Sec. ongliculture Leg. 32 Aug. 14, 1944. AGN.

Most of these canals received their water from nearby rivers. Their capacity ranged from 300 liters per
second, irrigating 3,000 hectares to 30,000 hectares to 3,000 liters per second, irrigating as much as 20,000
hectares. The eleven canals were in Pedemales (Provincia Barahona), Jimani (Provincia Bahoruco), El
Llano (Provincia San Rafael), Olivero (Provincia Benefactor), Matayaya (Provincia Benefactor), El
Cercado (Provincia Benefactor), El Pinar (Provincia Benefactor), Carrera de Yeguas (Provincia
Benefactor), Dajabon (Provincia Libertador), La Granja (Provincia Libertador). See Sec. of Agriculture,
Leg.47, May 8, 1945. AGN.

149

a trip though the border in Elias Pina: “For a long time the struggle for the
Dominicanization of the border will be the fight between thewooden house and that sad
bohio of ‘tejamani’ thrown in the middle of uncultivated desert.”53

Along with the growth of colonies there was an increase in the size of the border
population. By 1950 the Dominican border population counted for 75,000 people, out of a
total population of 2,135,872, while ten years later in 1960, that number increased to
125,000.54 AS individuals or entire families arrived, newly constructed houses were
assigned for them on the border. Small wooden houses complete with kitchens and
latrines were constructed for the new colonistsss Through an internal kitchen and
external latrine, the government would modernize the border, which had long existed
beyond the control of the Dominican state.56

Historically, Haitians had occupied Dominican territory because of a lack of
Dominican presence. Under Trujillo, and especially after the massacre, the border no
longer was neglected but was transformed by a state subsidized project to reclaim the
border. One report filed by the military patrullas (squads), which periodically patrolled

the country during Trujillo’s reign, referred to this institutional presence along the border.

According to the report, in the Colonia Trinitaria, there was

An average of 50 small houses all constructed of wood zinc roofs and painted
white. It has a [Catholic] Church constructed of wood and painted gray and
adorned of white. There is an Emergency School constructed of wood and zinc
roof giving it an aspect of order and cleanliness. [The colony] is endowed with

 

s
iBaltasar Miro, Cartones de lafiontera. (Ciudad Trujillo: Editorial Ia Nacion, 1945), pg. 1 8.
John P. Augelli’s, “Nationalization of Dominican Borderlands,” 33.

”One Dominican newspaper wrote that “33 families arrived at the Flor de Oro colony. 53 houses have just
been constructed there; 33 of these have been appointed to the recently arrived families to the colony.” See
La Nacio'n, July 28, 1943, pg.4.
“EN leg.67 exp. 101. AGN. Letter from Lieutenant Colonel Miguel A. Casado in Elias Pifia to his
commanding oflicer on June 19, 1947. According to one report, the cost of one house constructed in the
agrarian colony in 1939 was $60 pesos. Sec. of Agricultrrre Leg. 396 exp.842, 1939. AGN.

l 50

communication routes by telephone and road.57

In just a few years the border went from being a region of state neglect and
abandonment to the creation of population centers complete with the essential
institutions. For Trujillo, the border was an integral extension of the Dominican nation,
with all its institutions and economies linked to the capital of Santo Domingo. As
mentioned in chapter two, the number of border colonies in the early 1930s was less than
ten. But by the end of the 19508, border colonies would increase to thirty-two.58 A decade
prior to this crescendo, the Dominican government celebrated it 100th anniversary
independence from Haiti by issuing a report evaluating its agrarian colonies. The 1944
report cited the growth and expansion of state institutions and businesses that functioned
throughout the border and within the colonies.59

Trujillo’s policy to modenrize the border through cement buildings was to
culturally and architecturally dichotonrize the border between Dominican and Haitian
territory. Since both Sides of the border were relatively underdeveloped, Trujillo sought to
divide the two nations even more by contrasting his border as modern, progressive, and
institutionalized vis-a-vis a Haiti that was backward, antiquated, and unregulated.
Trujillo, through his ever-expanding state, sought to literally illuminate this “ k” region

oo
in more ways than one. F ollowrng the massacre, most Haltlans were persona non grata

 

’7 EN Leg.67, exp. 101, Report filed by 2nd Lieutenant Enrique A. Cabado Saldia in Restauracion, April 26,
1947. AGN.

”Out of these thirty-two colonies, nine were deactivated meaning they no longer held colony status. See
“John P. Augelli’s “Nationalization of Dominican Borderlands,” The Geographical Review Vol.70 No.1
(January 1980), 29. -

9

“These colonies at the end of 1944 depended on 69 official schools, 12 mail and telegraph agencies, 28
military and national police officers, 23 sanitary brigades and dispersed doctors, 189 kilometers of roads
and highways, 246 commercial houses, 6 pharmacies, and there were 1279 work oxen of which 439 were
gofficial property and 840 belonged to the colonos.” Sec. of Agriculture Leg.l8, 1945. AGN.

One of the symbols of progress under the nationalization project was bringing light to the border, as was
the case in the colonia agricola El Llano (in San Juan de la Maguana) when an electrical power plant was
inaugurated and donated by Trujillo. See the Elias Pifla’s border newspaper Ecos de Cachimdn, itself an
instrument of state-building in August 30, 1948, pg.1.

151

in the Dominican Republic, except for those who lived and worked within the American-
owned sugar mills. The success, or at least the illusion of success, of Trujillo’s
nationalization project depended upon the absence of Haitians. Therefore, military
officials who were responsible for monitoring everything throughout the border, at times
wrote to their superiors that no Haitians lived in their province. Captain Rafael A.
Gonzalez, for example, wrote to his superiors saying that, “in the Benefactor Province
there are no Haitians because, according to the prison commanders of Las Matas de
Farfan and El Cercado, respectively, in the colonies that are under their control, there do
not exist individuals of Haitian nationality.”6l

It was important to Trujillo to project and present an image of a border free of
Haitians. After the massacre in 1937, the Dominican government viewed not only
Haitians but Dominicans of Haitian descent as a threat. Haitian culture and interrnixture
was anathema to the Dominicanization of the border. The goal was to eradicate all
Haitian presence from the border and, as we shall see in chapter five, the govemment’s
various state institutions initiated a campaign to define in opposition to and protect
themselves from their western neighbor. But the Haitian presence must have been
considerable, judging by a confidential letter written by the Dorrrinican administrator of

one of the border colonies. According to this official:

We have in Tierra Sucia, 8 colonists and in Carrizal 6, which are descendants of
Haitians or, in other words, Dominicanized Haitians in terms of the rights that
they enjoy in this country, but of customs and ideologies, of their race, this
nucleus constitutes the most difficult problem of this colony because, since they
are natives of this sector, when they are submitted for vagrancy or theft upon
completing [their sentences], return to the same place and neither advice nor
healthy measures are worth anything. In other words the only way that I could
count on and that could be done for the good of the colony’s cleanliness is

 

6|EN Leg. 64 exp.96. Letter from Capt. Rafael A. Gonzalez to his superiors. May 3, 1946. AGN.
152

‘remove them’ or transfer them to Saona Island.62

This request also reflected the state’s desire to eliminate contact between Haitians
and Dominicans, which it was unable to achieve since, in this case, despite a massacre
and an institutional border project that controlled and monitored the border residents’
lives, both peoples continued to interact with each other. In spite of the increased
Dominican state presence, crime existed especially in the illicit contraband trade that had
existed for more than two hundred years. Prior to and following the massacre, contraband
along the border, like contraband between many international borders, flourished.
Dominican government documents throughout the 19408 record robberies by Haitians
along the border, especially the agrarian colonies. This could be interpreted as either the
persistence of trading relations between both communities and/or or bureaucratic excuse
for missing goods. The following example also reveals in contradictory fashion that
colonization of the border was not as it was portrayed by government propaganda. There
were people, as previously mentioned, that wanted to leave the colonies. One official
believed that the robberies in his jurisdiction were so frequent that the inhabitants “were
thinking of abandoning the [Angel Feliz] colony for this reason now that they have no
arms with which to defend themselves and carry out patrols?”53 According to this
Dominican official, Haitian robberies were so frequent and easy to carry out that he used
humor to drive home the point: “These Haitians are so proficient in these types of
villainous acts that not only do they steal animals, but they go as far as stealing the
pillows and clothes underneath the head of those who are sleeping, and steal the cédulas

(personal identification cards) from the men who have inside them the money to renew

 

62Saona Island is off the southeastern Dorrrinican province of La Altagracia. See colonial administrator
Alvaro A. Caamaflo Mella in the Mariano Cestero agrarian colony of Restauracién to the Sec. of
Agricuture, Sec. of Agr. Leg. 18, April 25, 1945. AGN.
63

EN Leg. 67 exp. 96, Letter from Ernesto A. Caamafio administrator for the Angel F eliz colony to the
Secretary of War and Navy, April 28, 1947. AGN. Ironically, during the massacre, there were colonists that

had firearms but they were distributed temporarily by the Dominican army.
1 53

them.”64 These examples of Haitian criminals crossing the border and stealing cattle had
always represented been a real concern for farmers along the border even up until today.
Most elderly Dominicans interviewed agreed that stealing cattle was common throughout
the border, particularly before the massacre. Therefore these documents reflect a reality
that border Dominican residents, particularly farmers who owned cattle, experienced
during these times. Many Haitians that were caught stealing in Dominican territory were
sentenced, jailed, fined and imprisoned. Surviving court records from 1938 in the
northern border town of Monte Cristi show that most Haitians were arrested for minor
theft called robo simple (simple robbery).65

Most of these crimes of robbery that were listed in the court records for Monte
Cristi were committed by Haitian nationals on Dominican territory, and several of those
arrested were women. Most of the Haitians arrested were sentenced to four months in
prison and fined between $15 and $25 pesos for their crimes.66 These crimes contrasted
greatly with Dominicans who were arrested in the same year. Dominican crimes were
much more serious and ranged from arson, defamation, and voluntary homicide to
gambling. Many of the crimes were punished fi'om a $10 peso fine for arson to 15 years
of public labor for homicide.67 But Dominican criminals did not run the risk of either
deportation or repatriation to Haiti. But Haitians, once they completed their sentences,
were usually repatriated.68 Archival records also contradict the regime’s propaganda that
Haitians on Dominican territory and not in Haiti only committed robberies. Cattle was
also robbed from Haitian territory and transported across the border by Dominican

thieves. A military border inspector commented in his report that a “Haitian named Clert

 

64

Ibid.
5
6 An excellent study would be to examine the entire process from Haitians being arrested their treatment in
20minican courts, and the types of punishment they received.
See Resumen de la labor realizada por el Juzgado de Primera Instancia del Distrito Judicial de Monte
gristi, durante e1 mes de abril del ano 1938. Gobernacion de Monte Cristy Leg. #75, exp.53. 1938. ANG.
Ibid. Leg.#75 exp.54.

6"EN Leg.258-A exp.76. AGN.
154

had introduced himself at his office and denounced that the night before he had lost two
mounts (two mules) and according to reports he possessed, those mounts had passed to

the other Dominican side and the one who had taken these mounts was a Dominican

guar ”69

Obviously, the Dominicanization of the border did not stamp out the contraband
trade, which had existed Since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both Haitian and
Dominican civilians and authorities participated in both legal and illegal forms of trade
throughout this time when the Dominican state promoted a post-massacre ideology of
anti-Haitianism. Like Haitians, Dominicans also robbed. Yet, often for propaganda
purposes, Dominican crimes were minimized in the government documents so as not to
contradict the govemment’s portrayal of border Dominicans as the vulnerable victims of
Haitian thieves.70 The market for the Dominican contraband trade inevitably centered in
Haiti, and those Dominicans caught stealing animals were punished with three months of
prison and a $15 peso fine." Moreover, when Dominicans conducted business either
among themselves or with Haitians along the border, chances are that the money

transactions were in Haitian currency.
Haitian Currency throughout the Border
Like today, Haitian and American currency floated throughout the border during

the 19403. According to some residents, they remember that the Haitian gourde was so

widespread that its circulation went from the northern border in Monte Cristi all the way

 

69EN Leg.29l exp.24. July 24, 1939. AGN.

70According to one confidencial report written by 2nd Lieutenent Julio A. Conde on u'avels near El
Cercado, Dominican crimes were not as important. “Robberies committed by Dominicans, these have been
of little inrportance, like the theft of yucca, chicken, banana and goats, which have been submitted to the
Law and sanctioned.” See Sec. of Agriculture Leg. 10, June 10, 1944. AGN.

7'Golseruacion de Monte Cristi Leg.75 exp.52. AGN.
155

east to Santiago (Navarrete).72 Haitian currency was so entrenched in the border region
that even several months after the massacre--at a time when tensions remained high
between both countries--the Dominican government continued to conduct certain
transactions in Haitian money. For example, various branches of the Dominican
government near the border collected taxes in Haitian money. The Secretary of the
Treasury and Commerce made this clear in a letter to a tax collector in the Southwestern

province of Azua when he wrote:

I wish that you advise immediately the municipal treasurers, the postal agents,and
the other offices that are used to make deposits in Haitian money...that they can
continue to do it under the conditions already expressed and that these measures
have been taken with the interest of facilitating the commercial exchange of the
border regions.73

According to one eighty-one-year-old Roman Mateo Cuevas, Haitian money
circulated more than any other currency along the border. Moreover, as bilingual
residents, people on the border referred to their currency in more than one language:
Spanish and Kreyol. “There were various types of currency. There was a Haitian cent, ten
cents, fifty cents and a peso. Five cents were called cenco; fifty [cents], they called them

74
cencat-cop; and the tens [cents] a disco.” Several of those interviewed recall how

 

nplhora! No.936, Nov. 2, 1981, pg.46. 4247.

During one of my visits to the border in Jimani, I was surprised to see that American dollars, Dominican
pesos, and Haitain gourdes circulate freely around town. Moreover as soon as you arrive in J imani there are
many persons with small pouches who will gladly exchange these three currencies.

73 See Cronologico de correspondencia de inmigracién del 2629 to 3327, #35, Jan. 1, 1944. Letter was
written on May 25, 1938. AGN. Dominican authorities, through their intelligence reports, confirmed all the
interborder exchange, but seemed to do nothing to stop it. One Army Major Pedro Andujar, Inspector
General of the Prornary border-crossing town of Dajabon wrote: “In the Haitian border there is currency of
this country circulating, which shows that some Dominican border residents sustain commercial relations
with the Haitians;...and yesterday a Gendarme (Haitian border guard) stationed at Haitian Capotillo showed
up in the Dominican consulate in Juana Mendez to exchange $4.75 in Dominican national currency. EN
Leg.59 exp.101 Jan. 12, 1945. AGN.

”Interview with Ramon Mateo Cuevas, 81 years old. Resident of Neiba. June, 1999.
156

routine it was to cross the border to purchase things that were cheaper in Haiti than in
their own country, and how Dominicans visited the Haitian side to visit their clientele and
vice-versa. Again Mateo Cuevas recalled: “Look, being an auxiliary messenger in Las

Laj as [northwest of the border town of J imanl'], I used to go to Tomaso [Haitian border
town] to buy from the Haitians for the [Dominican] guards, who sent me to buy. Well I
used to buy a lot of soap, salt, oil, rice, because it was cheaper there.”75 Eventually the
Dominican government established its national currency in 1947.76 In keeping with his
state-building project, Trujillo’s creation of a national currency attempted to unify the
Dominican nation and supplant the utilization of Haitian currency along the border.

The long tradition of interborder exchange between Dominicans and Haitians
made it easier for these two groups to unite in an enterprise such as stealing cattle. It was
easier to separate two countries through a border treaty than to effectively sever familial
ties that encompassed centuries. Dominican authorities realized this when they attempted
to enforce a border project, which, in essence, denied family members who lived in both
countries access to one another. Moreover, the linkages between Haitians and
Dominicans along the border were so close, and thus so threatening, to the nationalization
of the border, that officials even considered reversing the plan for agrarian colonies and

relocating Dominican families to the interior of the country. According to one official:

There exists on the same border facing this town [Elias Pifla] a Dominican family
with the surname Poché. On the other [Haitian] side there is twice the number of
the same family, but Haitians. This means that the people on this side are
constantly being condemned for violating the passport law and those on the other
side for violating the immigration law. We have not been able to find a way to
avoid contact between these people. Because they are many, they have not been
sent to colonies in the interior of the country, but sooner or later we will have to

 

75
7 Ibid.
6
See Lauren Derby, “Haitians, Magic, and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican
Borderlands, , 1900-1937,” Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 1994, pg.516. Common
currency like systems of weights and measures are crucial to state-building. See Eugene Weber.
157

do something similar.77

The expansion of the Dominican state into the border showed that the border
residents were less Dominican and perhaps more Haitian than expected. Years of
intermarriage and interborder trade had created a bicultural border, and many Dominican
towns and even agrarian colonies were composed of multicultural families. On this note,
one Dominican official, addressing the Situation in the Colonia El Llano (Las Matas de
F arfan) remarked: “The colony’s greatest population and the nearby region’s is the result
of the union and living together between the Dominican and Haitian populations, and that
mestizaje (race-mixing) requires the military’s forceful hand to obligate them to abandon
their Haitian customs.”78

This reality went against the ideological bombardment by the Dominican
govemment, which denied the fact that Dominican culture, in many cases, particularly
along the border, shared more with Haitian culture than the Spanish culture it so much
espoused. Dominican newspapers perpetuated the intelligentsia’s pro-Spanish line in
celebratory articles praising the Dominicanization of the frontier. The border project was
meant “for the conscious Dominicans who love purely the immaculate native soil without
infiltrations in the wealth of their legendary traditions and their noble Spanish customs.”79

One of the unforeseen obstacles by Trujillo’s state-building border administrators
was precisely the presence of bicultural families and their place within the border project.
Surely the Dominican authorities had the option of repatriating Haitians, but when
Haitians married or cohabitated with Dominicans, it proved more difficult. Repatriating

the Haitian spouses of Dominicans or punishing Dominicans for living with Haitians

 

77 Letter from Lte. Col Fausto E. Caamar’io, commander of the northwest border department, to President
'7l;rujillo. EN Leg.47 exp.101, August 21, 1943. AGN.

Letter from Maj. Andres J. Monclus, Chief of the Military Assistants, to the President. See, EN Leg.31
exp. 67, Sept. 4, 1942, pg.2. AGN.

Ecos de Cachimtin Dec. 14, 1948, pg. 12. This newspaper was published in the bordertown of Elias Pina.
158

would have had a very negative effect. Splitting up of families could have created a
potential backlash against government authorities thus perhaps undermining the state’s
legitimacy and its programs to Dorrrinicanize and control the border. Many Dominican
officials confronted this problem in the Colonia Trinitaria when a report underscored the
prevalence of children of Dominican-Haitian unions. Some had the required national
identity papers, others did not. But all were described as being “sons of Haitians and
Dominicans; all are black and their speech is Haitianized.”80 Dominican authorities
considered these unions a threat to their project of creating a new reality along the border.
Despite the fact that many of the Dominicans in these unions possessed identity papers,
officials saw them as Haitian since, culturally, they were not Dominican (i.e. they also
spoke Kreyol). Thus in some cases, military officers recommended that these families not
be separated, but relocated to the interior of the country. “It would be convenient that this
family, pure Haitian, is taken out of this place and taken to the interior of the Republic. I
personally visited the house of those people and confirmed the veracity of this report. The
place where they live is near the territorial boundary and, because some of the daughters
are linked with Dominicans, I consider that this is the only solution.”81 There was
obviously a contradiction in policy since Dominicanizing the border meant eliminating
the Haitian presence from Dominican tenitory not transferring Dominican residents who
possessed a complex culture that contradicted and undermined the govemment’s vision of
a new national identity. Haitian-Dominican unions were not just confined to the border.
Gracita Mercedes, a thirty-two-year-old illiterate Black Dominican woman from San
Pedro de Macoris, is an example of the futility of state doctrine over ordinary citizens.
While Trujillo and his ideologues were constructing a racial vision of what Dominicans
were (i.e. Spanish, white, and Catholic), Gracita Mercedes, perhaps oblivious to the

propaganda in the national discourse, fell in love with a Haitian and left her country to

 

8
:EN Leg.46 exp.101. Colonia Trinitaria, Lorna de Cabrera, April 27, 1943. AGN.
1
Ibid.
159

join him. She was interrogated on the border by Dominican officials and charged with
entering Dominican territory (her own country) illegally. In a report filed by the border
authorities, she tells her story, the story of a woman who struggled to survive on both

parts of the island:

In this last [sugar] harvest, finding myself in the Marchena batey in the Santa Fe
ingenio visiting, I met a Haitian bracero (sugar worker), Metelis Pierre or Pie in
this ingenio. He courted and conquered me to go with him to Juana Mendez [in
Haiti]. Since I had a sister who lived there for many years called Lelita Mercedes,
I had an interest in seeing her, because it was many years since I had not heard
fi'om her. Incidentally, when I arrived, I didn’t find her because it had been three
years since she died...there [in Juana Méndez]. I was with him for a period of
almost two months, and he abandoned me. Not knowing where he went, I then
started to sell part of my belongings so I could eat. Iran out of money and I found
myself going very hungry, for which I decided to come to my country, crossing
the border any which way because I was dying of hunger in Juana Méndez.82

The irony is that the Dorrrinicanization of the border was carried out partly by
these bicultural Dominican-Haitian families in agrarian colonies that were supposed to
represent a bulwark against Haitian encroachment into Dominican territory. The general
perception that one gets from the traditional historiography is that during Trujillo’s border
project, the border was closed and contact with Haitians was minimal. For example,
indicative of this portrayal during this period was a magazine article during the 19405 that
underscored the image of the Dominicanization border project as being free of a Haitian
presence. “Colonization became quickly a fact. All along the borderline, like the north

and the south there was formed a restrictive chord that constituted the most effective of

 

’2 Interrogatorio adicional practicandole a la Senora Gracita Mercedes; con relacion al hecho de haber
cruzado la frontera clandestinamente, procedente de Juana Mendez, en Nov.13, 1947, Restauracion, EN
Leg.67 exp.96. AGN.

160

our defenses...[and] puts a boundary to the [Haitian] infiltration.”83

In reality the border, as it is today, remained porous. One example of the border’s
continued accessibility was that it only took one year or so for Haitians to return to the
Dominican Republic following the massacre. And this was a time when Dominican-
Haitian relations were restrained due to the state violence 1937. But despite the massacre,
and Trujillo’s institutional and ideological campaign to denigrate Haiti and its people, the
Dominican government was not able to stop the flow of people traveling to and from each
other’s countries. During the 1940s (the apogee of the Dominicanization of the border),
Haitian and Dominican contact and travel between countries was apparent and consistent.
It seems that ordinary Dominicans, in spite of the anti-Haitian national rhetoric emanating
from Santo Domingo, traveled freely to Haiti. Perhaps one of the most important
documents that contradict the objectives of the border project was the Certificates of
Exemption of Deposit to Leave the Country. These documents are a rich source of
information because they Show Dominicans seeking and receiving permission to visit or
to return to live in Haiti--just a few years after the massacre. Complete with black-and-
white photos, the person’s occupation, complexion, and motive for travel, these
documents are proof that, the govemment’s goal as portrayed in the documents or press
was not successful.

Dominicans in the 1940s were traveling to Haiti for a number of reasons. For
example, after some time in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo), Buenaventura A.

34
Fernandez, a housemaid, returned to her residence in Port-au—Prince. Other persons, too,

 

83See Juan Bta. Lamarche, “El patria en la frontera,” Souvenir Vol.2 No.22 (November 1945), 78. Part of
the government’s success of Dominicanizing the border relied on linking border progress with the
separation of Dominicans from Haitians. As we now know there was less isolation and more interaction
between Haitians and Dominicans on the ground. Yet much of the historiography represented the
Dominicanization of the border a Trujillo invention as “blinding and detaining the neighboring subterranean
exodus.” See Ramon Fernandez Mato, “En la gran estela de Trujillo: Palabras a la Juventud Universitaria
Dominicana desde la frontera,” Juventud Universitaria No.2 (April 1945), 10.

84
Cronologico dc Interior y Policia. Correspondencia de certificado de exencion de deposito para ausentarse

del pais, Dec. 1941.
161

like F emandez had homes and family in Haiti. There were others, like the professor
Angel Maria Gonzalez, commercial tailor Maria Francisca Reyes de Beltrén and her three
children and Maria P. de Mota, who returned to Haiti to check on their homes while also
visiting family members.85 Another group of Dominicans who traveled to Haiti were the
cattle ranchers who had livestock in Haitian tenitory because their grazing lands were
divided by the 1936 border treaty. Their livestock now grazed in Haitian tenitory, so their
owners were forced to travel to Haiti to oversee their property. Men such as Hipélito
Pérez, Timoteo Pérez, Uladislao Mejia Bautista, Isidro Aquino, Joaquin Lapaix,
Satumino Terrero, and Juan Baustista Rodriguez Herrera all were given permission to
travel to Haiti and tend to their cattle.86 Still others went to Haiti strictly for business
reasons.

Regardless of the reasons behind these visits, Dominicans were traveling to Haiti
regularly and interacting with their neighbors at a time when their government was
pursuing a policy of isolationism and detachment. Even Dominicans who were on the
eastern end of the island, far from the border, had a connection with Haiti. A report filed
by a Dominican diplomat in Haiti highlights the disparity between government officials
and ordinary people on the ground. The report also suggests that anti-Haitian government
propaganda was not as strong among many Dominicans, especially those who had ethnic
ties with Haiti. Forty-eight-year-old Victor Espinal (Victor Lespinasso) was born in Haiti
and moved to the Dominican Republic when he was fourteen years old. He spent fifteen
years in the Dominican Republic as a tailor. Espinal left the Olivares colony near the
eastern port city of the San Pedro de Macoris Olivares for Port-au-Prince with his mother.

He remained five years in Haiti after which his mother refused to return with him to the

 

85Cronolégico de Interior y Policia. Certificado de exencion de deposito para ausentarse del pais. Feb.
1942. Oficios 00116-00224. Feb and June 1942.

so
Cronologico de Interior y Policia. Dec. 1941. AGN. Others like Abraham Alfonso George Pichering, from
San Pedro de Macoris, went beyond Haiti and instead, travelled to New York to secure his home.
162

Dominican Republic in order to stay with her daughter.87 He wanted to leave Haiti
because, as the Dominican Consul points out, “business is poor here and he is not doing
anything here and wishes to return to the Dominican Republic which is his homeland.”88
Espinal did not come to see both nations in the nationalistic bi-polar isolationist fervor of
the time but often, as did many on the island, but lived their lives with economic and
familial preoccupations.

The worldwide depression at the time forced many countries like the Dominican
Republic to find alternative ways to increase their agricultural production and self-
sufficiency. This meant that in the border the state would initiate quasi-agrarian reform by
distributing lands to peasants. An example of this land distribution was the countless of
petitions by Dominicans and some of Haitian descent asking the government for land to
cultivate crops. These colonies were subsidized by the state and colonists received cash,
farming equipment and materials from the government. The govemment’s desire was to
see these colonies produce their own crop for domestic and perhaps international
consumption. Although the main goal was agricultural productivity, the government also
inherited a historical fear of Haitian immigration across the border.

It was understood that these colonies also represented the most visible vestiges of
a state border presence against Haitian imrrrigration. However, with the massacre of 1937,
the colonies assumed an even greater role than that of agricultural sites. One example of
this transformation was the significant rise of colonies along the border after 1937. The
massacre led to the institutionalization and intensification of border nationalization which
not only saw the establishment of more colonies but also a concomitant an infrastructural
grth that included the development of more provinces, buildings, paved roads.

Following the massacre the border became more than just another site for agricultural

 

87EN Leg. 46 exp. 101. Report by the Dominican consul in Fond Verrettes, Haiti Ladislao Ernesto Martinez
to his Foreign Secretary July 8, 1943. AGN.
as ,

Ibid.
163

colonization. The killing of thousands of Haitians transformed relations between Haiti
and the Dominican Republic where the latter began an official campaign to Dominicanize
its border. New border provinces were created while the names of small villages and
towns were changed fi'om Haitian to Dominican sounding names. While government
authorities and the press championed in documents and newspapers the separation of both
nations and its people, reality at the local level, was quite different. Border
officials encountered a bi-cultural and bi-lingual border that made it difficult to
successfully Dominicanize the region. Many Dominican residents spoke Haitian Creole,
in the same way their parents, grand parents, and great- grand parents had done before
them. It seemed that neither the massacre nor the subsequent project to nationalize the
borderlands stopped Dominicans and Haitian from interacting with each other. In this
case, border markets continued to attract a steady stream of Dominican clients that went
to Haitian to purchase good that were often more accessible and cheaper. Despite the
government rhetoric of Dominicanization, Dominican border residents contradicted
official policy in their daily lives. From intermarriage to the use of Haitian currency
throughout the border, Dominican border residents lived their lives saturated by Haiti and
her culture perpetuating years of historic interaction. But even though border residents in
general felt culturally, if not always economically comfortable in both societies, they did
confront the force of state expansion.

The challenge for government officials was not only to create new provinces or
construct modern buildings, but also to incorporate border residents into the Dominican
nation. How could the state induce, convince or indoctrinate Dominican border residents
in such a way that they could in fact see themselves as different and even better than their
Haitian neighbors? Through various institutions, such as the church, schools, and the
political Dominican Party, the state disseminated its anti-Haitian ideology throughout the

border. Young and old were exposed to government propaganda that attempted to reduce

164

the resilient interaction between border residents. State institutions therefore became the
indispensable and critical delivery systems for the government to carry out its border
project. And as we shall see in chapter five, these institutions were vital in absorbing,

converting, or reconverting border residents into a new nation as modern Dominican

citizens.

165

Chapter 5
Becoming Spiritually Virtuous, Physically Clean, Lawful, and Patriotic on the
Dominican Border

Once the new border provinces were created and the towns renamed, the
Dominican government began to carry out its policy of nationalization through the
establishment of institutions. Schools, churches, and hospitals became the delivery
systems that brought the government propaganda of Donrinicanization to the border.
Under Trujillo, schools along the border became one of the major components of the state
project to nationalize the border region. By establishing border schools complete with
musical and literacy schools and a comprehensive curriculum along with a large-scale
bureaucracy, the state began the process of turning once-marginal border residents into
full-fledge Dominican citizens. Border schools became the places where children were
introduced to the Dominican nation and exposed to the state’s nationalistic state-building
rhetoric. Along with schools, the Dominican government initiated various hygiene and
cultural campaigns aimed at “cleansing” the border from all that which it thought to be
Haitian and impure. During the 19403, scores of hospitals were constructed throughout
the border as symbols of modernity. They were not only places where Dominican border
residents could go for medical attention, but they underscored the state’s larger mission to
distinguish itself from Haiti by offering health services such as vaccination programs.

The institution of the church also became an important factor in incorporating the
border. Since the state had linked Dominican national identity with Catholicism, the state
strove to spread its doctrine through churches and missions (particularly) roving priests
who traveled throughout the border to have border residents participate in Spanish-
speaking religious activities. According to the government, this was yet another way to
limit Dominican border residents fiom crossing the border and participating with Haitians

in anti-Christian church ceremonies. These institutions became the heart of the program

166

to Dominicanize the border. Without the institutional role of the church, hospitals, and
schools the border project to Dominicanize the border would have been limited to a series
of isolated agricultural border colonies and rrrilitary posts. Through the institutions of
religion, medicine, and schools, Dominican border residents were incorporated into the

larger community of the nation where everyone shared the same language and traditions.
Education and Culture in the Border

The establishment of schools along the border had begun two years prior to the
1937 Haitian massacre. The killings did not immediately provoke the initial construction
of border schools but only intensified it. Prior to the massacre there were schools
established in the northern and southern section of the border. In one of his many
speeches, Trujillo wrote that by 1935 there were already ten schools established
throughout the border, which indicated that this region had already become a priority for
the Dominican state long before its campaign of ethnic cleansing against Haitians.l As
part of the twenty-fifth anniversary of T rujillo’s reign, the government published a multi-
volume collection in 1955 that addressed various themes from the nineteenth-century
wars with Haiti to invaluable bibliographic information. In one of these volumes, Manuel
M. Baez writes that in 1935 a few schools were in the north but that most of the schools
centered throughout the southern border region. All were named after past national
leaders or Trujillo. Some of these ten border schools were named Juan Pablo Duarte and
José Joaquin Puello in Elias Pir‘ia or José Maria Cabral in Jimani and the Rafael Leonidas

2
Trujillo in Banica. Nonetheless, the late 19303 and 19403 saw a flurry of construction

 

lRafael Trujillo, Discursos, mensajes y proclamas. Vol.Il (Santiago: Editorial El Diario, 1946), pg.257.

2L0 era de Trujillo. 25 afios de historia Dominicana. La dominicanizacion fronteriza. Manuel A. Machado

Baez, Vol.3. (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Dominicana, 1955), pg.235. All students of Dominican history,

especially those specializing in the Trujillo period, are grateful to the prolific historian E.Rodriguez

Demorizi. Although he is considered part of the dictatorship’s intelligentsia of promoting nationalistic and

pro-Trujillo historiography, he, among other things, compiled an entire bibliographic volume containing
167

activity where schools were built not just on or near the border, but throughout the
country. By 1938, the ten schools that had been established by 1935 had now risen to
“seventy four schools with 119 teachers.”3 By 1941 the number of schools throughout the
border that were reported by the government increased to approximately 185, out of a
total of 959 schools in the rest of the country.4 Under Trujillo’s Dominicanization plan,
the number of border schools, teachers, and students would all continue to rise well in the
decade of the 19503. Thus, by the mid-19503, the number of border schools had risen to
251and there was a total of 305 teachers for a student population of 20,5 52.5

One of the govemment’s objectives was to bring literacy to the border. Therefore
many of the schools that were constructed during this time were literacy schools called
escuelas de emergencia. What better way to instill nationalism among border residents
than to teach children how to read and write in Spanish as a Shield against Haitian Kreyol.
Many literacy schools were constructed in the towns closest to the territorial boundaries
separating the two nations. Towns such as Macasias in the province of San Rafael and
near its provincial capital of Elias Pina; Guayabal (Pilon); Hato Viejo (Sabana Larga);
Sabana Quemada (Nicolas); and Las Lajitas (Guanito), were all constructed very near the
Haitian border.6 Government documents show party officials asking their superiors in
Santo Domingo for grater investment in the border schools. In a handwritten note, a

member of the Partido Dominicano (the Dominican political party at the time) wrote to

 

newspaper articles and book sources on topics that ranged from Trujillo’s personal speeches and writings,
the family, foreign policy, electoral suffrage, Communism, Trujillo’s travels, to the armed forces and public
health. See E.Rodriguez Demorizi’s Bibliografla de Trujillo. La era de Trujillo: 25 ands de historia
3Dominicana. Vol.20 (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Dominicana, 1955).

Ibid.232.
4

The northern schools were located in and around the border towns of Daj abon, and Monte Cristi. In the
south the schools were located in Barahona, Duverge, Neiba, San Juan de la Maguana, Las Matas de Farfan,
and El Cercado. See Revista de educacion. Organo de la Secretaria de Estado de Educacion Publica y
Bellas Artes. Year: X11, No.#63 (Santo Domingo: “La Nacion”, Has no page number.) 1941.

sManuel A. Machado Baez, La era de Trujillo, 232.

60ne school in Carrizal (Juan Felipe) was only 200 meters from Haitian territory.
Sec. Edu. Leg.1588, exp.7, Letter from Public Instructor of District School #7, Dr. Carlos Gonzalez-N. to
Sec. of Educ., June 7, 1943. AGN.

168

the Secretary of Education notifying him that his school district had “more than 100
children” and yearned to receive more “benefits that our dear and beloved Chief
Generalisimo Trujillo Molina offers us.”7

Once the schools were constructed, the national scholastic curriculum was
introduced. By examining archival documents and, specifically, copies of classroom
subject matter and daily itineraries we can reconstruct a picture of how this educational
project was implemented. The Secretary of Education in Santo Domingo created the
curriculum of classes and even the schedules of subjects taught down to the nrinute. In the
border schools, classes began at 9:00 am with the Singing of the national anthem and an
attendance count until 9:10; fiom 9: 10 to 10:10 there was agricultural class; between
10:10 and 10:15 there was a short break; at 10:15 through 10:40 there was reading and
writing; at 10:40 there was another short break until 10:55, when arithmetic class began,
which ended at 11:25; fiom 11:25 to 11:30 there was yet another short break and then,
from 11:30 to 11:50, there was History or Instruction on Civics and Morality; and from
11:50 to 12:00, the anthem was repeated, whereby the students then left for the day.8 Like
today, daily class sessions were divided into morning and aftemoon sections. Primary
school children whose educational schedule ran on three trimesters were given report
cards detailing their progress.9 Along with the traditional course on reading, writing, and
arithmetic, school children also received a grade for good hygiene and etiquette.10
Schoolchildren in the border were now participating in the same rituals of education as

their counterparts in the capital of Santo Domingo.

 

7
The school was in Carri] Arriba near the northwestern town of Guayubin. See Sec. Educ. Leg.1572 exp. 5,
Nov. 1, 1943. AGN.

8Revista de Educacién, Year IX, No.41, Sept. and Oct., 1937, pg.55. Children were not the only ones
attending school. The office of the Secretary of Education also created classes for adults. These Escuelas
Noctumas (Night Schools) offered all-men and all-women evening classes between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm,
Mondays through Fridays. According to the Secretary of Education both men and women were taught the
same subject matter, which ranged from Reading and Writing, Geography, to Arithmetics and Geometry
and Design. Revista de Educacio’n, No. 42, Nov. and Dec., 1937, pg.34.

9See copy of Ensenanza Elemental Graduada.
0

See Informe Escolar.
1 69

The state under Trujillo in its quest to control the border also forced border
residents to conform to state mandated levels of hygiene. Student report cards show the
state’s heightened concern to regulate the sanitary conditions of its border residents.
Moreover, border officials were cognizant of the poverty and lack of hygiene they

encountered and the dilemma it represented for the overall success of the border project:

In my recent inspections to various sections of this locality and of Lorna de
Cabrera, I have been able to certify personally that the students’ attendance in the
rural schools is very good but the disastrous state in which numerous pupils
present themselves is truly distressing. Many go almost naked and others
extremely dirty, a situation that neither fits well with the blossoming prosperity of
the region nor the interest that is deployed by the Government and the policy of
our Illustrious Benefactor and Chief Generalisimo Trujillo Molina, and I estimate
that a campaign is needed so that these school children attend classes dressed
more decently and with greater hygiene.11

It was not easy for the Dominican state to incorporate this region, which, for
centuries, had been ignored by both colonial and national governments. To be sure, state
building on the Dominican-Haitian border entailed enormous resources and restructuring
of society. Border residents were urged to releam new concepts and forget others, all in
the name of Dominicanizing the frontier. Thus officials took pride in declaring that
schools were succeeding against illiteracy, thereby transforming the region’s children into
literate and articulate Dominican citizens. Their statements also reveal clearly the state’s
goal of using schools to promote the Spanish language, therefore forcing a type of

monolinguistic policy on a region, which had, for years, been bilingual.

 

llInformeTrimestral Abril, Mayo y Junio por Gobemador de Provincia Libertador. Leg.40, June 8, 1940.
AGN. A few years later, the situation would remain the same for some border regions. In a letter item See.
Interior y Policia Rafael F. Bonnelly to Sec. de Educacion Bonnelly says about the Border Schools that
“attendance was good despite the poverty of the parents, and the students many attend school naked from
the waist up. It would be convenient to give them some help making it easier to acquire uniforms, as has
been done on other occasions.” See Sec. dc Interior y Policia 6/75-78 Oct. 10, 1945. AGN.

170

Already the border child is not the shy boy of the past; he now reads small
compositions in public, which he prepares and recites in school and ceremonies
outside school and poems of national and international authors. The conversation
of the children and adults of the region does not have a patois [Kreyol] accent;
already he [the student] speaks a pure and clear Castillian like his Spanish
ancestors.1

The idea was to promote Spanish as much as possible in the schools, and it
condemned Kreyol as a “backward and primitive” language associated with Haitians. The
objective of the border schools was to modemize and simultaneously indoctrinate
students to believe that, in spite of their isolation; they were part of a larger nation, a
republic they belonged to, something bigger than the border. Here language became a tool
that the state utilized to organize people within a territory and convince them that they
belonged to a larger community of Dominicans that transcended the border region.

The campaign to Dominicanize the border was a project of giant proportions. It
implied modernization, yet according to education officials, the region’s overwhelming
poverty and rural multicultural people impeded development. According to one education

official:

The most notable deficiencies in this District are: First the extreme poverty of the
residents that impedes the adequate distribution of uniforms and school supplies--
thank God for good nourishment [referring to school- sponsored breakfasts];
second, the school localities are in abominable condition; third the influence of
the Haitian language in the diction of the rural children; fourth, bad preparation in
the teaching personnel.l3

Haitian influence along the border was ubiquitous, and school education officials

 

’2 Sec. Interior y Policia 6/75-32, 1945. AGN. See also La Fronrera, which circulated in Elias Pifla. Jan. 25 ,
1945.
’3 Informe que presenta e1 Dr. Carlos Gonzalez N., inspector de instruccion pr'lblica del distrito escolar
numero 7-A, comunes de Elias Pina, Banica y Pedro Santana, provincia de San Rafael, correspondiente al
aflo relativo 1942-1943. Sec. Edu. Leg.1621, 1943. AGN.

171

were painfully aware of the physical and cultural presence of Haitians in Dominican
towns. Northern Dominican border towns like Daj abon, Loma de Cabrera, and
Restauracion presented challenges because they were strongly linked to Haiti, from the
economy to language. As the Secretary of Education, Victor Garrido, wrote in the early
19403 to his subaltem: “The Inspector will see by the attached work that is judged, that in
this region the Dominican is most influenced by the Haitian spirit.”M

Following the construction of schools, the government appointed teachers. In one
case, the Undersecretary of Education, 03an Soler, wrote to Trujillo and recommending
a Mr. Rafael Apolinar Villalona Tavarez to serve as a teacher in a border school near
Daj abon.” Other times, schoolteachers who lived far from the border sought jobs in this
region, petitioning directly to Trujillo.l6

Public school teachers on the border were responsible for teaching at least eight
and four-fifths hours a day. In the border school such as the Escuela Normal (high school)
Generalisimo Trujillo, a teacher’s salary ranged from ten pesos a month for someone
teaching a daily hour of algebra to seventy pesos a month for a principal who also taught
two hours of class daily.l7

Many teachers were enthusiastic about teaching in the border, but there were
instances where complaints were levied against the school district. Despite the repressive
nature of the dictatorship Dominicans particularly in the border, residents complained and

criticized to their local government. On one occasion bordering on the ridiculous, parent

 

l4Sec. Educ. 1547-B exp.29, Cronologicos Oficios de Agosto—Sept, Sept. 6, 1943. AGN.

lsSec. of Edu. Leg. 1547 exp. 29, May 28, 1943. AGN. The prevalence of Haitian Kreyol along the border
was such that, among the themes discussed in Banica’s 6A school district meeting by the Inspector of Public
Instruction, Santiago del Pilar Ventura, was “a list of Haitianisms with its equivalency in Castillian.” See
Revista de Educacion aflo, XVI No.80, Oct, Nov, Dec., 1945, pg. 88.

”Letter from Alfredo Dias Adams, resident and teacher of Jobo Dulce, Seibo, to Rafael Trujillo. As a rural
teacher who had experience helping students against illiteracy, Dias Adams wrote that, “It is because of this
that I wish to cooperate with the Dominicanization campaign, working in a Special Border School in the
recently created San Rafael Province or where you believe it convenient.” See Sec. de Educacion Leg. 1 547
exp.3, Feb. 6, 1943. AGN.

l7Distribucion de gastos en la escuela normal Generalisimo Trujillo en Monte Cristi. Sec. Educ. Leg. 1489,

March 11, 1942. AGN. The monthly budget for this school was $250.00 pesos.
172

complaints about several school children in Dajabon’s Colonia Trinitaria even reached
Hector Trujillo in Santo Domingo. The parents accused the teacher, Mrs. Graciela Pena

Morel de Santos, of:

Painting the lips, putting on rouge, and painting the nails of the girls who attend
class, things which the girls’ parents reproached the teacher, which has given
reason for the teacher to become antagonistic with the parents and she does not
take care of her obligations, instead is constantly in disputes and gossip. I have
had to intervene and to get her attention.18

Border residents complained to school officials but the level of animosity as far I
could detect from the documents never approached the level of acrimony that was taking
places in other parts of Latin America at this time. In Mexico for example, particularly in
Michoacan, pro-Catholic Cristero groups subjected teachers appointed by the anti-clerical
revolutionary government to carnpesino boycotts of schools and even violent attacks.19
Although no schoolteachers were lynched during the Dominican border project examples
of discontent among schoolteachers and between the surrounding border community
reveals that resistance within Trujillo’s authoritarian government and state-building
project existed and was palpable.

Other cases show how the state controlled dissent even if the suspected dissenter
was under the influence of alcohol. Jaime A. Lockward, a schoolteacher in the town of
Irnbert, was arrested for “ uttering insults in a state of inebriation against the political
regime of the Illustrious Chief of State.”20 Still other cases demonstrate how teachers
ardently complained to the government when they felt their obligations were affecting

their pocketbook. In its quest to control and monitor society, the state had obligated all

 

18Sec. Educ. Leg.157o exp.5, Dec.4, 1943. AGN.

19In 1935, a school professor named J. Trinidad Ramirez, was lynched by Cristeros for demanding “that the
local priest and two teachers who continued to celebrate Holy Week be thrown out of two.” See Marjorie
Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire. Ldzaro Cdrdenas, Michoacdn Peasants, and the Redemption of the
Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University California Press, 1995), pg. 125.

20Ibid. July 29, 1943. Loch was later fired.
173

teachers to meet at monthly meetings at the offices of the nearest school district. The
costs and logistics of traveling to these meetings provoked constant complaints and
criticisms about teaching salaries that were woefully low. In the border Emergency
Schools of Trinitaria, Tilori, Mariano Cestero, Los Cerezos, Cruz de Cabrera near Loma

de Cabrera, teachers complained that:

The obligatory attendance every month in the school district’s inspector’s office
has its seat in Daj abon; trips that they [teachers] must make on horseback for lack
of transportation. They also complain that in this inspector’s office in the month
of July, one dollar had been demanded to buy a form, a demand that they consider
unjust every time since they only earn $15.00 of which salary, very little in my
opinion, they pay to rent the horses used for these trips.21

Even Trujillo recognized that to live in the border throughout the 19403 was very
expensive. Writing on the dictator’s travel to the border, one of Trujillo’s advisor’s
commented that he had “verified the need to make salaries of many public employees
there better, reason being that the cost of living in those distant regions is rather elevated
and [current] salary does not permit them to live with the decorum that their obligations
impose on them.”22

The Dominicanization project also brought to the border a bureaucracy
responsible for the maintenance and development of the region. Whether it was irrigation
canals, churches, schools, agrarian colonies or foreign immigration, there were politically
appointed government representatives who sent observation reports to superiors in the
region and Santo Domingo. One of these representatives was the Agente Cultural

Fronterizo (Cultural Border Agent). These individuals were often young and extremely

intelligent urban professionals mostly from Santo Domingo who served as the cultural

 

2'Letter from Capt. Jacinto Martinez Arena in Loma de Cabrera to Official Commander of 23rd Corrrpany.
5N Leg. 47 exp.101, July 30, 1943. AGN.

Sec. Educ. Leg.1547 exp.10, May 7, 1943. AGN.
174

arm of the Dominicanization project. Their task it was to bring culture to the border.

One of the most notable border cultural agents was Ramon Marrero Aristy, who
was a staunch Trujillista and the author of one the Dominican Republic’s most famous
novels: Over, a story about the sugarcane industry in the east and the treatment of
workers.23 Since their job was to disseminate culture throughout the border, border agents
like Marrero Aristy worked very closely with the Secretary of Education. Marrero Aristy
himself was placed in the Office of the Inspection of Public Instruction, where he worked
to carry out the border project’s plans.24 Responsibilities for border cultural agents were
varied and ranged from recommending new classes and shaping school curricula to
modernizing schools, libraries and sponsoring cutural events. Ordinarily these events
glorified Trujillo and his accomplishments, such as the Dominicanization of the border,
while always distancing the nation fi'om Haiti and Haitian culture. In one letter, Marrero
Aristy displays this notion of separation during an exhibition of a Dominican Tradition
and Art event. He denounced any Haitian influence on the musical genre of Dominican
Merengue, writing that in “Cuba and the United States there is presently a rumor (of
Haitian origin) spreading that our most characteristic [music] (the Merengue) comes from
the neighboring country, a fallacy most ably crafted to damage our artistic prestige.”25

Aristy, like his other counterparts, wrote newspaper articles that espoused the

Dominicanization of the border. His role as a government state bureaucrat and

 

23 “The Executive Power has named Ramon Marrero Aristy Border Cultural Agent in Elias Pina and will
depend on this Secretary [of Education]. His jurisdiction will comprise the provinces of Benefactor, San
Rafael, Libertador.” See Sec. Edu. Leg.159l exp.9, July 7, 1943. AGN. Freddy Prestol Castillo was another
border agent who later became famous for writing the now classic El masacre se pasa a pie.

(Santo Domingo: Biblioteca Taller, 1973), the fictional and problematic account of his border experiences
during the 1937 Haitian Massacre.

24Aristy was installed in the office of Inspeccion de Instruccion Publica del Distrito Escolar No.7 A de Elias
Piflas-Banica y Pedro Santana. See Sec. Educ. 1547-B exp.29, August 17, 1943. AGN. These Border
Cultural Agents also collected pedagogical booklets and distributed them to poor school children in their
sectors. See Ecos de Cachimdn, Dec. 1947, #1.

258cc Sec. Educ. Leg.1743 exp. 12, April 24, 1944. AGN. During this event, Aristy listed several types of
Dominican musical dances including Pambiche, Mangulina, Carabiné, and Palos or Atabales, which at

times “have a marked African influence.”
175

government intellectual was to promote the policy of separation and difference between
Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The message was clear: keep Haitians out. “And it has
been this solitude the cause which today there is an outcry in the face of the distressing
[Haitian] problem for the creation of a human barrier. Something like a racial dam rose
before the shady threat of absorption that we Dominicans have felt suspended over our
heads for centuries. A human barrier! An impenetrable barrier!”26 Cultural agents in the
border also could propose new books for the schools. Marrero Aristy himself had sent a
proposal to the government for the introduction of a new booklet about Dominican
national history to be distributed throughout the border schools.27

Language was another cultural strategy to Dominicanize the nation. Whether it
was to increase relations with the United States or Brazil is not certain but there was a
movement in the Dominican schools to teach both English and Portuguese as a second
language. Yet these two languages were far less relevant in the lives of average
Dominicans, especially those in the border, than Haitian Kreyol.28 In other countries that
shared borders, people were bilingual in each other’s languages and this often allowed for
a more fluid exchange between countries. In Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Kreyol was
synonymous with retrograde culture and spoken by a “barbarous” people who had, on
several occasions, unsuccessfully invaded Dominican territory. Dominicans along the
border were not only expected to speak Spanish well and abstain from speaking Kreyol,
but they were also expected to be cultured citizens.

How did border Dominicans learn to absorb the Dominicanization project’s
propaganda? Through several institutions, such as the cultural border agents, secretary of

education, and the Dominican Party, Dominicans were exposed to educational programs

 

26Ramon Marrero Aristy, La Nacio'n Dec. 12, 1943, pg.3.

27Sec. Educ. Leg.1547B exp.29 August 2, 1943. AGN. At this time Marrero Aristy was stationed in Elias
Pina.

2

slbid. “With the recommendation of taking the necessary measures for the good progress of the Portuguese
booklet that functions in this city under the direction of José Almoina.” Letter from Sec. of Education

Ganido to the Southern Department’s Superintendent of Teaching.
176

and cultural events intended to transform them into urbane citizens like their counterparts
back in Santo Domingo. Border agents, like farmers planting seeds, traveled across their
provincial jurisdictions distributing books, inaugurating events, and spreading the word of
Trujillo’s border project. An example of this state educational proselytization was when
one border cultural agent had distributed “8 Moral and Civic booklets in the province
[and] 994 diagrams of the ‘Tlinitarians’ 0mm”

Those Dominicans who secretly conspired against the Haitian unification of the
island and declared independence in 1844 originally recited the Trinitarian oath. The
dissemination of the oath aimed to instill patriotism for the nation in border residents and
to remind them that the oath represented a declaration of separation and difference from
Haiti. In distributing these booklets, state officials hoped to transform the way border
residents viewed themselves in relation to the state and to Haiti.

Transforming border residents into civic-minded and town dwelling citizens also
meant exposing them to govemment-sponsored events aimed at their cultural formation.
In many border towns, the central square, usually a park was the site of meetings and
concerts to draw many listeners. These concert events were conducted to create a sense of
a Dominican community in the border, where patriotic songs like the national anthem was
played and people sang in Spanish.30 Like the music classes and musical academies, in
the border, border officials to connect the border with Santo Domingo also utilized
musical bands. Border residents did not have to leave the border to experience the
extracurricular activities like concerts that were associated with the more urban city
dwellers in the capital. It was very important to have a local musical band because it

showed that the town was progressive and modern. In Elias Pina, town officials were very

 

29This information was taken from the minutes of one of the countless weekly meetings held on Saturdays
with the local authorities of the province of San Rafael. See Sec. Interior y Police in Provincia San Rafael
6/15-2, Dec. 10, 1945. AGN.

30“Concert in the Park, José Trujillo Valdez, dedicated to the students in general, who will sing in chorus
and the national anthem” See Sec. Interior y Policia 2/26-1, Dia de la Independencia en Elias Pina,
Provincia San Rafael, Feb. 25, 1946. AGN.

177

aware of the status that an orchestral band brought to a town. They recruited musicians
from other parts of the Dominican Republic who usually played patriotic marches and as
well as the obligatory national anthem during national and religious activities. The
Provincial Governor of Elias Pina, Francisco Matos, was aware of this when he took steps
so that “with the municipality’s appropriation, or in its budget, to secure the services of
eight or ten musicians that I could attract from Bani as soon as possible.”31

At other times, musical bands existed but produced no music. A case in point is
the small town of Bénica in the northwestern border, which claimed to have a musical
band; however, as one visiting official pointed out in frustration, its existence was useless
because there were no instruments, because the town officials, who had enough money in
their budget, failed to buy any.32 Throughout the 19403, a proliferation of pianos and
musical academies sprang up throughout the border in response to Trujillo’s
Dorrrinicanization plan. The Director of the National Conservatory, Juan Francisco
Garcia, wrote to the Secretary of Education, saying that in “every school there should be a
good piano and be tuned every three months and a music professor who directs the
chorus.”33

Public school libraries and celebratory books on Trujillo were not the only things
used to create or recreate the imagined Dominican nation on the border. Border culture
agents, the Inspector’s Public Office of Instructors, and the Partido Dominicano
(Dominican Party) were all instrumental in seeing that the border became “civilized”
through different cultural programs.34 One such program was the govemment’s interest in

increasing the musical levels of border residents. Bringing music to the border was not

 

3|Sec. Educ. Leg. 1547 exp.25, Feb.9, 1943. AGN. Letter was written to Secretary of Education Victor

Garrido.

:Sec. Interior y Policia 6/15-18, July 11, 1945. AGN.

34Plan de ensenanza musical para las escuelas fronterizas, June 1, 1999. Sec. Educ. Leg. 1744, exp.1. AGN.
“Conferences: there is no week that goes by without the celebration of some type of political activity. Now

there is added the cultural lectures that the Cultural Border Agent holds.” Informe, See Sec. Educ.

Leg.1621, 1943, pg.5. AGN.
178

cheap, and the long journey for pianos from Santo Domingo to the frontier was arduous.
Delivering an instrument as delicate as a piano to the border was made considerably more
difficult by the absence of railroads and good paved road between regions and towns.”
According to one government statistic, the cost of several pianos and transportation to the
border reached the staggering sum of $12,500 pesos.36

Music, particularly through the grand European instrument associated with
Chopin, Mozart and Rachmaninoff, and the musical academies, symbolized European
culture and modernity in a region viewed as heavily influenced by Haitians. Through
music schools, concepts such as Dominican patriotism (as in the national anthem),
religion (Catholic hymns), and popular songs (stories of the ancestors) were easy to grasp
and internalize through melody.37 By the mid 19403, there were already at least ten
musical border academies, each with their own resident director?8

When it was not the marching bands at the town square, there were art exhibitions
that were presented at various towns throughout the border. Often, and at times in
conjunction with the border cultural agent, the Dominican Party was influential in
organizing these events: “One of the services that the Dominican Party lends to the

Dominicanization of the border consists in the distribution of a great number of booklets

elaborated especially for the teaching of adults, the creation of libraries and the

 

35
“Inconvenient road is not finished for the fast transportation of piano corresponding to the Hondo Valle’s
Academy of Music.” See Sec. Educ. Leg. 1651 exp. 2. Oct. 19, 1944. AGN.

:.Sec Educ. Leg. 1758, exp. 10. April 8, 1944. AGN.

37As Enrique Rivas Escoto, President of the Dominican Party branch 1n Restauracion, said, Trujillo created
“these music academics in all the border towns, endowing them with the necessary instruments for the
diffusion of culture in these regions which in other times were neglected, a work that complements his
grandiose work of Dominicanizing the border.” See Archivo de Trujillo, Restauracion Archivo A-l exp.7l
Partido Dominicana, Junta Comunal, April 2, 1954. AGN.

38See Sec. Educ. Leg. 1746 Feb. 2, 1944. AGN. Monthly costs paid by the state for the Dajabon academy of
music was $40.00 pesos. See Sec. Educ. Leg.5 exp.1, Cronologicas de oficios Jan/Feb. Feb. 13, 1943.
Moreover, by the mid-19403, the Dominican government had created five official positions for Choral
Masters in the border, each earning $60.00 pesos a month. See Letter from Secretary of Education
Telesforo R. Calderon to Inspectors’s Office of Public Instruction, Sec. Educ. Leg.1742, March 14, 1944.

AGN.
1 79

39
organization of cultural acts, patriotic conferences and artistic expositions.”

Indeed, the Dominican Party was an integral institution that carried out the state’s
border project. For the most part, because the Dominican Party was a political party, it
organized political events. More often than not, events were held at party headquarters,
either receiving an out-of-town politician and/or coordinating political and cultural
conferences.4o For example, the Dominican Party was known to organize and sponsor
cultural activities in border towns that were aimed at exposing border residents to the arts.
“On the 14th of May in this city the Traveling Exposition of Paintings opened, which
traveled the South and Northwest region of the Republic, having taken the appropriate
measures together with the Dominican Party’s Communal Junta to provide a locale and
all that is necessary for its installation.”41 As the only political party during Trujillo’s
regime, the Dominican Party wielded tremendous power and influence across the country.
It had chapters in all the towns, and every adult was required to carry on his person a copy
of his membership card stating that he belonged to the organization.

The Dominican Party card was part of a mandatory triad set of ID cards that each
citizen (basically men) had to carry at all times. The other two cards were the national
identity card or cédula, and last card that confirmed one’s participation in the Obligatory
Military Service or Servicio Militar Obligatorio.42 Combined, these three identification
cards were called Ios tres golpes (the three hits) that the military and police frequently

demanded to see fiom citizens to maintain control of the population. There was a

 

39
Manuel A. Machado Baez, La Dominicanizacio'n fionteriza, pg.239.
40
See Ecos de Cachimén No.20, Oct. 1949, pg. 1.

“See Sec. Interior y Policia 6/15-34. AGN. Informe que de las labores realizadas durante e1 segundo
trimestre del ano 1945. Rinde la gobemacion provincial de San Rafael a la Secretaria de Interior y Policia.

42The national identity card was created soon after Trujillo seized power. In 1931 the Dominican Congress
passed law No. 247 which created the Personal Identity Card. which “required all Dominicans older than
sixteen years of age to carry this document which was obtained through the payment of one dollar.” See
Franklin J. Franco Historia del pueblo dominicana Vol.II. (Santo Domingo: Taller, 1992), 510. One sixty-
nine-year-old respondent, Luis Feliz Polanco, who is now blind, recalled his days in the Service by reciting,
nearly fifty years after his training sessions, the thirteen points that each member of the Obligatory Military
Service had to memorize. Video interview with Luis Feliz Polanco, born in Paraiso in Barahona, and
residing today in a senior citizen’s home in Neiba. June, 1999.

l 80

resounding acknowledgement from the majority of the elderly persons I spoke with that
most adults carried these documents wherever they traveled. These official documents
were part of a larger state project of indoctrination that sought to control movement of
citizens with the nation and monitor their actions.

By sponsoring and organizing political and cultural events, the Dominican Party
created a space where border residents could meet and interact with each other while they
absorbed their weekly or monthly ideological propaganda usually Trujillo’s border
accomplishments. The Dominican youth of the border also actively participated in the
organization of these events. One example is the J uventud Trujillista (The Trujillo Youth
Party) in the border province of Libertador. The Youth Party collaborated with the

municipal government to hold:

An interesting political act in the Halls of the Dominican Party with the assistance
of a selected audience with intentions of making the necessary agreements for the
celebration of an uproarious political manifestation the first day of January to
decidedly endorse the Dominicanization border project that is triumphantly
carried out by the Distinguished Supreme Chief Generalisimo Trujillo."3

Dominican youth was not the only segment of the population being used by the state to
increase its support. At this time, the government, in an attempt to democratize its party,
allowed some women to participate actively in politics. Whether it was decorative or not
the Partido Trujillista (The Trujillo Party: a smaller party within the larger Dorrrinican
Party) had a female section with a woman president named Estela R. de J ilnénez.44
Dominicanizing the border also meant certain highbrow notions of culture of
transforming the border to reflect the modernity of the capital Santo Domingo. In

Daj abon, the Dorrrinicarrization of the border prompted one provincial governor with the

 

’3 Letter from Anselmo A. Paulino Alvarez, Provincial Governor to Sec. of Interior y Policia. See Partes
Diarios Leg.4-l44, Nov.30, 1942. AGN.

“See Sec. Educ. Leg.1650 exp.11, April 5, 1944. AGN.
181

assistance of the Catholic Church, to install what he called a:

Cultural and recreative center where the ladies and gentlemen could meet,inspired
in an ideal of progress and culture being born there the 13th day of December, the
Casino Generalisimo Trujillo, comprised of one hundred and four members...To
this cultural work is joined... most splendidly by the Catholic Border mission
which cannot be more transcendental and efficient.45

The need for books and the construction of libraries throughout the border was
also a critical component of Trujillo’s Dominicanization plan. In many cases, border
agents worked in conjunction with the Office of Inspector of Public Instruction with the
goal of “endowing all the district schools with small libraries with books, magazines and
pamphlets by soliciting altruistic persons and friends of the work of education.”46 During
the 19403, the Dominican border region experienced a significant increase in the number
of libraries that were constructed. Some were public libraries constructed and then
distributed by the government, sometimes personally by Trujillo, to small border towns
and municipalities.47 But most often in the border many of these new libraries were
school libraries created for the education of young students. There were children’s
libraries constructed within primary schools, which only went as far as the fourth grade.48

For Trujillo, books represented progress and enlightenment in a region, which was
seen as illiterate and backward. Libraries could link Dominicans from all parts of the

Republic; especially border residents, because they now could form part of the literate

nation. Government officials understood this when donating books to the libraries,

 

‘5 See Comision especial del gobiemo de Dajabon, Oct. 1946. Informe trirnestral correspondiente a Oct.,
Nov., y Dic. 1940. AGN.

“Sec. Educ. Leg. 1641 exp.9, May 8, 1944 School District #74, Elias Piila, San Rafael Province. AGN.

"“Installation of public library donated by the generous disposition of the Honorable President Trujillo to
the town of Neiba.” Sec. Educ. Leg.1757 exp.15. 1944. AGN.

”In this particular school, every grade had a library and “one small museum of indigenous, historical and
instruction subjects. Very useful things for the teacher.” See Acta de Reunion 20 de Julio 1940. Informe
Trimestral Correspondiente a julio, agosto y septiembre, Comisionado especial del gobiemo de Dajabon,

Leg.40. Oct. 1946. AGN.
182

especially those in the border, and explained why they donated certain books. Thus it was
no surprise that many of these donated books glorified Trujillo and his role as the nation’s
savior along with Dominican independence from Haiti.49 The state utilized elementary
school books to instill loyalty among children. Like Nazi youth, young Dorrrinican
children were also taught to report any anti-Trujillo activities, even about their parents.50

If the government was not sending pianos to the border, it was technology that it
used to draw this region closer to the capital. An example of this was the Dominican
govemment’s desire to have a border school receive a radio so that the children would not
miss the country’s latest news and developments emanating from Santo Domingo.
According to one official, Trujillo “considered that it is of patriotic interest and
civilization that the J irnarri school should be provided radio with batteries...so that the
students of this school could get a sense of the national life during hours that do not
conflict with their schoolwor 3’“

The objective of the border project was more than school children listening to
Santo Domingo radio broadcasts or learning to play the piano. Incorporating the border
region was an attempt, using Dominican state institutions through the Spanish language,
to transform residents into new Dominican citizens, despite the fact that border residents
were historically accustomed to a more autonomous existence and less of a state
presence. Haitian Kreyol, the accepted lingua franca of the border was now disdained by

the government and relegated as a being a “dialect” inconsistent with the state’s new

definition of national identity. The state feared that bilingual border residents would be

 

49Among the donated books going to Elias Pina were Cartilla Civica; Historia de Santo Domingo; Trujillo,
primer maestro de la repriblica; Biografia del generalisimo; El condor bajo Ios cieIos de América; La
independencia efimera; La conspiracién de los Alcarrizos; Pensamientos a Trujillo; La personalidad
integral de Trujillo; Del lenguaje dominicano; and Poesia popular dominicano. See Sec. Educ. Leg.1557
exp.5, June 20, 1943. AGN. ,

”Daniel Charles Spitzer, “A Contemporary Political and Socio-Economic History of Haiti and the

Dominican Republic,” Ph.D. diss University of Michigan, 1974, 383. Spitzer writes that indoctrination also
extended into higher education. University professors had to be members of Trujillo’s Partido Dominicano.

"Sec. Educ. Leg.1547 exp.8, May 7, 1943. AGN.
183

less patriotic and more hesitant to accept centralized authority from Santo Domingo. This
was an underlying factor that accelerated the development of border schools. According
to one government magazine’s editorial praising Trujillo: “From there the great number
of school-homes that were built, by your arrangements even in the most distant places far
from the great urban centers and your farsighted measured wisdom to impede the
corruption of the language and the national customs through a new type of schools
situated in the same place where your creation was carried out in the border.”52

Within the state incorporation of the border, there was also a push to elevate the
levels of hygiene and sanitation. Aiding the “sick” Donrinican body became an important
project for the Trujillo government on the national level. For the state, the border became
the most important part of the diseased body, which needed special attention and care.
Here, like other parts of the country but within the ever-so-complex dynamic of the
border, the government began to promote health education by visiting people in the
countryside and administering vaccinations and public information on documenting
diseases.

Incorporating the border region into the expanding and modern nation also
entailed that the medical problems of Dominican border residents be addressed. In
addition to the construction of schools, Trujillo’s border project underscored the
importance of hygiene and raising sanitary conditions throughout the border region. One
way of insuring better health was the state’s pre-marital medical examination, utilized as
a practical method for reducing disease and defects among children. According to the
government: “The care of the child in the Dominican Republic begins much before its
conception: an ample medical exam and a certificate of good health are indispensable to
every contributor as a prenuptial requisite.”53 The goal was to have healthy citizens

throughout the nation, and this meant trying to decrease the infant morality rate through

 

52 ’
See Revista de Educacion “La politica educativa dc Trujillo, Year: X, Nov.-Dec., No.48, 193 8, pg.6.

”Sec. Educ. Leg.1828 exp.6. AGN.
184

various health programs. Like other Latin American nations at the time, the Dorrrinican
government implemented sanitary programs to improve the health of its citizens. To
reduce the risks of future hereditary “racial degenerations” in the unborn, the state
implemented a series of sanitary programs to improve the nation.54 According to the
govemment’s own propaganda, “today the Dominican child is born not only alive and
viable in the classic legal demands but also healthy in the strict sense of eugenics.”55

Undoubtedly the border’s impoverished conditions and remote location made
health issues in this region represented more of challenge vis-a-vis other parts of the
republic. The Dominican government made every effort to invest money and labor into
the border to fulfill its goal of bringing progress to this dry and extremely hot region. But
it was a difficult task. This difficulty is reflected in the govemment’s attempt at recruiting
doctors to work in the border. According to a letter from Dr. L.F. Thomen, Secretary of
Health and Public Assistance, to Governor Joaquin Garrido Puello of San Rafael

province, the government was willing to send

Medicines to the border places with a quota superior to that of other places,
having also special care in choosing to cover the positions of that region the most
apt personnel that could be made available, we find ourselves, however, with the
grave inconvenience of the doctors’ scant interest in lending their services in some
of the posts of that sector.56

Many Dominican doctors, obviously were not excited at practicing in one of the

 

54
See Nancy Leys Stepan’s The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca,NY:

Cornell University Press, 1991), 101.

5

Sec. Educ. Leg.l828 exp.6. Although the Dominican state did provide medical services to Dominicans in
the countryside, it failed to completely eliminate mortality for maternal post-labor. My mother, who grew
up during the Trujillo years still remembers hearing of many women in the countryside who seemed fine
after delivering their babies but died soon after. In isolated hamlets, there was usually a woman who she
says, “was brave enough” to assist in the delivery. A study on infant mortality rates during Trujillo’s years
could help us understand if, indeed, his health programs had an impact on border and rural populations.

56 Sec. Interior y Policia 6/15-39 August 1, 1945. AGN. Dr. Thommen goes on to say that several medical
posts were vacant in provinces like Bahoruco and Barahona, which “until this date we have not been able to
send a doctor to Bénica whose assignment has for a long time been figured into our budget.”

1 85

Dominican Republic’s most inhospitable and depopulated regions. One government
official grasped the irony of trying to bring health to a region where the land was
uninhabited. He writes, ”The state of sanitation is good not because of a lack of diseases,
but for the lack of human beings, a lack of settlers. All that is immense is waste lands.”S7
In other words, despite the govemment’s propaganda trumpeting the border as a
flourishing economic, social, and political region, on the ground many Dominicans were
not convinced.

The poor condition of the border residents’ dwellings was also a target of the new
health policies along the border. These dwellings, constructed from wood, with palm tree
roofs and dirt floors, were a preoccupation for officials, who viewed these homes as an

ideal environment for disease. In Elias Pina:

Hygienic conditions of the majority of the houses are poor; all of this makes an
alarming situation in most of the tenants...In my observations, I have been able to
see that many farms and houses are in very bad condition and in the main streets,
which gives a bad image above all in this city, which receives daily foreign
visitors [among them Haitians] who come to touch and feel up close the gigantic
work of this border’s reconstruction, initiated and brought to a happy conclusion
by our Excellency [Trujillo].58

In schools, officials found the ideal conduit to disseminate knowledge to its
citizenry on better hygiene and public health. More than a place where Dominicans could

learn reading, writing and arithmetic, or become cultured through piano class, schools

 

57Acta de Reunion Sabatina de Funcionarios de la Comr'ln Cabecera de Dajabon.
Leg.40 Informe T rimestral Correspondiente a Enero, F ebrero, y Marzo. Feb. 10, 1940. AGN.
’8 Sec. Interior y Policia, Letter from Sec. of the Presidency to the Sec. of Interior y Police Rafael F.

Bonnelly, Leg.21, exp.4/85, Sept. 7, 1945. AGN.
186

became the site where children in the border, for the first time, received medical attention
and prevention. The Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola in Daj abon was at the forefront of
the Dominicanziation of the border. Founded by Jesuits and run by a Spanish priest
named Father Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the school became a model for educating
students and farmers on the importance of personal hygiene and productive agricultural
methods. The school did not charge its students, who were between 12 and 16, and were
interned on the school grounds. The children wrote to their parents weekly. A report by
father Santa Anna shows not only the measures taken to promote public health measures

along the border, but also offers us a partial glimpse of daily life in this border school:

Believing that in order to obtain good students and good agriculturalists, before
anything, it is necessary to have a healthy and strong body since the first day we
have placed major concern on hygiene and physical education, a necessity in this
region in which the children appear undernourished. With this end, we have
adopted the following measures: healthy and abundant food and varied if possible;
water of recognized potable conditions; daily gymnasium; soon mosquito nets will
be installed in the dormitories like an essential prophylactic against the endemic
malaria; all have been treated by the orthodontist who has extracted the cavities;
they bathe daily or take a shower; as a recreational trip and at the same time
instructional Sundays, we use the truck provided courteously by that Ministry so
that the students could have an excursion to the coast or to the agrarian colonies or
to other places of interest.59

If Dominican officials at this time were overly concerned with the hygiene of
border residents they were as equally preoccupied with the health of the Dominican body.
In Dominicanizing the border, government officials confronted many challenges dealing
with public health issues. There were vaccination campaigns in border schools aimed at

limiting the spread of disease in school-age children. At the Loyola school in Dajabon,

 

’9 Sec. Agricultura, Leg.51 Bis, March 26, 1946. AGN. Although, comparatively speaking, these schools
were modern, most, like the Escuela Mixta Graduada (Mixed Graduate School) in Elias Pir‘ia, had latrines

instead of toilet bowls. See Sec. Educ. Leg. 1595 exp.5. AGN.
187

vaccinations shots for antitifica (anti-typhoid) and antivariolosa (anti-small-pox) were
given, while one child was hospitalized for typhoid after he contracted it during a visit
back home with his parents.60 Vaccination campaigns were conducted throughout border
schools in the hopes of limiting particular diseases that plagued the region. Health
officials administered either in the schools or outside of them vaccination shots. These
were usually representatives from the Health Brigade department, who visited remote

locations to meet and to treat people who were beyond the reach of hospitals, clinics or

61
medrcrne.

Many of the border residents were afflicted with a number of diseases and
aihnents. These maladies were diverse and often ranged from common ulcers to sexually
transmitted diseases like syphilis. Not surprisingly, the military experienced high rates of
sexually transmitted diseases. Being alone and far away from highly populated centers,
Dominican soldiers participated in the developing prostitution economy of the border. In
fact many of these soldiers contracted syphilis and a host of other diseases like anemia
and sinusitis.62

In its quest to bring for greater state control, the Dominican government kept
many records even of sick campesinos that lived near a particular border town. These
documents contain valuable information on border life during this period and reveal the
various diseases confronted by these people at the time. These informes or reports
contained the person’s age, town or hamlet, ailments, number of schools in his locality,

and proximity to the territorial boundary. According to the documents, many of these

Dominicans suffered fi'om bocio (goiter), tracoma (eye infection), tuberculsa

 

60Ibid. May 1947. “There is currently taking place a vaccination campaign of infantile diphtheria in this city
[Dajabon] and ‘La Vigia’, ‘Libertador’, and ‘Capotillo’ Colonies.” See “Actividades de la oficina sanitaria
provincial,” in Beller, May 22, 1953.
51

Letter from Dr. Julio A. Isidor 8., Provincial Health Doctor, to Secretary of Education. See Sec. Educ.
Leg.1570 exp.5, June 8, 1943. AGN.

62Report from Ofiice of the Medical Dispensary of the 23rd Army Co. in Lorna de Cabrera. See EN Leg.

293 exp.32, 1939. AGN.
188

(tuberculosis), rampano (ulcer), and malaria. No information is given either on treatment

63
or on mortality rates. The document also lists whether or not these villages used latrines.
If the state promoted the cleansing of the physical border and the corporal diseases that

afflicted border residents, it was the Catholic Church whose role it was to clean its soul.

The Catholic Church and the Border

The Catholic Church and its role as a religious and cultural institution became a
strategic partner in consolidating the nation creating patriotic Catholic Christian citizens
particularly along the border. The church, along with priests and pianos, was to promote
the religious aspect of Dominicanizing the border. Under Trujillo, the Catholic Church’s
spiritual role on the border began with the mission in Dajabon. This mission was
established in 1936 under the direction of the Jesuit Order. By August 8, 1936, a year
before the fatal massacre of thousands of Haitians, the Jesuit mission was established in
the northwest, and its authority stretched from Restauracion to Copey.64 The mission was
established to increase the power of the church in what was considered a “pagan” (read
Haitian) region, as well as to educate its children through the instruction of priests.

The mission, along with its church, expanded into two schools named the

65
Instituto Agronémico San Ignacio de Loyola and the Colegio la Altagracia. The school,

 

631nformes de la Seccion de la Comt'rn de Bénica, Elias Pifia, San Rafael y del el Gobemador Nestor Febles:
Informe de Canrpesinos: Seccion Guroa, Banica. Sec. Educ. Leg. 1571 exp.12, Nov. 8, 1943. AGN. In the
tradition of the Orwellian state and authoritarian dictatorships, the report also contains a category for those
who had a picture of Trujillo in a visible place in their house. Not surprisingly, everyone’s house contained
a picture of Trujillo.

64Misio'n fronteriza apuntes histo'ricos sobre la misio’n fronteriza de San Ignacio de Loyola por Ios Padres
de la Compania de Jesus 1936-195 7. (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora “Arte y Cine,” 1958), pg.21. This book
was written by one of the rnission’s founders

to commemorate the presence of the Catholic border mission in Dajabon.

“Sec. Educ. Leg.1572 exp.5, Oct. 20, 1943. AGN. In 1943 a colegio was installed in Dajabon, but
supervised by Catholic religious sisters. Although the documents fail to mention the name of the school, it is
mostly likely the Colegio Altagracia since the the Instituto A gronémico San Ignacio de Loyola was already

established at the time of the Jesuits’ arrival in 1936.
189

in the Jesuit tradition, was self-sufficient, in that the government had provided the
mission with enough land to grow their own crops. Here students from the outlying rural
areas worked, studied, and learned with and fiom the Jesuit Fathers. The mission, aside
from its religious obligations, provided its students with a host of activities ranging from
health, sports, and culture.‘56

Under the leadership of Father Santa Anna, a Spaniard, the mission was used as a
base to send out priests throughout the surrounding areas. The apparent contradiction of
an international religious institution such as the Catholic Church leading a nationalistic
crusade to Dominicanize the border did not matter to Trujillo. For the state, the priority
was to Catholicize the border through the Spanish language so as to decrease the Haitian
presence and influence along the border. Thus as one Dominican border newspaper
recalled: “The missionaries, with interesting and fixed itineraries, cover the distance of all
the [Libertador] province celebrating the holy mass, confessing people, assisting the very
Sick, baptizing and marrying.”67 In an interview with Sabina Ulloa, daughter of Santa
Anna’s former assistant and personal mule handler, Jorge Ulloa, she said that the Jesuit
father personally went to remote villages and held mass monthly. Since many localities
lacked a church, mass was given by the visiting priest only once a month instead of
weekly. According to Sabina, during the 19403 her father accompanied Father Santa
Anna on his many ministerial trips. “He (Jorge Ulloa) was a man that always carried the
comet when Father Santa Anna arrived anywhere he was going to give mass...They went
to a small hill and played the comet so that the people could know that he now was going
to give mass?”58 Sabina remembers that during her childhood masses were conducted half

in Latin and half in Spanish. She recalled seeing Father Santa Anna participating in yearly

E

66
See.“La mision fronteriza de Dajabon-Libertador,” Beller, Feb.25, 1952, pg.2. In the documents I
firmed, I was unable to find a figure showing numerical student enrollment for the school.

Ibrd.
zzlntCrview with Sabina Ulloa in Barrio las Flores near the towns of Lorna de Cabrera and Capotillo on Jan.
9 1999.
190

street processions marking particular religious holidays, such as Holy Week and Easter,
and as also being a strict adherent to Catholic orthodoxy.69 But despite the Church’s
benign role in conducting baptisms and marriages in isolated rural areas it also played a
palpable role in perpetuating the anti-Haitianism that comprised this border project. This
official complicity was evident from the church’s deafening silence as it and the Jesuits of
the border mission failed to protest publicly against the genocidal killings that occurred in
1937.70 Their silence makes them accomplices to the criminal act perpetrated by the state
and just as guilty.

Much like the Catholic Church during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, the
Dominican Church’s refusal to condemn the Haitian Massacre, while collaborating with
the government to seek a settlement (through the Papal Nuncio) with Haiti, is shameful.7|
In addition, the Church’s muteness concerning the massacre and its tolerance of such
violent acts of anti-Haitianism is revealed in one of their publications documenting their

presence in the border. The Jesuit author writes that:

Trujillo observed, with vigilant gaze, that the Frontier border was losing its
national features. The invading presence of Haitian people with unwelcome
language, foreign money, exotic customs, religious rites of Vodou and Protestants,
was undermining, little by little, this bulwark of the Fatherland, and was
converting it into a dangerous beachhead.72

 

6

9Ibid. During these public activities The mission also collaborated with other institutions such as city hall,
the fire department, and the armed forces in sponsoring religious celebrations. See Dajabon’s Beller, Dec.
20, 1952, #39 IV.

70The Vatican must have known about the massacre since the Haitian bishop of Cap Haitien told President
Vincent of the carnage. “My opinion is that in the relatively small region that surrounds Juana Mendez no
less than 3,000 Haitians have been assassinated.” See Bernardo Vega, Trujillo y Haiti (1937-1938) Vol.II.
("S anto Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Donrinicana, 1995), pg.74.

Further research is needed to document the extent of the Church’s response in Haiti to the massacre. Did
priests in Haiti denounce the massacre in their sermons? Did they protest to their superiors? Did these
superiors, i.e. bishops in Haiti, in turn, protest to the Vatican?

72 Taken from Misio'n fronteriza apuntes histéricos sobre la misio'n fionteriza de San Ignacio de Loyola

dirigida por los Padres de la Compania de Jesu's, 1 936-195 7. See William Louis Wipfler. Power,

Influence, and Impotence: The Church as a Socio-Political Factor in the Dominican Republic. Union

Theological Seminary in the City of New York, PhD. diss., 1978, pg.136. To this day the Dominican

Catholic Church has not publicly apologized for its silence during the massacre, even in the face of world
191

The government was well aware of the Church’s value to its plans along the
border. Consequently, state and religious institutions such as the army and the church
worked together seeking to fulfill mutual goals. One example of this is how army
chaplains traveled throughout border towns to perform religious rites, such as
confessions, otherwise missed by rural people living in very isolated areas. In their quest
to Dominicanize the border from as many angles as possible, the military ordered its army
chaplains to travel the border area and spread the word of God, but with an underlying
nationalistic and propagandistic subtext. Trujillo’s brother Hector, who was Secretary of

War, and carried out, by the Anny’s General of Brigade gave the orders:

The army chaplains should celebrate incessantly all of their priestly acts:
baptisms, mass, novenas, sermons, religious classes; they should promote the
formation of religious associations and brotherhoods; they should preferably wear
their priestly robes; in their sermons they should comment and in their
conversations with the residents of those places, the importance of all the
measures that within the redeeming policy that the Most Excellent President
Trujillo directs, to see that in those places agriculture, industry, and commerce
will prosper and that the endemic diseases disappear, and that schools will
multiply and in general the well-being and progress that characterize the Trujillo
Era can be reached.73

In their mission throughout the border, two army chaplains, First Lieutenants
Carlos T. Bobadilla U. and Eulogio Gonzalez Salazar, administered baptisms to both
boys and girls, and presided over countless of marriages. Interestingly enough, the army
chaplains did not just limit themselves to religious proselytization. Their message was
also part of the larger objective to convert Dominican residents into being “Dominican”

according to Trujillo’s government. The report notes: “Our preaching was constant, we

 

events such as the French Church apologizing for its role in the Vichy government and as cases of human
rights abuses abound and continue to increase in the Dominican Republic, particularly directed at Haitians.
’3 EN Leg.46 exp.101. Feb. 12, 1943. AGN.

192

did not limit ourselves only to religious preaching, indoctrinating the people in the sacred
principles of the moral gospel; but we also utilized a systematic preaching of prudent
advice in the patriotic, in the political, in the health and even in the agricultural
[realm].”74

Despite the enormous task being undertaken by the state government, hand in
hand with the church, to Dominicanize its border residents, the Haitian presence remained
strong and its cultural and religious influence over the region was profound. This
presence along the border did not escape the chaplains’ observations and final report.

Under the heading of “superstition” the chaplains observed that:

It is very frequent and somewhat entrenched in the border carnpesino and even in
some of the inhabitants of the population to give credit to the ridiculous beliefs
emanating from the Haitians, such is the case with the men. They never or ahnost
never give their real names when they are asked; they use more than two or more
names and, according to them, they do this so as not to be sold to the Alcagé if

they give their real names, and with the power according to them practiced by the
bad spirits or geniuses who they call Sombi.75

Supporting Trujillo on his Dominicanization border project, however, was not just
limited to priests on the local level. The Dominican government also recnlited high-
ranking members of the church to promote its border project. One example was
Monsefior Ricardo Pittini, the Archbishop of Santo Domingo. Pittini, who must have
known about the atrocities committed against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian
descent during the 1937 massacre, embraced Trujillo’s project. Five years after the
massacre, Pittini traveled to the region where Haitians were assassinated in veritable

killing fields. Writing to his superiors in Santo Domingo, one government official who

 

7‘Ibid. Report written by First Lieutenants Chaplain Carlos T. Bobadilla U. and Eulogio Gonzalez Salazar
in Elias Pina to Commander of the Northwest Department, April 12, 1943. pg.2. The chaplains administered
10,481 baptisms, 88 weddings, and four burials during their visits to Pedro Santana (Cercadillo); Bénica; El
Cercado; Hondo Valle; and Las Matas de Farfan.

751bid. pg.3.
193

hosted Pittini’s reception wrote that the people of the border town of Dajabon:

Received with filll religious patriotic joy the holy pastoral visit of the Illustrious
and Most Reverend Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Monsignor Ricardo Pittini,
who immediately after arriving preached in clear, precise, and eloquent form
about the Dominicanization of the border with the neighboring country of Haiti,
which is being happily carried out and with healthy results by the Excellent and
First Citizen of the Homeland, the Honorable President Trujillo.76

The archbishop’s presence in the border not only represented the union between
Church and State in Dominicanizing this region. It also served to solidify its presence as
the legitimate religion throughout the border and the nation. It was partly due to this
reason that drew Archbishop Pittini to the border to increase the numbers of Catholic
priests throughout the border and as a counterweight to other rival religions. Even though
the government promoted Catholicism as a cultural marker of national identity, Trujillo
was unable to recruit or import adequate numbers of priests to the border. Thus, as one
scholar wrote, during the twentieth century the Dominican Republic “has consistently
been among the three or four countries in Latin America with the least favorable ratio of
priests to people.”77

In their daily lives, Dominicans had little contact with priests, and many, like
those in the border, were limited to seeing priests once a month at mass or at special
religious occasions. Although the Trujillo regime utilized the Catholic Church in its
construction of a new border and national identity it did not play a significant role in
Dominican politics. Aside from religious activities, the Catholic Church was a neutral

player in its political involvement with the state. As the Basque scholar and once resident-

 

7‘ Partes Diarios Leg.4-144. Letter from Anselmo A. Paulino Alvarez, Governor of the Libertador Province,
to the Sec. of Interior and Police. Gobernacion de Nov. 12, 1942. AGN.

77William Louis Wipfler, “Power, Influence, and Impotence: The Church as a Socio-Political Factor in the
Dominican Republic,” pg. 139. According to Wipfler, in 1912 there was one priest to every 10,000; in 1945
th ratio decreased to 1 out of 17,300; in 1950 it dropped to 13,500 for every priest; in 1955 it was 1 for

10,500; and in 1960 11,000 to 1.
194

refugee J esr’ls de Galindez in the Dominican Republic wrote in the mid-19503 before
being kidnapped and assassinated by Trujillo “the influence of the church in the public
life of the Dominican Republic has been small.”78

Despite the separation of church and state, Trujillo was so intent on defining
Dominicans as “true” Catholics and transforming his country into a bastion of Roman
Catholicism, that in 1954 he signed an historic agreement with the Vatican. This
Concordant made Catholicism the nation’s official religion, now recognized by Rome.
The Concordant required the Dominican government to construct and pay for new
technical schools and Catholic churches, which the Catholic clergy would control, but the
State would in the end be responsible for their salaries.79 But Dominican citizens under
Trujillo were not all Catholic and definitely not all of them were Christian. Protestant
Churches, which underscored a more pastoral and less hierarchical system of educating
people about their religion, led a small but growing religious movement. Although, for
the most part, the Protestant minority’s right to worship was respected, it was able to
make enough inroads to spark Archbishop Pittini’s wrath. The official journal of the
Santo Domingo Archdiocese warned its readers about Protestantism, while
simultaneously advocating a tolerant and non-violent attitude toward the non-Catholic
Church: “In our campaign, which should be constant and vigilant against the propaganda
of Protestantism and of the secret societies, we need to keep always Christian moderation,
avoiding not only acts of violence but also expressions of rudeness and irnproprieties.”80

Expressions of violence against Protestants during the Trujillo Era never reached

 

78Jesus de Galindez, The Era of Trujillo: Dominican Dictator. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press,
1973), pg.176. Galindez goes on to say that “Neither in the Dominican party nor in any of the other
organizations has any ecclesiastical participation or doctrine of Chrisitian inspiration been observed; neither
has there been any antagonism. It would seem that the Catholic church had not been a factor in the Trujillo
regime, either for good or for bad.”

79
80Ibid. pg.52.
Boletin Eclesidstico Vol.1. No.44, 1944, pg.681. Despite the constitutional guarantees of fi'eedom of

worship there were laws, like the one passed in 1943, made it illegal to practice voudou or lua. See

Galindez, The Era of Trujillo, pg. 124.
195

the level of religious riots. Yet it was not surprising for the regime to condone a campaign
of low-scale disruption by its followers in these churches. Thus, according to Protestant
historian David Wayne Dyck, “it was not uncommon to have public services purposely
interrupted by noise or flying obj ects.”81 It was in Trujillo’s interest to allow the
Protestant presence in his country and the on border in order to project a semblance of
religious equality and democracy abroad.

Despite the official propaganda that all Dominicans were Catholic and Haitians
were not, the reality was quite different. Both groups practiced Catholic, Protestant, and
Voudou religions. Trujillo’s intelligentsia created this ideological fallacy that Haitians
were not Christians. It was even obvious to officials working in Trujillo’s government,
who witnessed first hand the similar religious faith practiced by their neighbors. One of
the weekly reports sent by a Dominican diplomat near the border in Haiti noted that

Haitians were just as religious and similar in faith as Dorrrinicans:

In terms of religion, there is here liberty for [the practice of] cults but two
churches; the Catholic and the Baptist, are the ones that are most rooted. The
Catholic Church has a temple of ample masonry that was constructed, according
to public opinion, by the Spanish conquistadors. The Protestant Church also has a
great masonry temple of the most modern construction. Seeing that the Haitian is
very religious, both temples are constantly being visited by the faithful. The
Catholic Church, of course, counts on a major number of followers, but the
Baptist Church sees its numbers of believers grow every day.82

Here is a report that basically contradicted the entire ideological underpinnings of

the Dominicanization border project that identified Haitians and Dominicans as (in this

 

 

81
David Wayne Dyck, “The Missionary Church in the Dominican Republic,” Fuller Theological Seminary,
School of World Mission, M.A., 1975, pg.49. According to Dyck, the missionary church first arrived in the
Dominican Republic in 1945. As of 1972, there were thirteen North American missionary churches in the
country in Monte Cristi; Manzanillo; Dajabon; Lorna de Cabrera; San Juan de La Maguana (Evangelical
Mennonites); Barahona; La Isabela; Mao; Santiago; San José de Las Matas; La Vega; Cotui; and Santo
Boatingo.
Weekly Report by Dominican Consul Homero Hoepehnan S., in Hinche, Haiti. Sec. Relaciones
EXtfliores, Leg.46 exp.101, June 7, 1943. pg. 6-7. AGN.
196

case religiously) different from each other. It was this difference that allowed the state to
define itself through exclusion. In spite of constant state ideological bombardment
demonizing Haitians, Dominicans on the ground level, living on the border, knew full
well that across the liver there existed people who prayed and often spoke like them. The
linguistic fusion was evident in one official’s observations: “One of the things that has
most powerfully called my attention is the faCt of having found several Haitians who,
without being in the Dominican Republic, speak a lot of Spanish. Some have even told
me that they are Dominicans, but later I have proven their claims to be false.”8

The Dominican-Haitian border, like many borders, was a region where cultural
fusion had taken place throughout the years. It was this amalgam of Dominican and
Haitian culture, in a historically semi-autonomous region, that most threatened
government intent on incorporating and controlling the entire region, even if it had to
resort to genocide. But Trujillo could not simply separate the two borders, with barbed
wire, as if separating the head fiom the trunk of the human body. Newspaper articles of
the 19403 confirmed the ease with which Haitians and Dominicans in the border region

continued to intermix for religious and other social events, well after the massacre:

The churches used to get congested with that [Haitian] race which carelessly
invaded it with chairs and benches and the ones who ordered them were Haitian,
and it was the custom of many border inhabitants to attend the patroness parties
of the most closest Haitian towns and there the fathers, godfathers, and
godmothers would meet to celebrate the baptisms without taking into account the
future disadvantages that this could cause for their children in the future who
many were by birth and blood completely Dominican.84

The border project not only attempt to sever ties between these two groups but it

 

”Ibid. pg.4
8’ According to the article, this religious interconnectedness was “because of the lack in that region of
parish priests, forgotten by the goverments that had paraded through our history.” See La Nacio'n May 24,
1943. pg.3. For the concept of barbed wire as a metaphor to understanding borders see Gloria Anzuldua’s
Borderlands, lafi'ontera: the New Mestiza (San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987).

197

also intended to convince Dominicans, most of all those in the border, that the genocidal
act of 1937 was really a struggle between Dominicans defending their property and
Haitian marauders. The state used churches, schools, and agrarian colonies in an attempt
to disrupt this cultural exchange and destroy it. But contrary to the traditional
historiography, which paints a romantic, idyllic, and peaceful picture of a border region
filled with Catholic missions and agrarian colonies, there was resistance to this state
project. Although government official’s often-skewed reality with their hyperbolic praise
in their reports to superiors, their observations also Show a different story of the border as
a place where there was much resistance to state encroachment into their daily lives.
Despite all the praise and optimistic reports published depicting the border as a new and
golden fiontier for hard-working Dominicans struggling together for the good of the
nation, the state encountered its share of challenges. Among these challenges was the
need for social control among border residents. The need to secure this marginal region
had long been a concern of Santo Domingo elites who viewed the border as chaotic. For
the Dominican government to create order, it needed an institution that could provide
political stability while monitoring the civilian population to discourage dissent. This
institution was the Dominican Army, whose origins date back to the US occupation, and
would become one of the most important factors in colonizing and securing the border.
Since the Horacio Vésquez government, the army had been limited to small
ganisons sprinkled throughout the border. Trujillo transformed the role of the army along
the border. The very first year Trujillo seized the presidency; he also ordered the creation
of the Guardia Fronteriza (Border Guard). On September 17, 1930, the general
headquarters was established and located near the border in the town of Las Matas de

85
Farfan. Under Trujillo, the army was more than a military organization, whose purpose

 

3sJosé Miguel Soto J irne'nez, Lasfiterzas militares en la Republica Dominicana. Desde la primera

Republica hasta Ios comienzos de la Cuarta Republica. Ensayo sabre su evolucion. (Santo Domingo:

Ediciones Grupo 5, 1996). png9. For the role of the military see Danilo de los Santos, Visio'n general de la

historia dominicana. (Santiago,RD: Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra, 1983); Valentina Peguero’s,
198

was limited to national security and the monitoring of the border. It was an integral part in
the colonization of the border. Its responsibilities ranged from administering public
prisons and their prisoners to overseeing penal colonies and to the supervision of the new
agrarian colonies established throughout the border. 86 It was the army that was in charge
of monitoring penal workers on the public works projects that gave the government a free
source of labor to create its vision of a new and transformed border society. This was the
most visible symbol of state encroachment into the everyday lives of border residents, for
the military patrols were the state instruments of surveillance. These military patrols
monitored cities and small rural towns as a way to control the populace and reduce the
probability of dissidence. The border was no exception, except that patrols along the
border had to deal with an international boundary where the management of custom
houses and monitoring of Haitian irnrrrigration was an essential priority, in a region seen
as a traditional hot-bed of insurrection and anti-govemment conspiracy. Among the
unique responsibilities that set apart the border patrols from others in the interior of the
country were:
Coordinating military visits to Haitian territory and hosting Haitian military
delegations to Dominican territory; reporting on Haitian forces and Haitian
residents in Haiti; general activities of Haitians and vigilance of Dominican
residents on the border; [monitoring] contraband of every kind; vigilance of the

international highway, and [monitoring] the introduction of Haitian braceros
through border places of their jurisdiction.87

The patrols were a novel technique employed by the Trujillo dictatorship to
control the population. Their role in maintaining the regime in power for so long cannot

be overstated. They were the eyes and ears of the government and, through their daily,

 

“Trujillo and the Military: Organization and Modernization, and Control of the Dominican Armed Forces,
1916-1961,” PhD. diss., Columbia University, 1993.
86
Ibid.
87 See Leg. 46 exp. 101, J1me 14, 1943. AGN. Other responsibilities included the Army’s role in facilitating
the sale of tobacco and the search for pardoned prisoners who escaped the agricultural colonies.
199

weekly, monthly, and yearly reports, they informed Santo Domingo of each region’s state
of affairs. The patrols’ importance is evident in a confidential letter written from one
high-ranking military officer to another. In his brief communique, the officer writes: “If
there is a service that cannot be neglected in this [military] organization and that is done
regularly, it is the Patrol, as much along the Border as the sections of the Towns.”88
Dominicans came to fear the patrols because they had arbitrary power and could arrest
you if they “looked” suspicious. Many border residents still vividly recall that the patrols
wielded a lot of power. They were composed of army soldiers who were armed with rifles
and guns.

There was another organization that monitored Dominican citizens and reported
suspicious activity to the authorities. Members of this group were called calies
(informers). These individuals could be anywhere and they were the military’s eyes and
ears. They were mostly male and reported anything suspicious to their superiors, who
were usually police and army personnel. Calies were recruited from the community and
represented a wide range of professions, from sharecropper to doctor.89 This added to the
fear and paranoia on the part of most Dominicans during Trujillo’s reign in power to be
verbally spontaneous in public. It was dangerous to be sincere and share your intimate
thoughts on the current state of affairs, because anyone listening could have been a
potential calie and inform on you. The calie system was an efficient network of spies
whose jurisdiction spanned the entire country. Individual calies were designated certain

towns from which to monitor and report any unusual activities.

 

88Letter from Commanding Officer of the 23rd Co. in Lonm de Cabrera to Commanding Chief of the Army.
See EN Leg.47 exp. 101, Dec. 25, 1943. AGN. There was, according to this official, “a daily system of
connections between the Company Posts and that even the Officers go out many times to see the
countryside ect.”

89At times, the identity of some of the calies was known to the larger community. Most being members of
the Dominican party. However the calies’ effectiveness as spies depended on their surreptitious nature.
Anyone could be a calie. The grocer, the butcher, the young or old man standing beside you in a park. Since
you could not be sure of the person’s political affiliation, most Dominicans were conscious of what they
said in public. This was a unique repressive tactic by the state to control potential anti-govemment

discontent
200

Although most people in a community could speculate on the identity of an
informer, their identity was confidential and anonymous. Nonetheless, I found a
government document with a list containing more than a dozen names and towns where
government informers spied. The list is a valuable source of information because it shows
the extent of spies along the border and the specific towns and places they were
responsible for monitoring. Always under the orders of an army officer, calies had no
territorial limits, even to the point of spying in Haiti. Dorrrinicans such as Eladio Mendez,
Ulises Mateo, Elias Ramon, and Alcibiades Ogando (alias Quiqui), were all government
informers and all spied throughout the Dominican-Haitian border fiom Elias Pina,
Carrizal, and Banica to the Haitian towns of Los Cacaos and Veladero.90

Combined, the network of spies and the visible presence of the military made it
very difficult for Dominicans to either voice any anti-govemment sentiments or organize
successful protests.91 According to Dominican intelligence reports, the lives of the people
under surveillance were meticulously documented. The confidential information included
suspects’ names and whether they were enemies or indifferent to the government; their
place of residence; close family friends and acquaintances; economic status; previous and
present political affiliation; who they visited and who visited them; political antecedents;
and previous conduct.92

The job of the military and spy network was to root out all forms of subversive or

potentially subversive behavior before it reached a collective wave of protest against the

 

”Calie jurisdiction also included food and clothing markets in Haitian territory. According to this
document, calies (perhaps just those in the border) were paid $20 pesos a month to spy on their fellow
citizens. Radiogram from Cornrmnder of the Border Department Lte. Col. Fausto E. Caamaflo to Army’s
Commander-in-Chief. See EN Leg. 46 exp.101, Feb. 24, 1943. AGN.

91Despite the repressive censorship of the regime, there were moments of collective protest, such as the
unprecedented labor strike of 1946, which stOpped production in many important sugar mills in the eastern
part of the Dominican Republic. As a result of the strike, salaries in the sugar industry were raised
substantially but, as to be expected, the government retalitated violently against many of the labor leaders
such as Mauricio Baez. See Franklin J .Franco Historia del pueblo dominicana II. (Santo Domingo: Instituto
del Libro, 1992), pg.548.

92Sec Reportes de Inteligencia--Datos Confidenciales, EN Leg.244 exp.59, Oct.20, 1937. AGN.
201

regime. Trujillo was very paranoid about anything that threatened or even questioned his
authority. Indeed, his government personnel routinely interrogated people (informally and
formally) with respect to subversive propaganda. In one case, two men near the border in
El Cercado were arrested for possessing a photograph of Trujillo stained with red ink so
“that it appeared that the author of this treasonous act wanted to give the impression that
these red stains were blood sprouting from the eyes, nose, mouth, etc.”93 Quite naturally,
this state-induced paranoia under Trujillo to monitor its citizens spread to the calie
practices which, as in many cases of spies in authoritarian regimes, were always willing
to report what they believed the authorities wanted to hear.

T rujillo’s government demanded conformity from its citizens, and fi'ee thought
was not welcomed. The government was sensitive to the ramifications of individuals who
vented their anger in public. In the Dominican Republic of the 19403 and 503, anyone
could be arrested for the slightest thing considered subversive. For example, in the border
town of Monte Cristi, two men were arrested by the police for “uttering obscene words in
public and the second [man for] driving his public car with excess passengers?”M Many
elderly Dominicans interviewed about crime during Trujillo’s government invariably
repeated the same thing. They nostalgically remembered how it was safe to walk the
streets at night or sleep on the side of a road with money in your pocket without worry of
getting robbed. Ifthings seemed comparatively safer back then, it does not mean that the
nation or the border was crime-free. Robberies did occur, despite the presence of a
ruthless dictatorial apparatus. Both Dominicans and Haitians committed crimes such as
robbery, and participated in the contraband trade. Whether it was stealing chickens or
assaulting someone and stealing $48.00 pesos from them, robberies occurred during this

95
period. Although Dominicans committed many crimes and were arrested for them it was

 

93EN Leg.47 exp.101 Sept. 21, 1943. AGN.
94

Letter from First Lte. Fabio Patxot in the National Police to Gov. of Monte Cristi Castro Mteety. See
Gobemacion Provincia Monte Cristi Leg.6 exp.22, Jan. 1, 1939.

9’lhid. Feb. 18, 1939. AGN.
202

Haitians who were branded as the major cattle thieves. For government officials, there
was a clear distinction (at least on paper) between Dominicans robbing chickens in their
country, and Haitians stealing cattle and taking their prizes back to their country. In one
ironic letter, a military official who was sworn to uphold the nation’s ideals (i.e. thou
shall not steal) minimized Dominican crimes of theft. He wrote: “Robberies committed
by Dominicans, these have been of little importance, like the stealing of yucca, chicken,
bananas, and goats, and have been submitted to the Law and sanctioned for these acts”)6

The border had always been a site for contraband, and the stealing of cattle in the
twentieth century was no exception. But under Trujillo, a Haitian incursion into
Dorrrinican tenitory was more than just an illegal entry. It became more significant. Every
time Haitians stole Dominican cattle, it was a blow to Trujillo’s state-building project
along the border, revealing that state was actually quite weak in controlling this region.
There were gangs of Haitians thieves (including some Dominicans) that stole animals
fiom farms owned by Dominicans. One official wrote: “This gang of thieves has thrashed
the Section of ‘El Limon,’ because in the last twenty days of the current month they have
robbed a quantity of thirty-eight hogs and four cows; 25 pigs and two cows from Mr.
Efrain Pérez and 13 pigs and 2 cows from Eliseo Perez.”97

Officials knew that most of the Haitian activity on Dorrrinican territory, going
back hundreds of years, was inter-border trade, yet theft was underscored consistently in
the documents. The contraband trade was a major focus of the government authorities
along the border. Many frustrated and anti-Haitian Trujillista officials wrote of the
Haitian’s “biological need” to steal. One official alluded to the economic causes of
Haitian migration and theft in the Dominican Republic, but reminded his readers that

Haitians were “inherently prone” to steal. Writing about the nightly Haitian raids on

 

96Letter from Barrack’s Army Commander 2nd Lte. Julio A. Conde to the Cormnander of the Northern
Army Department in Elias Pir'ra in La Rancha, a hamlet near El Cercado. See Ministerio de Agricultura
Leg.lO, June 10, 1944. AGN.

97Informe Confidencial EN Leg.49 exp.56, Jan. 27, 1944. AGN.
203

Dominican farms across the border and the remains of dismembered animal parts that

thieves left due to sloppy disposal of the evidence, one official commented:

This is due more to the innate tendency in all Haitians to rob than to the great
shortage of food that is felt more each day in the neighboring country. On market
days here [Dajabon] like in Loma de Cabrera, Haitians purchase great quantities
of provisions, cassava, butter, etc. and asking a woman why they bought so much,
she told me that the Americans have taken all the lands and destroyed the sowing
of the plots and that in Haiti there is much hunger, that she sold in Cap Haitien a
load of plantains bought in Lorna de Cabrera at the rate of three cents for every
plantain.98

This is one of the reasons why the government at this time gave so many border
cattle owner’s permission to enter Haiti, so that they could “see cattle that he (the farmer)
has in Haitian territory.”99 But not many government officials would recognize (at least
not on paper) that the loss of cattle went beyond robbery along the border. Most of the
documents examined did not offer any other explanation than that Haitians stole the
cattle. Only one document I found acknowledged that cattle were not being stolen, but
were following their traditional grazing patterns. This official seemed to have become
tired of Dominican border residents “crying Haitian wolf” when their cattle were missing.

He wrote:

I noticed the grave error that occurred in that...that every time that some
animalsdisappear it is referred to as a robbery; well it has been shown that in
times of drought [cattle] are accustomed to... cross the Haitian border where...they
are “lost” but not stolen from their place of origin; it is good that everyone take
note of this in order to avoid bothering the authorities with false
accusations...making it look that there exists many robberies where in really there

 

9" Letter from Border Observer Marco Antonio Cabral in Dajabon to Sec. of Foreign Relations Manuel A.
Peiia Batlle, EN Leg.47 exp.101, Nov. 29, 1943. AGN.

99See the Cronologico de Interior y Policia. Correspondencia de Certificado de Exencion de Deposito para
ausentarse del pais. Dec. 1941. AGN.
204

are none. 100

Trujillo’s project to transform the border and modernize it targeted the way
Dominicans lived down to the most intimate details of their daily lives. One example was
the state’s concern for the border tradition of courtship between men and women. Young
men would “kidnap” their girlfiiends (raptor) in a type of rural elopement: a custom that
was very common and accepted by most border residents. The state viewed this ritual, as
undermining their role as well as the church’s role in creating what it believed was the
ideal procedure for Dominican courtship and marriage. This meant that the Dominican
couple had to get state recognition and Catholic acceptance for their marriage to be
deemed acceptable before the government. Yet in the Dominican Republic, common-law
marriages were very common, not just along the border, but throughout the country. This
type of arrangement undermined the govemment’s ability to know how many of its
citizens were single or married. This loss of control was evident in a report written by the

Jesuit mission in Dajabon in 1944.

There continues extensively the practice of young women being kidnapped, the
majority under age and even girl students from school, and not only persons of the
lowest social scale but also among the highest category...The Law of the Republic
that imposes on the kidnapper either prison or matrimony needs to be applied here
.because the kidnapper accepts matrimony immediately to avoid prison and very
quickly [thereafter] abandons his consort, who lacks the economic means to
negotiate her divorce; [she] remains neither single nor in reality married [although
legally she is] nor a widow [living] in an anti-social condition that takes her
ahnost irreconcilably to prostitution; we could make a very sad list, unfortunately
too long, of these kidnappings which are solved with a purely negotiated marriage
and which attempts to go against the consolidation of the traditional family.101

 

'°° Gobemacién de Monte Cristi Leg. 15 exp. 106. Asambleas Provincial nominas de empleados publicos y
numicipales etc.. Acta de la Asamblea Provincial de Autoridades Celebrada en el Coml'ln de Guayubin,
March 2, 1941. AGN.
'0' Transcripcion de la parte final del informe trirnestral. Por la mision fronteriza en Dajabon. EN Leg.48,
Jan. 3, 1944. AGN. In an interview with my seventy-year-old aunt Josefina Ortiz, she explained that as a
young woman this pratice of “kidnappings” was very common and widespread in young couples who could
not afford the costs of a wedding. “The boyfriend, with the consent of his girlfriend, would ‘kidnap’ his
partner and take her away to his house during the night. In the morning, the boyfriend’s parents would
support this union, and the couple would then visit the judge and priest, but you did not have to spend

205

At a time when the state’s mission was to incorporate and control the border
region and culturally homogenize its autonomous population, the widespread practice of
kidnappings directly challenged the govemment’s own version of what the institution of
marriage should be and its ability to control the population. Control, after all, was the
main objective for a dictatorial regime intent on extending its power over a region that
had for years been resistant to government authority. But marriage was not the only
aspect of border life where the state felt threatened by local traditions. The state viewed
the proximity of Dominicans to Haitians and the cultural activities they shared as
retrograde. “The night parties that last until dawn in unhealthy, badly ventilated places, to
the dim light of footlights or of a fragment of lighted mahogany, are witty incentives of
immorality and drunkenness...The Lights to the Saints are the remains of customs from
the other side [Haitian] of the border.”102

State control and presence in the border meant that cultural celebrations, like
kidnappings, had to be eliminated because they represented the worst cases of what the
government believed was another example of Haitian influenced immorality. In reality,
the government saw these events as examples of parents and families undermining state
control and its ability to regulate society.

As in the rest of the country, the government sought to control border residents by
arresting those who violated newly established laws against vagrants, public inebriation,

103
and gambling Sites. But, unlike the rest of the country, these illegal activities were

 

[extra] money-- there were no guests.” My aunt remembers that the practice of non-legal marriages was so
widespread and detached from state intrusion and supervision, that in the mid-19403 Trujillo ordered a
drastic measure to reverse this phenomenon. Called El Jubileo, “Trujillo created this: that everyone go to
the Justice of the Peace and priest, and they would marry them for free. I remember because Miguelo [her
brother] used to say ‘Mama is getting married, mama is getting married,’ because Mama [her mother] was
only married by the courts. At that time it was an obligation for couples living together to get marrried by

thze courts and the church.” Telephone interview with Josefina Ortiz, Nov. 26, 1999.
1

Ibid.
03.According to one government official, gambling (principally dice) was seen as a “delightful vice.” See
Gobemacion de Monte Cristi, Asambleas de Provincia nominas de empleados publicos y municipios, carta
informe trimestral correpondiente a los meses julio, agosto, y septiembre que rinde la alcaldia comunal de
206

taking place at a time where the state imposed its own set of laws intended to reduce the
historic autonomy associated with this region.

The quest to Dominicanize and modernize the border was always portrayed as a
contrast to poor and backward Haiti. This led Trujillo’s government to expose
Dominicans to cultural programs such as public concerts and socio-cultural lectures by
the govemment’s political intellectuals. Musical bands, art exhibitions, and political
meetings were all active symbols that were used to attract Dominicans into the expanding
state. A new culture and protocol along the border developed as the state permeated all
levels of society in the name of progress and modernity. But transforming the border was
a difficult enough task, which, along with creating institutions, had to contend with local
reaction against state encroachment. An ideological barrier that justified Trujillo’s border
crusade also, therefore, supported the state institutional Dorrrinicanization “fence”. After
the 1937 Haitian Massacre, Dominican intellectuals created a discourse that sought to
justify Trujillo’s genocidal act by branding Haitians as invaders and carriers of both
disease and a retrograde culture. The amount of anti-Haitian publications was staggering.
Newspaper articles, books, and government documents were written extolling the virtues
of Trujillo’s border project, while vilifying Haiti and the Haitian people. This literature
gave a moral voice to the institutional transformations that were occurring on the ground,
while convincing Dominicans both in the border and those far removed from it, that the
nationalization of the border was a patriotic endeavor necessary for the nation’s defense.
The intellectual anti-Haitian and racist discourse of the Dominican intelligentsia that
followed the 1937 Massacre was more than the ideological underpinnings of Trujillo’s
fascistic imagination. It was created by ordinary Dominican intellectuals who, out of fear
and extreme sycophancy to the regime, published xenophobic propaganda that would
influence the way Dominicans viewed Haitians long after Trujillo’s assassination in 1961.

Villa Isabela a1 Gob. de la provincia, Leg. 15 exp.107, Sept. 25, 1941. AGN.
207

It was these writings that made the massacre more insidious because it justified the
separatist policy to nationalize the border after 1937 and something glorious rather than a
state-building project carried out atop a genocidal massacre. The next chapter addresses
the role of this discourse and its impact in promoting the new Dominican national identity

on the border.

208

Chapter 6
Anti-Haitian Discourse and the Border

The Dominicanization of the border through the establishment of state
institutions following the 1937 Massacre became the foundation for the official
intensification of the historic Dominican prejudices of Haitians. Dominicanizing the
border was official state policy and it became an extension of the massacre, which
aimed to erase the widespread Haitian presence throughout the Dominican border.
Along with the institutionalization of the border, the state therefore, also promoted an
ideological campaign to convince Dominicans that the massacre was justified for the
good of the nation. This justification came in the form of an ideological bombardment
from the government depicting Haiti as a bastion of evil and retrograde culture, and of
its people as “invaders” of the Dominican Republic; people who were viewed as
inferior and as enemies of the state. In this chapter I examine how following the
massacre Dominican officials solidified a traditional anti-Haitian sentiment and
transformed it into a national ideology. Trujillo intellectuals capitalized on the
Dominican collective and negative memories of nineteenth century Haitian invasions
to promote a new nationalism that was simultaneously anti-Haitian and xenophobic.
Thus by doing this Trujillo portrayed the massacre as part of a historic struggle
against Haitian encroachment into Dominican land and in essence able to justify the
genocidal policy. By examining the writings of several key Trujillo ideologues and
comparing it with government reports from the border I show just how difficult it was
for the state to Dominicanize this region.

The Trujillo government used all its institutions to convey this message of
hate. According to historian Frank Moya Pons and as we have seen from the primary
documents in the last chapter, “Dominicans received a daily bombardment of this

nationalist ideology in the schools, in the newspapers, on the radio, in political

209

speeches, in cultural acts, and on television.”1 The massacre was turned on its head
and, instead of being portrayed as a genocidal policy that killed thousands of innocent
civilians; it was transformed into an essential unapologetic act of ethnic cleansing to
save the nation. Yet official anti-Haitianism as state ideology was a strong but
inconsistent policy during the Trujillo regime. Although the regime was characterized
generally as hostile with Haiti, anti-Haitian and racist propaganda was limited to two
periods during Trujillo’s regime: between 1937-1941 and 1942-1946. The first period
of anti-Haitianism was a Dominican response to President Vincent’s solicitation of
international mediation for the massacre. Trujillo felt humiliated because Vincent
disregarded Santo Domingo’s October 15 diplomatic commrmiqué, giving both
countries nominal authority to investigate the massacre. The year 1941 brought a
respite from the anti-Haitian propaganda when Haitian President Elie Lescot
(Trujillo’s personal fiiend) came to power.2 Relations between the two leaders
became strained, however, due to Lescot’s unexpected independent leadership, which
eliminated an important Trujillo ally in the Haitian government. From 1942 until
1946, when Lescot was overthrown in a revolution, the Dominican government
activated its anti-Haitian ideological machine to discredit the Haitian president
through nationalist’s diatribes against Haiti, its culture, and its people.

Vega writes that although there were sporadic anti-Haitian publications after
1946, the Dominican government stopped utilizing anti-Haitianism ideology as
official policy.3 For Vega, the major reason that explains Dominican anti-Haitianism
from 1942-1946 was Trujillo’s animosity toward a Haitian President he could not

control. Yet, if after 1946, anti-Haitianism ceased to be part of official government

 

'Frank Moya Pons, “La frontera politica,” Rumbo, No.271 (April 12, 1999), pg.4.
2

Aside from being fiiends, Lescot had been bribed by Trujillo in the early 19303. See Bernardo Vega’s,
Trujillo y Haiti I93 7-1938 Vol.II. (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural Dorrrinicana, 1995), pg.359.

3

Bernardo Vega, “Variaciones en el uso del antihaitianismo durante la era de Trujillo,” Listin Diario,

(October 24, 1995), pg. 4.
210

policy, it remained an important component of the nationalistic discourse through
newspapers, books, and government documents. Even after 1946, therefore, the
Dominican government under Trujillo would continue to resort to anti-Haitianism,
even if it was not officially sanctioned. Yet Vega seems to not recognize that although
it was no longer government policy after 1946, Trujillo anti-Haitianism had by this
time become imbedded in the national discourse and as a result did not need official
state sponsorship to filnction.

In the span of several months, Dominican government policy went from being
cordial and very fiiendly, to racist and xenophobic toward Haitians. As early as 1938,
books were published in Santo Domingo describing Haiti and its African-centered

culture as a threat to the more Iberian- (European) centered Dominican Republic:

Racially, psychologically, historically, and idiomatically, the barrier is
formidable. The primitivism of the customs in the popular masses; the savage
interpretation from which those same masses adopt the religious material; the
social restructuring; the language, which is the inferior French, for the
common people in a semi barbarous patois; the ethnic ancestry elevated to a
patriotic cult; the marked intolerance before racial elements of non-African
origin...This is why the dangers and threats that come from the other side of
that border are and will be dangers and common threats to all and everyone of
the people of the [Caribbean] Archipelago whose origins, ideologies,
language, customs, and race have been derived from the great Hispanic trunk.
The problem is, then, a serious problem of Antilleanness.4

Many government publications gave tacit approval to the killings, often in
Very indirect ways. One such publication was the Dominican Political Party’s official
newspaper: the govemment’s official voice of propaganda. In a series of articles, the
Party’s Boletin del Partido Dominicana (BPD, Bulletin of the Dominican Party,

described what it considered to be the scourge of the border: poor, Black and

 

 

4 V. Diaz Ordonez, El mas antiguo y grave problema antillano. (Ciudad Trujillo: La Opinion, 193 8),
pg. 13-14.
21 1

paganistic Haitians. For this magazine, a fixed line on paper did not secure control of

the border.

Let us return to the problem. The fact of having definitely resolved the
question of limits between our country and the neighboring Republic of Haiti
through a treaty is in itself a fact, but did not achieve the miracle of the
Dominicanization of those lands. Sociology and Biology do not live on
transcendental miracles. First the material line of demarcation between both
countries. Afterwards progressive and integral Dominicanization of those
territories.5

Dominicanizing the border especially after 1937 meant making it less
culturally Haitian. Following the massacre and for the next few years until 1946, the
state began a progandistic campaign attacking its neighbor for having a “backwards”
culture. Articles released by the Dominican Party attempted to tacitly convince its
readers that the massacre was in some way inevitable if the state was to “save”
Dorrrinican border residents, who were being exposed to the pernicious effects of

Haitian culture:

Barbarous rituals inherited by the Haitians fi'om their African ancestors made
many Dominicans prisoners. The ominous ‘Voudou’; witchcraft in its many
crude forms; [Haitians capitalized] on the ignorance of the [Dominican]
peasantry, and the ‘Papa Boco’ master of the power of communication with
the spirits from that necromantic jungle, absurd, paranoid, physically
degenerated, also had fun [the Papa Boco] with caresses of Dominican
women, falling in disgrace because of their lack of culture.6

The government saw the border as a dangerous place precisely because it had

always existed and developed beyond state control. The border was in closer

 

5 Boletin del Partido Dominicano June 30, 1940. pg.5. AGN.
6Ibid. July 30, 1943. pg.6. “The mathematical outline of a border line does not imply some division if it
is not followed by a conscious restructuring of ideo-national division in which the constitutive elements

of the nationality can enter amply.”
2 1 2

proximity to Haiti than to the capital of Santo Domingo, thus everything defined, as
culturally Haitian was also associated with Dominican border residents. Government
officials, who wrote about border crime dating back to the sixteenth and seventeen
centuries, perpetuated the perception that crime was endemic to the border. As Freddy
Prestol Castillo, a border cultural agent and later posthumous novelist wrote towards

the end of the dictatorship:

Traditionally they [border Dominicans] have been beaten by thieves of the
neighboring country. And when a man has killed several thieves, he is already
hardened. The [17 77] Aranjuez Border Line was stained with blood fiom the
first day because over every landmark there was placed a horrricide. In order to
possess it [the border], it was necessary to kill.7

For Trujillo, the logic was simple: eliminate Haitians from the border and,
consequently, crime would disappear; however, crime, especially in the form of
contraband, continued and thrived despite the encroachment of state institutions. So
too did interborder trade between both people, which by this time had been active for
close to five centuries.8 The Dominican intelligentsia and, especially, the press also
espoused racially and chauvinistic stereotypes of Haitians as a way to curry favor with
the regime and to remain employed. Along with this anti-Haitian project there was the
government campaign to create a national Eurocentric identity that was encapsulated
in the ideology called hispanidad.

Under this ideological rubric, the state as Spanish, white, and Catholic now

 

7Freddy Prestol Castillo, “Delitos y delincuentes en la frontera,” 11 La Nacio'n April 4, 1959, pg.7.

8Despite its best efforts, the Dominican govemment was unable stop all trade between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic. According to one scholar, socio-economic relations throughout the border region
were so entrenched, that “when the [Dominican] state tried to repress the commercial activities, they
continued in secret.” See Michel band’s “Una frontera-refilgiozDominicanos y Haitianos contra el
estado (1870-1930),” Estudios Sociales XXVI No.92 (Abril-Junio 1993), pg.63. This resilient informal
economy has continued up till today where estimates of interborder trade reach into the millions of
dollars. For contemporary socio-economic and informative journalistic review see the Dorrrinican
magazine Rumbo April 12, 1999, pg.37. pgs.37-45.

2 1 3

defined the Dominican nation, whose citizens were mostly of mixed race.9 In the
19403 and 19503, the press perpetuated anti-Haitianism. The language used to glorify
Trujillo’s border project and, by extension, to deflect attention away from the
massacre, was often outrageously racist. The Haitian language, religion, and culture,
all came under attack and were used by the elite to distinguish between Black Haitians

and Dominicans who now had become “white”:

On the border the [Dominican] race was bastardized by the slow and pacific
infiltration of the western neighbors which, installing themselves in this
[border] region, brought with them their mode of primitive life, their customs,
their ancestral superstitions, like the ‘boudou,’ the ‘lua,’ the ‘gaga,’ the
necromantic practices for the use of cadavers with magical ends.10

For the state’s new ideology of hispanidad, the influence of Haitian religion
throughout the Dominican border undermined the notion that Trujillo’s countrymen in
this region were all Catholic; thus the push to promote the Catholic religion. In his
many speeches, Trujillo himself waxed incessantly about how Dominicans were
Catholic to the bone marrow. According to Trujillo, Catholicism became a marker of
national identity as well as a distinguishing feature between Haitian and Dominican

culture: “You have to be Christian and Catholic not by name but by deed and accept

 

9According to one scholar, Truj illo’s quest to transfom the racial and ethnic make-up of the Dorrrinican
nation reached the point of absurdity as be convinced the National Congress to legally erase any doubts
of his mother’s Haitian anscestry by declaring her lineage (Chevalier) of French origin. See R. Michael
Malek, “Dominican Republic’s General Rafael L. Trujillo M. and the Haitian Massacre of 1937: A
Case of Subversion in Inter-Caribbean Relations,” Journal of the Southeastern Conference on Latin
American Studies (Secolas), Vol.11 (March 1980), pg.151.
l0La Nacio'n, Dec. 8, 1946, pg.4. Further study needs to be conducted as to the counter-folk traditions
used by Dominican border residents vis-a-vis those persons who practiced Haitian cultural traditions
and were identified as members of the latter group. Thus far my research has found that many
Dominican border residents shared Haitian cultural traditions like the Dominican version of Haitian
voudou. Although and quite obviously, counter-Haitian folk traditions, like Catholicism, were
Promoted by the state, in the Dominican Republic, especially in the border, religion more often than
00t, “reflected a Christian-African syncretism orginating in the colonial era.” See Carlos Esteban
Deive, “La herencia africana en la cultura dominicana actual,” in Ensayos sobre cultura dominicana,
(Santo Domingo: Museo del Hombre Dominicano), pg. 125.

214

in this world’s critical hour the duty that is placed upon those groups of human beings
appointed by history, by culture, by thought, and by the sentiments of Catholicism.”11

The regime’s propaganda machine was able to portray Dominican Catholics
by contrasting their militant Catholicism to Haiti’s rich and complex tradition of
Voudou, which was portrayed as evil. Dominicans could define themselves in
opposition to Haiti and its culture. This good Dominican vs. bad Haitian duality
sustained the anti-Haitian discourse after the 1937 Massacre. This discourse was
instrumental for two reasons: first it was relatively easy to apply, since most
Dominicans were already Catholic. This made it easier for Trujillo to consolidate and
control the nation, especially the border, through institutions such as the church and
the roving, proselytizing priests. Second by elevating Catholicism to a state religion,
and then seeking and obtaining Vatican endorsement, the Dominican Republic
received international recognition and at least some type of validation from the
Vatican: “From here a fratemal embrace with the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church,
in principal for being religious, [for upholding the]creed of our tradition and the one
that he [Trujillo] professes.”12

It was during this time that the Dominican nation was portrayed as more
Spanish than the Spaniards. Denying the reality of everyday life in the Dominican
Republic, particularly in the border region where neo-African and Haitian culture
were just as strong as neo-Spanish culture. The Trujillo-Era discourse defined
Dominicans as Spaniards or direct descendants of the conquistadors. The self-
conscious, light-skinned mulatto dictator was the first one to espouse his Iberian
heritage. His fixation on Spanish culture was clear in a speech he gave after being

awarded the Decoration of the Order of Carlos III medal by the Spanish government.

 

llRafael L. Trujillo, Discursos, mensajes, y proclamas, Vol.7 (Santiago,RD: Editora El Diario, 1947),
g. 18 1.
2Tulio A. Cestero-Burgos, Trujillo y el cristianismo 2ed. (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Libreria

Dominicana, 1956), pg.15.
215

Upon receiving his medal (one of the countless medals that proudly adomed his
chest), Trujillo told his audience that, “Yours [Spanish] is our language, our tradition,
our domestic ideas, [and] our culture is yours. Yours is the noble quality of the
municipalities of our land, essence of democracy.”13

The official discourse of Trujillo’s government presented Spanish culture,
fi'om language to religion, as a major underpinning of Dominican national identity. It
was as if the Dominican Republic were the most western province of Spain in the
Caribbean. The pro-Spanish discourse itself was so staggering that anyone reading the
newspapers or government speeches of the era would assume that Dominicans were
Spanish, white, and Catholic. Trujillo himself would say that his people were
interconnected “with the characteristics of the Spanish race, which was part of its own
race, and with the most pure essences of the Hispanic culture.”14

This cultural connection, the Dominican elite’s strategy to remain close to
Spain, preceded Trujillo’s rise to power. This was not the first time that Dominican
leaders looked to Spain for guidance and support. The most dramatic example came
in the nineteenth century when Dominican leaders who had fought against Haiti in the
18403 and 18503 chose to give up their independence and be annexed by Spain in
1861 rather than risk being invaded and controlled by Haiti. In a historical context,
therefore, Trujillo’s zealous quest to embrace Spain as the cultural and racial
progenitor of the nation shows a strategic pattern of Dominican governments to
distinguish themselves from Haiti.

The Dorrrinican intellectual Pefia Batlle reminded his readers, that in the past,

the Dominican nation, has had to forfeit its independence to European powers so as

 

l3Rafael L. Trujillo, Discursos, mensajes, y proclamas Vol.7, pg.254. During the Trujillo, there was no
counter-rhetoric challenging Trujillo’s anti-Haitian and hispanic anti-Haitian doctrine. However it is
important to remember that the official ideological discourse like the massacre before it, was a response
to Dominican interaction with Haitians and absorption of their culture being played out daily
throughout the border.

l’Ibid. vol.5, pg.175.
216

not to be controlled by Haiti: “Continuously we have seen ourselves obligated to go
backwards--by way of conservation--so as not to lose our characteristics, permanently
challenged by the imperialistic Calvinists [the United States], and the basic
Afiicanism of the formation of Haitian society.”15

Under Trujillo, the Dominican nation was not subjected to military invasion
by Haiti, but the latter’s presence and the government as a major threat to its
sovereignty viewed influence. The border became ground zero in a state project
whose goal it was to impose a reality that contradicted the bicultural and
interdependent experience, which was characteristic of border life. The state
perpetuated and spread negative perceptions of Haitians through the press as one way
to convince Dominicans that they were superior to Haitians. Dominicans who already
possessed long held prejudices toward Haiti were exposed to an anti-Haitian
discourse that was re-inventing Haiti in the Dominican mind. On the border, residents
had several local newspapers that echoed anti-Haitian articles published in the capital.
One newspaper in Dajabon, for example, praised Trujillo’s border project, saying that
the border was lost to crime and Haiti until Trujillo’s arrival: “[He] Dominicarrized
the border, considered geographically and socially separated from the rest of the
country, a last redoubt of murderers and the discontented, whose customs and
language were dangerously threatened by being displaced by the superstitious
practices and customs of our archaic neighbors of the West.”16 Other newspapers
described this region as a center of crime. They also spoke to the traditional lack of
state control, which made it difficult for Trujillo to incorporate these marginal

citizens.

 

lsManuel Arturo Peiia Batlle, El tratado de Basilea y la desnacionalizacion del Santo Domingo
espafiol (Ciudad Trujillo: lrrrpresora Dominicana, 1952), pg.24. According to Pefia Batlle unlike other
Latin American nations, the Dominican Republic matured and fought toward independence “by never
stopping to be Spaniards.”
16
“La constructiva labor de Trujillo,” Beller, Jan. 1960, pg.2.
217

Arnoral men had previously resided in our border, entirely ignorant of the
beautiful notes of our Anthem; their only work was the contraband trade with
the neighboring country, but now, thanks to Trujillo and his immaculate
patriotism, those malignant things have ceased at once and for always. There,
since some time, you breathe the pure air of our Dominicaness.l7

These articles usually addressed the ongoing work to Dominicanize or de-
Haitianize the border, or praised effusively the achievements of Trujillo’s state project
throughout the region. The belief was that the Dominican nation began on the border
and, therefore, had to be protected from further spread of Haitian culture. Because of
its proximity, Dominican border towns were more susceptible to the encroachment by
Haitian culture. This influence, such as being able to speak both languages,
undermined tenets of the new national identity that portrayed Dominicans as
monolingual Spanish speakers. “It is in the border where the mother-tongue begins to
lose its purity and extension if farsighted measures are not adopted to stop the
denationalized influx of the language with the bordering country... when the border is
neglected the duty is to conserve it.”18 The success of the Dorrrinicanization border
project meant that the less residents spoke Kreyol, the more Dominican they would
become. For the press, the project was successful and according to Daj abon’s
newspaper: “The Castillian [language] is pronounced very well in the border!”19 But
the reality was quite different.

Government officials were all too aware that the border was not a linguistic

monolith. Border contact as we have seen in chapters four and five had produced

 

l7“Trujillo y la frontera,” La Nacion, April 23, 1949.
18

“La dominicanizacion fi’onteriza de la frontera y sus enernigos,” La Nacio’n, June 20, 1945, pg.3.
19

“De Elias Piiia a Dajabon,” El Libertador, Feb. 10, 1945, pg.4. Today there are many border
Dominicans who can speak and understand Kreyol. Many of them are older and can remember when
relations with Haiti were very good and constant. Many of the younger border generation do not speak

Kreyol, but there are some.
218

many unions between Haitians and Dominicans throughout the years. While
newspaper articles and books praised the successes of the Dominicanization project in
de-Haitianizing the Dominican border culture, official government documents from
the region contradicted the propaganda. The government was not able to stop the
interaction between both peoples, especially when those individuals were family
members. A confidential army report confirmed these familial ties across the border
and categorized it as a fundamental problem in the govemment’s policy to

Dominicanize the region:

There exists in this town [of Pedemales] and its outskirts a numerous group of
Haitians [men and women] that by having Haitian family members such as
fathers, mothers, sisters, sons, nephews, concubines, etc. all residents in Haiti,
their sentiments, way of thinking, and behavior are absolutely Haitian. It is
logical to assume that these people, in one way or the other, and valuing their
tricks, communicate with their family members living on the other side of the
border. It is my opinion that the permanence of these people here is a great
obstacle for the development of the Dorrrinicanization of the Border Plan that
is taking place led by our Illustrious Chief Generalissimo Dr. Rafael L. Truillo
Molina, and is a threat to the national security. As a result of the
aforementioned, I consider recommendable...that all these people should be
ousted fi'om this town and taken to live in other regions of the Republic far
from the border.20

Unions between Haitians and Dominicans undermined Trujillo’s border
project because they did not fit in the new definition of what the state viewed as an
authentic Dominican identity. This so undermined government politics along the
border that even army officials contemplated the resettlement of these bi-cultural
communities. In reality, these Dominican border residents did not seriously threaten
the government. Their culture was not going to destabilize or overthrow the Trujillo

regime. The possibility of greater interaction between Haitians and Dominicans in the

 

20Confidential Report by Army Captain Federico E. Castro, Cormnander of the Southwestern

Command, to his Commanding Officer. EN Leg.60 exp.101, July 17, 1945. AGN.
219

border and the symbolism it represented to Trujillo’s definition of Dominican
nationalism, especially Haitian men (military officers) courting Dominican women,
was threatening to the state, which felt that their women had to be protected from
Haitians. Here was the state trying to limit the access of Haitians so as not to
“contaminate” the nation, but its women were challenging the prescribed roles of
what a good woman, a good Dominican, should be. The removal of women from their
towns because they chose to be with Haitian men was a serious blow to the state’s
definition of national family and Dominican sexuality. Recalling the ease with which

Haitian army officers could enter Dorrrinican territory, one army officer wrote:

For a long time Haitian officers entered Daj abon at all hours and indefinitely.
These visits resulted in a number of women and young ladies of that town
entering in amorous relations with these Officers in such an unseemly way that
it was necessary to remove these women fi'om town and make them go and
live in towns of the interior of the [Dominican] Republic.21

But women were not the only ones who the government believed should be
relocated for conducting “inappropriate” relationships with Haitians. Men were also
included in these plans, not because of their relationships with Haitian women, since
the state never felt threatened by Dominican men forming unions with Haitian
women, but rather for having close ties with family members in Haiti.

One of the consequences of an increased state presence along the border was
its impact on the families living on both sides of the border. New regulations imposed
by the state to monitor the flow of incoming and outgoing visitors now required them
to have passports to cross a border that had been relatively open. But as one official

wrote, both Dominicans and Haitians with family members on opposite sides of the

 

2'EN Leg.46 exp. 101, Feb. 12, 1943. AGN. Clearly the state viewed the Dominican family on the
border as an extension of the nation. Haitians were seen as destablizers of the Dominican family and by
extension the nation. Yet the documents I examined never addressed the issue of consent by Dominican

women or if these meetings ever result in “kidnappings”.
220

border continued to visit each other and maintained their family linkages in spite of
new government regulations against open border crossings. State laws were being so
flagrantly ignored that officials seriously contemplated deporting entire groups of

Dominican men and women away from the border:

There exists on the very borderline facing this town [Elias Pina] a family with
the surname of Poché-- Dominican. On the other side there is double the
number of the same family, but Haitians. This means that the people on this
side are constantly condemned for violation of the passport law and those on
the other side for violation of the immigration law. We have not been able to
find a way to avoid contact between these people. Because there are many they
have not been sent to the colonies in the interior, but sooner or later we will
have to do something similar.22

Here was a clear example of the failure of the Dominicanization program
despite the institutional encroachments and ideological rhetoric to convince
Dominicans to reject and hate their Haitian neighbors. Moreover, it demonstrates how
the Dominican state was not entirely successful in controlling women and their
bodies. Despite the ubiquitous army patrols and clandestine network of spies, they
were unable to stop all together the mingling of both peoples. Government documents
reveal that Haitians had no problem crossing the border into the Dominican Republic.
Five years after the massacre, and at a time when Dominicanizing the border had
become a government priority, Haitian access to the Dominican side continued
lulimpeded. The apparent ease with which Haitians, especially army personnel, could
cross the border and socialize with Dominicans, especially women, forced the

Dominican Army to curtail and monitor these visits. Furthermore, despite the anti-

 

22Letter from Lte. Col. and Commander of the Northwest Department, F austo E. Caamafio to Trujillo.
EN Leg.47 exp. 101, Aug. 21, 1943. AGN.There were even cases of Dorrrinican soldiers whose parents
lived in Haiti and could perhaps have been of Haitian origin themselves. “I respectfully inform you that
I had news of a Dominican Army Private that serves in the 19th Company named Liriano Decena and
that his comrades nicknamed ‘Donsol’; he has his parents, who live in the Republic of Haiti.” See
Report written by Capt. Joaquin Ma. Montero Monteagudo, Connnanding Officer of the 17th Co. in
Pedro Santana, to Jefe de Estado Mayor, EN Leg. 52 exp.92, Jan. 14, 1949. AGN.

221

Haitian propaganda circulating in newspapers, it apparently had no effect on the
behavior of ordinary Dominicans much less alter the good relations shared between

members of the Dominican and Haitian army in the border town of Daj abon.

The absolute prohibition of visits of Haitian enlisted men to this (our) city was
ordered. With respect to the Haitian Offices it was arranged that when an
Officer crossed over to this side he had to be accompanied to any place he
went to by Lieutenant Valencia or Lieutenant Martinez Gomez, Dominican
Army. This will impede them from having private conversations with any
person in Dajabon and also will impede them from dedicating themselves to
courting Dominican women. I am sure that when this is done to every Haitian
Officer; the visits will diminish ahnost totally without prohibiting their

entry.2

Reading the propaganda at the time, one would have thought that the Haitian
presence along the border was tantamount to an invasion. Indeed the term “silent
invasion” was cemented by the government to justify its project along the border
against Haitian immigration: “From Daj abon to Pedemales until recently, we only
contemplated abandoned countrysides, miserable hamlets, Haitians who resided in
this vast region like owners and gentlemen invading and ousting with their strange
customs our Spanish traditions and above all the wasted and sad picture of misery.”24
But while the government continued its anti-Haitian campaign, reminding
Dominicans of the nineteenth-century Haitian invasions and their neighbor’s
“dangerous” customs to justify its border project, reality on the ground level was
different story. For all the discourse warning Dominicans of Haitian cultural and
military encroachments, the archival documents and oral histories reveal another

story. For the most part, army officials who controlled the border on each side

maintained peaceful relations, even though the border was a magnet for exiles fleeing

 

z"‘EN Leg.46 exp.101 Feb.11, 1943. AGN.

24”El despertar de la frontera,” La Nacién, Sept. 22, 1944, pg.6.
222

both countries and contraband. Furthermore, the Haitian army never really

25
represented a military threat to their eastern neighbor. Just two years after the
massacre, Haitian and Dominican army officials were meeting together in the border.

According to the Dominican army official who filed the report:

I had a cordial interview with the Captain of the Haitian Army in
Ouanarninthe [Haiti], who was accompanied by two fellow Officers; this
Officer was accompanied by Captain Juan J. Fortuna Valdez and two Officers
of our army...[the meeting] was celebrated near the Massacre River in the
neutral zone, in other words in the Center of the two Dominican-Haitian
pyramids which occurred within [the context] of major harmony and
friendship which should reign between the two neighboring nations.26

Although at the level of official discourse Haiti’s image in the Dominican press was
of an aggressive and potentially dangerous foe, militarily at the local level one can see
that it not the Trujillo regime perpetuated. Haiti was a vulnerable state. In a report
filed by an army officer fi'om the border town of Elias Pifia, Haitian army officers are
described in very casual and non-militarized terms: “The Officers, not even their
chief, Major Polinisse, do not carry arms and once night falls they all dress as
civilians. The soldiers only carry carbines or revolvers when they are on duty or

27
transporting a prisoner.” Despite the fact that there was no tangible military threat

 

2s'l’he border itself undermined Trujillo’s power because it was porous, and contraband could easily be
shipped into the country, including weapons that could be used for an armed Dominican insurrection to
overthrow Trujillo. A letter from Pefia Batlle confirms this government concern: “The northern coast
from Port-de-Paix to the Dominican border is being watched by small groups of armed forces who fear
a clandestine landing of arms.” See EN exp.96, March 29, 1946. AGN.

26Report filed by Captain Amable A. del Castillo, Commanding Officer for the 23rd. Co. in Lorna de
Cabrera, to Lte. Col. Manuel E. Castillo, EN Leg.24 exp. 291, Aug. 26, 1939. AGN. The report went
on to say that, “After the introductions we had a magnificent exchange of impressions and the Captain
of the Haitian Army promised all his efficient cooperation in the resolution of the border problems that
could arise between the nationals of that nation and ours, which is of great usefulness for the farmers
and [cattle] breeders who live in the border and have until now been banned with the robberies that are
committed illegally by some Haitians.”

27Report by Secretary of State and Foreign Relations Arturo Despradel to Sec. of War EN Leg. 46

exp.101, June 14, 1943. AGN.
223

fi'om Haiti, an ideological fiamework was created to convince many Dominicans that
Haiti was a threat to their nation. But was Trujillo the intellectual mastermind behind
this racist discourse that emerged as official state doctrine throughout parts of the
19403 and 19503?

Trujillo was no intellectual and he had little formal schooling. In order to last
thirty years in power and become one of the most feared and wealthiest men in all the
Americas, Trujillo had to rely on his sense of instinct and survival. Since he could not
himself articulate the vision he had for his nation, Trujillo threatened and co-opted
many of the best Dominican minds of the day to serve his regime. He surrounded
himself with an intellectual team that created an unprecedented body of anti-Haitian
literature. It was the Dominican intelligentsia’s acquiescence and their astonishing
sycophantic support for Trujillo that was responsible for the emergence of modern
anti-Haitianism, and one, which also explains his extended tenure in power.28

Anti-Haitianism had existed in the Dorrrinican Republic long before Trujillo
came to power, which he used as the foundation for his more potent version. The
nineteenth century contained the seeds of Dominican enmity toward their western
neighbor. The Haitian unification of the entire island of Hispaniola between 1822-
1844 and the subsequent unsuccessful Haitian invasions of the Dominican Republic
(1844-1856) were the building blocks to construct a solid wall of anti-Haitianism in

Dorrrinican society. As Bernardo Vega writes: “Dominicans considered Haitians the

29
enemy and the Haitian as black.” Anti-Haitianism was also built upon Haiti’s

 

28According to ninety-year-old Mercedes de Castro who was interviewed as part of a Dominican
newspaper’s end of the century series, the intellectuals were partly responsible for endorsing and
maintaining Trujillo. “Before Trujillo we lived in a peaceful society. People were good. With Trujillo’s
rise to power, everything changed. One group, the adulators, befriended Trujillo. The tyranny was
worse because of the intellectuals, some of the distinguished people that surrounded him...If the elite
and the intellectuals would have been strong with Trujillo and reject him, the regime would not have
been secured as quickly as it did. But they became afraid.” See Listin Diario February 7, 1999, pg. 12-
A-13-A.
”Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, Vol. 1, pg.25.

224

military advantage over its neighbor during the nineteenth century, when Haiti
possessed a more superior military force. It should be remembered that the Haitian
army composed of former slaves had defeated Napoleon’s troops and were a
formidable military threat on the island. The fear of being invaded once again by a
larger and more experienced army caused a wide, negative Dominican nationalistic
reaction against Haiti. Between the 18603 and the 19303, anti-Haitianism and
concomitant racism against blacks also existed. There were repeated government
attempts to promote white immigration, and intellectuals espoused anti-Haitian/black
writings. But anti-Haitianism, as official government policy, did not exist.30

It was under Trujillo, particularly after the 1937 Massacre, that anti-
Haitianism, (racism against Haitians as foreigners and people of Afiican ancestry)
supported by books and print media, was adopted as part of an official government
campaign to promote and justify the state encroachment, which attempted to portray
the massacre as an act of self-defense. At no other time in the history of the
Dominican Republic had there been such a highly educated number of individuals
that were dedicated to portraying Haitians in such demeaning ways. This select group
of Trujillo ideologues were composed of men who one political analyst has
represented the “Generation of 1920.” These men (Juan Bosch and Manuel del Cabral

were not Trujillo ideologues):

Were born between 1896 and 1910, some of them being Manuel Arturo Pei’ia
Batlle (1902), Tomas Hernandez Franco (1904), Joaquin Balaguer (1906),
Manuel del Cabral (1907), Juan Bosch (1909), and Emilio Rodriguez
Demorizi (1908). Know it or not, like it or not, the project of creating the
Dominican society that exists today--its fundamental outline--was conceived

 

30According Derby there are three layers of anti-Haitianism which originate with the Spanish struggle

against the French for control of the island; the development of two distinct racial hierarchies and

economies on the island; and the 1822-1844 Haitian unification of the island. Derby correctly reminds

us that anti-Haitianism does not only revolve around the phenomenon of racism but also “racialized

nationalism.” See “Haitians, Magic and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican

Borderlands, 1900-1937,” Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 1994 pg.495-496.
225

and elaborated by these men.31

Among these men, Pei’ia Batlle, Balaguer and Demorizi became the most
influential of the anti-Haitian intellectuals of the Trujillo dictatorship. Their highly
articulated writings and fervent anti-Haitian tomes created a dominant ideology that
came to saturate Dominican society. Out of all the Trujillo ideologues, Pefia Batlle
stands out as the most prolific and influential intellectual who justified the regime’s
existence and anti-Haitian policies.32 Trujillo’s official policy to Dominicanize the
border was crystallized in a famous speech given by Batlle on November 16, 1942, in
the border town of Elias Pifia. In this speech, Batlle explained why it was necessary to
Dominicanize the border. His speech was clearly anti-Haitian claiming Trujillo’s
mission to transform the border was necessary to combat the entrenched Haitian
presence. It is this speech that many historians point to as the regime’s official
declaration of its border project and the Dominicanization of the region, Batlle
warned of the “silent invasion” of Haitians and its negative effects on the

development of Dorrrinican culture:

The Haitian that troubles us and that puts us on extra notice is frankly
undesirable. Completely African, [this Haitian] cannot represent for us an
ethnic incentive whatsoever. Dispossessed in his country of permanent means
of subsistence, he is a load there. He does not count on acquisitioned power
and cannot constitute an appreciable factor in our economy. Malnourished and
badly dressed he [the Haitian] is weak although very abundant because of the
depths of his level of life. For this same reason the Haitian that [inhabits the
country] lives corrupted by numerous habits...necessarily tied to disease and
physiological deficiencies endemic in the lower depths of that society.33

 

3 lPedro Delgado Malagon, “De brechas y generaciones,” Rumbo, (March 10-16, 1994), pg.6.

3'ZAccording to the Trujillo historian E.M Demorizi Batlle “was the most important intellectual figure of
his generation.” Among the many offices he held were “ President of the Donrinican Congress Chamber
of Deputies, Secretary of State of Foreign Relations, Secretary of State of Interior and Police, Secretary
of State of Labor, Ambassador, and President of Construction.” See M.A. Arturo Pena Batlle Politics
de Trujillo (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Dominicana, 1954), pg.7.
’3 Manuel A. Pena Batlle, El sentido de una politica (Ciudad Trujillo: La Nacion, 1943), pg.13. Batlle
was clear on what type of Haitian was not welcomed in his country: the downtrodden. But Haiti’s elite,
226

For Batlle it had been a long journey since the days where he worked as a
member of the 1929 bipartisan Haitian and Dominican border commission that traced
and demarcated the border. This commission was the foundation on which Presidents
Vasquez and Bomo signed the 1929 border Treaty and eventually led to the final
border agreement in 1936. As perhaps the most recognized and intellectually gifted of
all Trujillo intellectuals, Batlle had not always been a Trujillista. In the first ten years
of Trujillo’s government Batlle fell out of favor with the regime.34 But when he
decided to contribute to the regime he immediately set out to create an extensive
historiography that ranged from well-researched history of seventeenth and eighteenth
century Hispaniola to the more anti-Haitian writings. On his integration into the
Trujillo fold, Batlle immediately set out to support Trujillo’s border project. Trujillo
would supply the material to construct the institutional curtain across the border and
Batlle would supply the intellectual and ideological framework to justify this
program. To do this Batlle had to forego his integrity but his positivistic training and
beliefs that had influenced his generation not only in Dorrrinican society but Latin
American in general. Prior to Trujillo, the elites in the Dominican Republic viewed
the masses in much the same ways as their counterparts in Latin America. Nineteenth
century elites viewed the majority of their populations as non-white backward, and
rural. For them the city represented progress rationality and modernity. It was the
Puerto Rican Eugenio Maria de Hostos, and the one responsible for the foundations of
the Dominican primary school system today, and a major influence on Dorrrinican

political thought, that promoted positivism in the Dominican Republic. Hostos “stated

 

who were as mulatto and as wealthy as their counterparts in Santo Domingo, posed no problem for the
Dominican nation. According to Batlle, the Haitian that threatened his country “is not and cannot be the
Haitian of selection who forms the social, intellectual, and economic elite of the neighboring country.”

3‘See Manuel Arturo Pefla Batlle, Previo a la dictadura. La etapa liberal (Santo Domingo: Editora
Taller, 1990), pgs.259. “Batlle had more than ten years of passive opposition to Trujillo.”
227

that Spain was to be blamed for all the Dominican social maladies and that
Catholicism was responsible for the Dominican educational backwardness.”

This positivistic movement created a profound sense of pessimism in the
Dominican Republic and among Dominican intellectuals trying to define their
national identity. Under Trujillo, positivism would no longer influence how
Dominicans defined themselves. Religion, as did race and language, became the
linchpin in the construction of a new national identity that served to also distance
itself from Haiti. By substituting positivistic rationality with religion, as an ideology
to define Dominican identity, Trujillo and his intellectuals cohorts broke with their
past by creating a new set of markers that reinvented how Dominicans were seen.
This fundamental shift is evident, according to historian Roberto Cassa, who writes
that Dominicans, especially the elite, did not always see themselves as white, Spanish,

and Catholic. According to Cassa, prior to the 1937 massacre,

Everyone was in agreement that the Dominican people were in their immense
majority black and mulatto, and it was seen as an evil but it was obvious. The
harsh expression of the regime’s justified ideology, which we have just seen,
manifested itself in the racial problem requiring readj ustrnents in the
ideological base. For this to happen the prior ideological tradition was denied.
The Hostonian [positivist] system of secular and rational teaching was
eliminated. Religion took up a central place not only in teaching but also in all
the mechanisms of the [new] ideology in the establishment of the association
of race-culture-religion.36

It is here under Trujillo, as Cassa reminds us, that a new and imagined

community was created which had no precedent. This new nation would be grounded

 

3sFrank Moya Pons, Occassional Papers #1 Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida,
Gainsville, FL, 1980, pg.30. Deposited at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Library.
36 See Roberto Cassa “El racismo en la ideologia de la clase dominante dominicana,” Ciencia V.3 No.1
(1976), pg.75. paginas completas: 61-85.

228

in a vast ideological discourse of myths that would forever change how Dominicans
would come to see themselves and Haiti. It was not enough to see the majority of
Dominicans as backward black and mulatto primitives needing the assistance of
modern elites that would elevate their status through progress and modernization.
Through Trujillo’s new ideology based on myth and historical justification (the
nineteenth century Haitian invasions) “Dominicans,” according to scholar Andres
Mateo, “came to be a country of whites, Spaniards, and ‘Indian”’37

In the tradition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Dominican
positivists who preceded him such as, Americo Lugo and J osé Ramon Lépez and
Guido Despradel Batista, Pefia Batlle remained committed to the development of the
nation through progress. However this new progress meant shedding his own
positivistic convictions and adopting a new and anti-positivist ideology encompassing
Catholicism, Hispanism and F alangism.38 Batlle set out through his many books to
underscore the centrality of religion particularly Catholicism in the historical
development of Dominican society.

To show how the Republic was created as a Catholic nation, Batlle
appropriated history by citing the 1844 Dominican Constitution, which stated that:
“The Roman Catholic religion is the religion of the State.”39 Batlle laid the
ideological groundwork that would make it easy to explain the racial, cultural, and
religious differences between Dominicans and Haitians. This was at the core of
Trujillo’s anti-Haitianist and xenophobic policy of exclusion. Thus using the formula

of religion and then language it allowed the regime a practical and familiar

 

37See Andres L. Mateo, Miro y cultura en la era de Trujillo (Santo Domingo: Libreria Trinitaria e
Instituto del Libro, 1993), pg. 141. Mateo reminds his readers that despite Trujillo’s death his anti-
Haitian ideological legacy has survived into the present as Domincans continue to define themselves
informally or formally (National identity cards called cédulas) as “moreno, lavado, clarito, mulato,
:8th, except ‘Black’”.

39Pefia Batlle, Previo a la dictadura, pg.259.

See M.A. Pefia Batlle, Cien afios de vida constitucional dominicana Coleccion #9 (Santo Domingo:
ONAP, 1981), 15. This was the November 6th Dominican Constitution of 1844, article seven.
229

mechanism to indoctrinate its citizens to view Haitians as drastically different. For the
regime, this formula was logical. Haitians and Dominicans were different because the
former practice voudou and speak Kreyol; the latter were Catholic and spoke Spanish.
According to Batlle: “We continue to be a Spanish community, we speak Castilian
Spanish, we praise God as Roman Apostolic Catholics and we feel especially united
to the process of Spanish-American civilization that we initiated in the beginnings of
the conquest and the colonization of the Continent.”40 The Dominican Republic as a
bastion of Catholicism and Iberian stock played well on paper but as we have seen
was not applicable particularly on the border. But Batlle also made it clear that the
border and Haiti undermined the security of the Dominican nation. Ever since his
racist 1942 speech in the border town of Elias Pitta, Batlle sought to prioritize the
importance and urgency of the Donrinicanization of the border. For Batlle, years of
border disputes from diplomatic to violent conflicts even the 1937 Massacre could
have been avoided. As one scholar writes, Batlle, the apologist, blamed the massacre
and the Haitianization of the border, in part, to the “historic irresponsibility of the
previous Dominican leaders, and which Trujillo would in fact assume this
responsibility?“

For Batlle, Trujillo was able to consolidate the nation and resolve the historic
conflict that plagued the two nations. For Batlle the massacre was an act of self-
preservation and the last recourse for a nation inundated with Haitians. Batlle even
challenges those who condemned the Dominican Republic for its role in the massacre
on the grounds of self-defense. In reference to Haiti and five years after the massacre

Batlle writes that:

 

:olbid. pg. 1 8.
1

Mateo, Mito en la era de Trujillo, pg. 172. Could intellectuals have manipulated Trujillo? I lack the
evidence to prove this. But I maintain that if manipulation existed, that it’s main objective and for

personal preservation was to glorify Trujillo and espouse his goals.
230

There is no government in the world genuinely cultured and civilized that does
not take decisive precautions against such a serious and significant threat. Is it
possible that we Dominicans be censored, rushed by a simple law of self-
conservation, in dedicating ourselves to combating subversive elements from
our own national essence?42

Batlle’s call to Dominicans against not only the “invading” Haitians with clear
reference to the nineteenth-century Haitian invasions but especially to references of
the “undesirables” already residing in the country, echoed nationalistic pleas by fascist
governments in Europe. At the time, Hitler’s Nazi government and his Nationalist-
Socialist idea of nation and national identity had an enormous impact on many Latin
American countries especially the Dominican Republic. German Nazism along with
Spanish F alangism appealed to Trujillo whose admiration for the Fuhrer went as far
copying his style of dress and mustache. Moreover this fascination with Germany was
also reflected in the establishment of the Dominican-German (Nazi) Scientific
Institute in Santo Domingo prior to the massacre.43

The massacre of Haitians revealed how much Trujillo believed in the Nazi
Aryan view of the superiority of races. In Trujillo’s case, the Dominicans were the
German Aryans of Hispaniola and Haitians the “undesirable” Jews. This connection
between Trujillo and the Third Reich was not lost on the many exiles that denounced
Trujillo’s plan of cleansing the Dominican nation of Haitians. In response to the anti-
Haitian publications and in a rebuttal to Batlle’s El sentido de una politica speech,
Dominican exile Dr. J .I. J imenes-Grullon in Cuba, charged Batlle of being a Nazi. He
underscored the irony of glorifying a country like Spain Hitler would enslave that in

the Nazi-end and who only accepted ethnic Germans as citizens.

 

’2 Peiia Batlle’s, Sentido de una politica, pg.15.

“See Vega, Trujillo y Haiti, Vol.1, pg.318-320. According to Vega, Trujillo even received a copy of
Hitler’s Mein Kempf via the German Economics Affairs Officer. For more see Bernardo Vega,
Nazismo, fascismo, y falangismo en la Republica Dominicana (Santo Domingo: Fundacion Cultural
Dominicana, 1986).

231

Pefia Batlle appears within the dictatorship as a mixture of Goebbels and
Rosenburg. Like these men he believes that the nation’s expression of a pure
race is an unchangeable entity that deve10ps the specific substance of that race.
He adopts this position unaware that for his Apostle Hitler--his master is
Trujillo-«the Spaniard forms part of a ‘sub-race’ condemned to act in the
Germanic world in the subordinate role.44

Most probably Trujillo knew that Nazi Germany regarded his country and its
citizens in much the same way that Dominicans viewed Haiti. But as far as Trujillo
and his intellectuals were concerned Haiti remained the enemy of the Dominican
people and an obstacle towards obtains an acceptable level of racial, religious, and
cultural progress. The emergence of this new attitude towards Haiti began in earnest
with the massacre. This rupture allowed Trujillo intellectuals like Batlle to use the
massacre to justify and accentuate the differences between the two countries and its
people. It is this exaggerated difference that served as the basis for a new but skewed
national Dominican identity, which deflected attention from Trujillo’s genocidal
policy of ethnic cleansing and branded the Haitian as the historic Dominican nemesis.
Furthermore, through his writings, Batlle was able to channel traditional Dominican
anti-Haitian sentiment and justify it (and by extension the massacre) by claiming
cultural and racial superiority.“ Throughout his life Batlle was a prolific author and
perhaps one of the nation’s most brilliant minds. But although he did not outlive

Trujillo, his legacy to the advancement of racism and anti-Haitianism has.

 

“See J .I. J imenes-Grullon Dos actitudes antes el problema Dominica-Haitiano (La Habana, Cuba:
Union Democratica Anti-Nazista Dominicana, 1943), pg.24.

“See Alba Josefina Zaiter Mejia, La identidad social y nacional en dominicana: un analisis psica-
social (Santo Domingo: Editora Taller, 1996), pg. 218.

46Dr. Silvio Torres-Saillant writes that despite the revival of Batlle’s racist ideas by contemporary

supporters his anti-Haitian and anti-black ideology “has absolutely nothing to contribute to the serious

dialogue concerning Dominicaness[.]” Indeed, Batlle’s writings can only hinder the democratic

development of a Dominican identity. See Silvio Torres-Saillant’s El retorno de las yolas: ensayos

sabre diaspora, demacracia y dominicanidad (Santo Domingo: Liberia la Trinitaria, 1999), pgs.78-82,
232

The other Trujillo ideologue who did outlive both Batlle and Trujillo was
Joaquin Balaguer: maquivellian extraordinaire who after Trujillo’s assassination went
on to become President again from 1966-1978 and fiom 1986-1996. Balaguer was the
oldest and highest-ranking former Trujillo official who has remained in power long
after his mentor was killed. Aside from leading bloody and authoritarian regimes
throughout the 19603, 703, 80, and 903, Balaguer the intellectual, continued to
perpetuate the anti-Haitian discourse he helped create and defend under Trujillo. The
small and later blind nonagenarian man possessed a rare combination of political
insight and intellectual depth that allowed him to remain in the highest echelons of
power in Trujillo’s government for thirty years.

Balaguer’s political career spans more than seventy years. As a youth Balaguer
was a fervent nationalist giving passionate stump speeches against the US military of
the island. But his leftist anti-imperialistic political stance soon shifted in 1930 with
the fall of President Horacio Vasquez and the rise of his future mentor Rafael Trujillo.
1930 marked the year that Balaguer would meet and for the next thirty years
collaborate with Trujillo. Many of Balaguer’s detractors point out that his sudden
political shift from championing democratic ideals of fi'eedom against the United
States to an accomplice of authoritarianism was driven by his consummate need to
obtain power. Balaguer is quick to deny this notion as he reminds Dominicans that it
was Trujillo not Balaguer that approached him for an opportunity to support him in
the 1930 Presidential campaign. According to Balaguer, Trujillo, during the course of
the campaign, invited Balaguer to his chalet in the northern city of Santiago. It was
here, according to Balaguer, that Trujillo said: “I wish for you to stay here tonight
because I will need you in the political journey that we will make through out the

”47
country.

 

7
4 ”Balaguer en el reloj de la historia,” Hay, June 2, 1999, pg.15.
233

Regardless of who asked whom for help, Balaguer remained a Trujillista for
the next thirty years serving Trujillo. As early as 1932, Balaguer was already praising
his mentor portraying the dictator as a savior of the Dominican nation. “His
[Trujillo’s] triumph so unforeseen like his apparition, so fast like his race shows that
he has, in superior grades more than his predecessors all the elements of seduction
that the public man needs to snatch away the crowds and bind them to his victorious
car.”48 Balaguer continued to praise and support Trujillo and his regime throughout
the 19303. In 1937 during the massacre he headed the foreign ministry and
participated in the active cover-up of the killings. During the massacre Balaguer
defended his government from Haitian accusations that the massacre was a military
driven and pre-meditated operation. In a letter to his counterpart in Haiti, Balaguer
tried to convince the Haitian government that the Dominican military was not an
accomplice to the killings. According to Balaguer, Since surviving Haitians crossing

into Haiti bore knife-inflicted and not bullet wounds the army which only used

firearms could not be implicated in the crime.

It has been a point of surprise for the Dominican Government the affirmation
that Your Excellency makes relative to the denunciation made by some
Haitians and according to which the authors of such incidents have been
members of the Dominican Army armed with machetes. According to our
laws the members of the Dominican Army cannot carry, under penalty of
severe sanctions, neither machetes nor any other type of cutting weapon...such
charges seem to always be unfounded whenever it refers to members of the
Dominican Army."9

 

“La abra de un renavadar. Conferencias y disertaciones dictadas por varios distinguidos intelectuales,
en la estacion radiodifusora H.I.X. de Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana (Santo Domingo: La
Opinion, 1932), pg.41.
’9 Letter from Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs Joaquin Balaguer to Evremont Carrie Haitian
Foreign Minister in Puerto Principe, Oct. 15, 1937. It was Carrie and Balaguer who would draft the
famous October 15 diplomatic communique pledging mutual support in resolving the “border conflicts”
that Trujillo would later use to limit an intemation mediation. See J osé Israel Cuello H. Documentos
del canflicto dominica-haitiana de 193 7, (Santo Domingo: Editora Taller, 1985), pg.52.

234

During and following the massacre Balaguer defended the regime fiom
international accusations that his government conducted a genodical policy against
irmocent Haitian civilians. As a staunch ijillista Balaguer defended his
govemment’s stance that the massacre saying it was a border skirmish between
Dominican farmers and Haitian thieves. Balaguer’s highly articulate and nationalistic
rebuke of charges of state-sponsored massacres continued long after the
decomposition of thousands of Haitian bodies. In a second letter to the Colombian
newspaper El T iempo in 1945, Balaguer repeated his denials of the Haitian atrocities.

He writes:

The events of 1937 of which the enemies of the Dominican government have
tried to paint overseas as a wicked massacre of unarmed Haitian masses, were
the eruptions in the soul of our peasant of a sentiment of defense and protest
against four centuries of depredations carried out in the northern provinces of
the country by bands of Haitian thieves. [even] the government of Haiti
recognized that those acts were provoked by bands of Haitians previously
mentioned.50

Balaguer argued that the massacre or border Skirmish represented a larger and
more serious problem to the Dominican Republic. The problem was Haitian
immigration, which he and other Trujillo intellectuals coined as a “silent invasion”.
This phrase capitalized on the shared Dominican memories and connected it to the
military Haitian invasions of the nineteenth-century. This comparison of Haitians
invasions made the Dominicanization of the border and its concomitant anti-Haitian
ideology imperative. Haitians were seen as polluting the Dominican nation with their

51
retrograde culture and language. Since Haiti posed no military threat to the

 

:olbid. pg.505. See also “Balaguer y el problema dominico-haitiano,” Hay, June 8, 1999, pg.15.
l

Dominicans were not the only ones writing anti-Haitians texts. There were those like the Spanish
refugee and personal aid to Trujillo, J osé Ahnoina, who refered to Haitians as an “irmnense majority, as
235

Dominican Republic anti-Haitianism centered on the cultural, linguistic, and racial
Haitian attributes that were deemed inferior and explained why Dominican were
different from Haitians. “The clandestine infiltrations occurred daily. Little by little
the Haitians introduced their customs, vices, their Afiican witchcraft. The spread of
Voudou not only conspires against the unity of religious feeling of the border region
but also against the tradition, culture, and the history of the Dominican people.”52
Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century Balaguer promoted the “silent
invasion” thesis as the author of racist books and then as President of the Republic.
Two years after he officially denied a massacre had ever taken place; Balaguer wrote
a racist and anti-Haitian book, which laid out all of his ideas concerning Haiti.

La realidad dominicana revealed the extent to which intellectuals such as
Balaguer viewed Haiti and citizens. For Balaguer, Haiti threatened the moral and
religious fiber of the Dominican nation. Haitian culture and its religion, had Spread
throughout the border and threatened to engulf the entire country. According to

Balaguer:

The entire region near the Haitian border had been invaded by exotic customs,
which not only conspired against the morality of the Dominican people but
also against the unity of religious sentiment. Incest and other practices not less
barbaric contrary to the Christian institution of the family are common in the
lower depths of the Haitian population and constitute a testimony of its
tremendous moral deformations.53

Balaguer realized that Dominicans on the border had absorbed much of the

 

sick human beings.” Cites tuberculosis, malaria, helminthiasis, syphillis, and yaws, which he says are
“endemic.” See Jose Almoina’s, Yafui secretaria de Trujillo (Buenos Aires: Distribudora del Plata,
1950), pg.117. The author, ultimately left the Dorrrinican Republica for Mexico, where, upon
publishing an anti-Haitian book under the pseudonym of, Gregorio R. Bustamante, was killed by
Trujillo’s assassins. See José Almoina’s Una satrapia en el caribe. Historia puntual de la mala vida
del déspata Rafael Leonidas T rujilla (Santo Domingo: Editora Cole, 1999).

szManuel A. Machado La era de Trujillo: La dominicanizacio'n fianteriza vol.3 (Ciudad Trujillo:

Impresora Dominicana, 1955), pg.196.

’3 See Joaquin Balaguer’s, La realidad dominicana (Buenos Aires: Ferrari Hermanos, 1947), pg. 94.
236

Haitian culture. And no other part of this culture threatened more Trujillo’s project to
Dominicanize and Catholicize the border than Vodou. Balaguer tells his readers that
without the Dominicanization of the border and the construction of churches and the
proselytizing priests across the region, Catholicism would have disappeared. His
pejorative descriptions of voudou as a “diabolic ritual” and “one of the most
monstrous manifestations of Afiican arrimism” revealed the threat this religion and,
by extension, the philosophy of its followers represented to Trujillo’s state-building
proj ect.54 It was bad enough, said Balaguer, that Dominicans practiced Voudou, but
for Dominican parents to take their children to Haiti to be baptized was sacrilegious.
In this context, Dominicanizing the border meant trying to stop this palpable
dependency on Haitian religious services. For Balaguer, offering free registrations of
births served to limit Dominican interaction with and in Haiti but also, as he
suggested, was a way to “control in those regions the demographic movements of the
Dominican population.”55 Quite as a matter-of-fact, Balaguer tells his readers that he
has no problem with citizens of his country being people of color, but he warned that
they should not become the majority of the population. Balaguer like many of his
intellectual contemporaries feared being absorbed completely by Haitian immigrants
and believed that without state interventionist policies such as the border project, the
Dominicans would become a nation of blacks--like Haiti. He recommended the
preservation of the white minority in the Dominican Republic to buoy the increase in

Haitian immigration. According to Balaguer:

What the preservation of the Dominican nationality requires is simply that the
white and mestizo do not come to constitute, like in the neighboring country,
an infamous minority, but that it is maintained, at least at actual levels, so that
the differences do not disappear completely, differences that, from the somatic
point of view, exist between both countries. Ideally, in other words, it cannot

 

54
Ibid.

55
Ibid.97.
237

nor should it be that the white eliminate the black but also it cannot be nor
should it be that the black eliminate the white and the mestizo.56

Balaguer continued to write and publish books that contain a strong anti-
Haitian content. But the rhetoric was not just limited to the thirty-year dictatorship. In
1984, Balaguer published La isla al reves, which contained many of the anti-
Haitian/black strains, found in his previous La realidad cantemparanea. In it,
Balaguer perpetuates the Trujillo anti-Haitian ideology portraying Haitians as a threat
to the Dominican nation. Balaguer spends several chapters reminding his readers of
the nineteenth century Haitian military invasions which he uses to convince
Dominicans of an historic Haitian propensity to invade their country. He uses this
history to portray the Dominican Republic as a victim of continual Haitian aggression.
But he also warns readers that Haiti continues to undermine the Dominican nation.
“Haiti had ceased being a danger to Santo Domingo for reasons of a political order.
But the Haitian imperialism continues being a threat to our country to a greater degree
than before for reasons of a biological character.”57 Balaguer suggested that Haitian
immigration, if unchecked, would lead to them outnumbering Dominicans.

In explicit and biological-racial language reminiscent of the nineteenth
century, Balaguer suggests Haitian immigrants could overrun the Dominican
Republic. According to Balaguer, the Haitian “if left abandoned to his instincts
without the restraints that a level of life relatively elevated imposes in all the countries
for reproduction purposed, rapidly multiplies almost similar to that of vegetables.”58
Balaguer’s anti-Haitian pro-Spanish definition of Dominican identity had not changed
since his defense of the Trujillo regime back in the 19403. His argument rested on

convincing Dominicans to fear Haiti because they were under attack by immigrants.

 

5“ Ibid.116.
s7
Joaquin Balaguer La isla al reves (Santo Domingo: Libreria Dominicana, 1984), pg.35.

”Ibid. pg.36.
238

Balaguer reminded Dominicans that they risked losing their culture, which was in all
its facets quasi-Spanish. For Balaguer “The clandestine penetration [of Haitians]
throughout the border threatens the Dominican family with the disintegration of its
moral and ethnic values.”59

In other words, without restrictions of Haitian immigration, the Dominican
nation would become black or blacker than it was. Although Dominicans were also
black, the ideology espoused by Balaguer saw his countrymen at worst a mestizo
nation and at best a tenacious bastion of white Spanish culture. It is no surprise than
that Balaguer, in La isla al reves, included several color pictures of rural light-skinned
Dominican peasants as a testament to Dominican Spanish heritage. This was after the
objective of the massacre in 1937 and helps explain the subsequent Dominicanization
of the border: the whitening of the nation. The policy never succeeded in either
limiting cross-cultural contact between both nations or reducing Haitian immigration.
Yet the official government discourses at the time continued to publish propagandistic
information about the success of the border project. As late as 1952 Dominican
newspaper editorials praised the transformation of the border under Trujillo. From an
arid and desolate region the border was transformed into a modern area of progress
that now had paved roads and increased agricultural production such as peanuts and
rice.60

People also sent op-ed newspaper articles expressing their views about the
border project. They all contained the same obligatory praise for Trujillo and the same
preoccupation to Dominicanize the border through Dominican colonization and
Haitian exclusion. One border resident wrote obliquely that Dominicanizing the

61
border entailed evolving “towards the true conception of a real Dominican.” Other

 

59Ibid. pg. 156.
60
“La ruta fronteriza dominicana, la de 1930 y la de 1952,” In Beller, Dec. 20, 1952.

”See “Viendo la Dorninicanizacion froneriza,” Libertador, Jan. 23, 1944. This “true conception” ofa
Dominican was seen as monolithic without any “ambigueties, without confirsions, [and] without
239

articles were not as subtle. In these articles many writers spoke of how Trujillo’s
border project had transformed this region by incorporating it back into the
Dominican nation. “What was yesterday an illicit vanguard of black hate or barbarous
degradation is today a country of prolific activities truly Dominican.”62 Despite
ongoing celebratory articles of the border project and their anti-Haitian slant anti-
Haitianism, as an official state ideology, was no longer practiced. Between 1946 until
Trujillo’s assassination in 1961 , the Dominican state no longer used anti-Haitianism
as a government policy. But the modern anti-Haitianism that emerged during
Trujillo’s regime continued sporadically in books and personal attitudes. One of the
more controversial anti-Haitian books ever written and during the 19503 was called
La exterminacia'n ariarada. Written by a former Dorrrinican diplomat to Haiti, Angel
S. Rosario Pérez, the book is an ultra nationalistic and racist text that perpetuated all
the Trujillo myths about Dominican identity.63

Perez wrote the book as a response to a tome written by the distinguished
diplomat/historian Jean Price-Mars. Price-Mars’ strove to revise certain Dominican
misconceptions about the nineteenth century Haitian invasions and challenge
Dominicans’ self-perception of themselves as white. It was perhaps the strongest and
most comprehensive challenge to Trujillo’s ideological fi'amework of hispanidad ever
mounted during the regime. As a diplomat in Santo Domingo, Price-Mars had unique
special insight into the Dominican society and the mindset of its anti-Haitian

intellectuals. Price-Mars reminded Dominicans who waxed ecstatic about their

 

degrading mixtures.” See “Manifiesto que dirije el ciudadano Carlos Adriano Munoz candidato a
diputado por la provincia Libertator, a los miembros del Partido Dominicano y a los ciudadanos de
dicha provincia Gobemacion de MC #80 #125 Oct.24, 1938. AGN.

2
6 See “Hoy y manana,” La Nacién, July 4, 1943, pg.8.

63To drive home the point that Dominicans were if not white, less black than Haitians, Perez writes that
“Because if the real owner of the island is the Indigenous person, than the only ones who are endowed
with titles over her are we Dominicans, who carry in our blood that Indigenous blood which would be
useless to find in the Haitian.” See Angel S. del Rosario Perez’s, La exterminacion aflorada (S.I.: SN,
1957), pg.30. Perez incessantly referred to Haitians pejoratively as “Ethiopians.”

240

cultural affinity with Spain that it was Haiti, they’re supposed “enemy”, who
protested against Spanish annexation of the Dominican Republic.64 It was Haiti, wrote
Price-Mars that offered its territory as a refuge for Dominican soldiers in its war
against Spain. During the War of Restoration, Haitian authorities permitted
Dominicans to plan and launch military attacks from the Haitian side of the border.
This was yet another example of the long history of cooperation between Dominicans
and Haitians. But the new anti-Haitian ideology could not admit that the same people
it described as a mass of “silent invaders” now participated side by side with
Dominicans to defeat and expel the Spanish colonial forces.65

At this time in the Dominican Republic more and more books were being
published on the nineteenth-century Haitian military invasions. These history books
glorified Dominican valor against the invading Haitian armies, which served to
reinforce the post-massacre constructed fear of Haiti. Trujillo intellectuals ignored the
collaborative anti-colonial movements forged by Haitians and Dominicans during
Spanish annexation. Writing about the bloody war against Spanish colonialism under
Trujillo would have contradicted the prevailing anti-Haitian ideology of the time that
repeated ad nauseam that Haiti had always been the enemy. Instead many historians
such as Emilio Rodriguez Demonize utilized the Haitian invasions of the 18003 to
unify the nation through a collective past. Dominicans were all part of the nation
because they Shared the same experience of fighting together against Haiti. “Against
the Haitian there were raised the highest and invincible walls of Dominican

oo
herorsm.”

 

64“The government of Haiti therefore protests solemnly before Europe and America the occupation of
Dominican territory by Spain.” Letter written by Haitian President Fabre Geffrard in Jean Price-Mars’,
La repu'blica de Haiti y la Reprlblica Dominicana. Diversas aspectas de un problema hista'rica,
geagrdfica, y etnalo'gica Vol.1 (Puerto Principe: Industrias Gréficas Espafia, 1953), pg.71.

6’rhicl. Vol.3, pg.8s.

so
Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, Santana y las poetas de su tiempo Vol.XXV (Santo Domingo: Editora

del Caribe, 1969), pg. 144.
241

Poems and songs that celebrated Dominican victory over Haiti were published
in an attempt to convince readers of their noble and heroic past against their
archenemy. Evensongs that were sung by Dominican soldiers during the invasions
were published to convince the newer generations of Dorrrinicans that Haitians were a
constant and historic threat. “There is no mercy! The insolent Haitian, penetrating in
the native homes, defiled our temples and altars; jurisdiction he dared run over; And
the decency of the virgin, and the gray hair of the wretched old man; what is left
sacred in humans he insulted with shameless pride.”67

Price-Mars not only revealed the hypocrisy behind many of these inllectual
anti-Haitian writings but he also refuted the lie that the massacre was a spontaneous
“border skirmish” perpetrated by angry Dominican farmers against Haitian thieves.
He wrote: “But the repetition of the acts, at short intervals, offered, with everything,
the impression of an orchestrated movement.”68 In his analysis he questioned how an
atrocity of this massacre could have occurred when thieves were the only culprits. No
one especially in Trujillo’s country could have sustained an operation of this
magnitude without being stopped by the myriad networks of spies and ubiquitous
army patrols that spanned the border. If Haitian thieves were the motivating factor
provoking a massacre than, concluded Price-Mars, what could be said for the
Dominican institutions of law and order?69 He then focused his attention to the post-
massacre Dominicanization border project and its racial motives.

He deconstructed Pena Batlle’s famous 1942 border speech considered the
coming-out-party for the modernization of the frontier and presented it for what it

70
was: a border doctrine to whiten the Dominican nation. The fear of Haiti also led to

 

7
6 See Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi, “La poesia patriotica en Santo Domingo,” Cuademos Daminicanos
de Cultura 1 No.6 (AGN, 1944), pg.77. paginas completasz47-92. Written by Felix Maria del Monte.

“Jean Price-Mars, La Republica de Haiti y la Republica Dominicana, Vol.3, pg.217.
o9
Ibid.229.

7o
Ibid.237.
242

exclusionary anti-black immigration after the massacre, which Price-Mars showed,
was geared toward the exclusion of Haitians. There were others who challenged
Trujillo regime such as Dominican exiles. But Price-Mars’ three volume work was
perhaps the first comprehensive attempt to undermine the Dominican idea that Haiti
was the enemy; that the massacre was an aberration; and that Dominicans were white.
Price-Mars eloquently questioned, deconstructed and weakened Trujillo’s fabricated
national identity. According to Price-Mars, Dominican intellectuals who were writing
propagandistic texts to convince their compatriots that they were white suffered from
what he called “passionate subj ectivism”. Since race was a social construction
Dominicans, according to Price-Mars, could be anything they wanted depending on
their mood. He wrote: “the notion of race is a question of feeling?” Despite Price-
Mars’ attempt to correct the distorted Dominican historiography two other works
appeared toward the end of the 19503 perpetuating the anti-Haitian rhetoric. The first
was Socrates Nolasco who in true xenophobic fashion and as another rebuttal to
Price-Mars, showed how the concept of reunification was always and still was the

goals of the Haitians. This imperialistic mindset, writes Nolasco,

Illustrates and keeps alive the memory of how the Haitians have believed it is
vitally necessary to their development and free existence to extend and
maintain their dominance over the territory of the entire island, marking the
borders with the limits [only] of the encircling sea, rousing themselves up with
the slogan of: one and indivisible.72

Although anti—Haitianism as state policy had ended after 1946, Dominican
intellectuals continued to perpetuate the idea of Haitians overrunning the nation.

Much like Balaguer and Batlle, they stressed Haitian inferiority and the peculiar

7
7:Ibid. pg.240. In other words, race is a social construction.
Socrates Nolasco’s Comentarios de la historia de Jean-Price Mars (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora
Dominicana, 1955), pg.13.
243

differences between both peoples. Perhaps the last of the anti-Trujillo texts published
during the Trujillo Era was by a professor in International General Public Law and
American International Law at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo
(UASD). Professor Carlos Augusto Sénchez y Sénchez wrote about the “inferior
biological roots” of the Haitians. Yet ironically he respected Haiti’s “brilliant upper
class” but not the “sub-social level” that “look for the complicity of night or in favor
of assault to enjoy the fi'uit of their neighbors’ labor.”73 For Professor Sénchez y
Sénchez, race was very much biological. To prove that Dominicans were not
descendants of Afiicans, he even cited official scientific analyses of blood groups by a
Dr. J osé de J esr'ls Alvarez. The ludicrous study suggested that because 52.75% of
Dominicans have low levels of “b”, high “A,” “Rhl,” high “0” and “factor M” levels,
their color, therefore, comes from Indian and white mixture, not from Africans.74 This
need to distance itself from Haiti along racial and religious lines became the
ideological linchpins for Trujillo’s anti-Haitian state doctrine.

Trujillo’s doctrine of anti-Haitianism, along with hispanidad, sought to
underscore Dominicans’ cultural similitaries with Spain. Yet in reality, Dominicans
shared just as much with Haiti, as was evident in the rate of intermarriage and
interborder trade where, a multicultural zone emerged among Dominicans and
Haitians. It was this interconnectedness which undermined Trujillo’s policy of
Dorrrinicanizing the border and led to state violence (killing of thousands of Haitians);
then the institutional transformation of the border zone by constructing Dominican
schools, churches, hospitals, military posts and police stations and Party offices.
Lastly, an ideology that crystallized and elevated historic Dominican prejudices to a

finely tuned state ideology of hate promoting the exclusion of Haiti and her people

 

73

See Carlos Augusto Sénchez y Sénchez’s, El caso Dominica-Haitiano (Ciudad Trujillo: Editora
Montalvo, 195 8), pg.23-24. He also writes that the majority of Haitians are “dominated by sexual
instinct...a brutality only combatted by education, patience and training.” pg.38.

74lhid. pg.43—45.
244

was created by Dominican intellectuals. Through the intellectual discourse of the day,
Trujillo’s nation became white, Catholic, and Spanish. Moreover, it was through
ideological propaganda promoted by Trujillo intellectuals such as Manuel Arturo
Pefia Batlle, Joaquin Balaguer and a host of other minor and major thinkers that
served to invite all Dominicans to share in a discourse of difference, contempt and
fear of Haitians. It is a fear that long after Trujillo’s assassination in 1961, remains

entrenched in Dominican society.

245

Conclusion

No other topic in the Dorrrinican historiography has received as much attention
as the Trujillo dictatorship. The regime, which began in 1930 and ended with
Trujillo’s assassination in 1961, became one of the most brutal and totalitarian
regimes in Latin America. For thirty years Trujillo embarked on a state-building
project to consolidate and modernize this poor Caribbean nation, which had
experienced years of foreign invasions, civil wars and economic turmoil. One of the
most important of these projects was the consolidation and modernization of the
border region. Under Trujillo the border became an important strategic and symbolic
site where policies of national security were linked to a new Dorrrinican national
identity.

During the first twenty years of his regime, Trujillo placed the border at the
top of his political agenda. For years prior to Trujillo’s regime, the semi-autonomous
border region had been a refuge for revolutionaries attempting to overthrow their
respective governments in either Santo Domingo or Port-au-Prince. Moreover the
political border that separated the Republics of Haiti and the Dominican Republic was
undefined. Therefore Trujillo sought early on to make the border less fertile mound
for his enemies.

He first achieved this through a series of official meetings with his Haitian
counterpart President Stenio Vincent. From 1930 to 1936, the leaders met
continuously in the border in the island’s two capitals. The treaty negotiations focused
on the territorial legal boundaries that divided both republics. It is during this time
that Haiti and the Dominican Republic reached a historic apex in cordial relations.
Treaty negotiations ended in 1936 with both countries signing a final border

ameement definitively demarcating the border.

246

In his quest to transform the border, Trujillo began a colonization plan to
Dominicanize the region and the nation. Several Dominican colonies were created
throughout to serve as a buffer and to halt the expansion of Haitian settlement. In
Santo Domingo, anti-Haitian legislation was passed to limit the entry of further
Haitians in particular and blacks in general from entering the country. Both
colonization and irnmimation projects failed because Haitians continued entering and
residing in the Dominican Republic, lured by jobs in the Dominican sugar industry
where they soon became the majority of the recruited laborers. 1937 became the year
where Trujillo’s policy of fiiendly relations with Haiti changed to genocidal ethnic
cleansing. The killings of thousands of Haitian men, women, and children represented
a break with the previous seven years of amicable relations between both nations. “El
massacre” or “el corte” as it is known in the literature marked the beginning of a new
policy against Haiti and served as the catalyst for a new definition of Dominican
national identity. Killings Haitians on the Dominican side of the border made it clear
that Trujillo would stop at nothing to Dominicanize the border and consolidate his
nation. Having Haitians living among and intermarrying with Dominicans in the
semi-autonomous border region, clearly, undermined Trujillo’s power to control his
country.

Trujillo capitalized on historic but diffuse Dominican anti-Haitian prejudice
by creating the environment to institutionally demonize Haitians and convince his
country that the massacre was an act of Dominican self-defense. After the killings,
Trujillo and his cohorts embarked on an institutional and ideological project to
transform the border. This was the first time in the history of the Dominican nation
where the state in earnest made the border a national priority. No longer was this
region seen as a backward and volatile place “uncivilized” and far from what was

considered the modern and “civilized” capital of Santo Domingo. From 1938 through

247

1946, the beginnings of what was to become modern anti-Haitianism became official
government ideology. After seven years (1930-1937) of mutual respect and fiiendly
relations, Haiti became the official enemy of the state. It was demonized and
portrayed as a bastion of evil, impoverished and diseased people whose sole intent
was to invade and destroy the Dominican Republic and its culture. Therefore, the
most sensitive, vulnerable, and the most logical part of the nation to defend was the
border region. Thus under Trujillo, the border had to be fortified against not only a
Haitian presence but also future irnmimation fiom the western part of the island. Even
though anti-Haitianism as official state domna only lasted until 1946, the institutional
transformation of the border lasted until the end of the dictatorship. And, it is safe to
say, that no other government since has done more to transform the border through
collective violence and state building than under Trujillo’s regime.

Prior to 1938 the Dominican government began to transform the border by
incorporating it more into the Dominican sphere of influence. Historically, the state
had maintained a relatively weak presence along the border region. But this all was to
change. Starting with the massacre and subsequently thereafter, the Dominican state
would make its presence felt in palpable ways. After so many years where the lack of
a weak and unregulated border complete with polemical and unenforceable treaties,
the Trujillo government set out to clearly demarcate its border with Haiti. For
example, new provinces were created along the border. They were given names
associated with Trujillo such as San Rafael or Benefactor. Many rural hamlets and
municipalities, which for years had a simrificant Haitian presence, were given new
Spanish names to replace the Haitian Kreyol ones. The Dominican state wanted no
mistake as to what country you were in along the border.

Now that the new border provinces were created on paper they had to be

physically demarcated to show that they were an extension of Dominican territory.

248

Above all, the infrastructure of the border marked the most profound change.
Government buildings of all kinds were erected during the late 19303 and throughout
the 19403 and early 19503. Most were government buildings that represented the
extension of government beauracracy along the border. These buildings ranged from
provincial governors’ offices, municipal and legal offices to those housing the official
political party of the day: the Dominican Party. Government institutions extended
throughout the border representing the nation’s control over this territory. In almost
every border town military and police stations were established to secure control of
the region. It was these last two institutions that not only canied out the massacre but
also, were responsible for security and order during the course of the
Dominicanization project. (And they were to usher in the militarization of the border
that has lasted until the present day). But the state not only erected institutions to
physically control the region it also attempted to transform the landscape making it
more environmentally feasible for Dominican settlement.

Due to the arid climate along the border irrigation canals were built that
increased the yield of farmers. Paved roads connecting the border to the interior of the
Dominican Republic were constructed which decreased the historic isolation that had
separated this region for so long fi'om being absorbed by the state. The border became
a region that had to be rescued and modernized to distinguish it from Haiti. The
transformation in infrastructure and political geomaphy to consolidate the Dominican
nation was just only part of Trujillo’s search for complete control of his country. It
was also motivated by Trujillo’s need to limit Haitian irnmimation crossing the border
and promote the ideology of hispanidad.

Under Trujillo and especially after 1937, the state promoted a Eurocentric
identity where Dominicans were projected as being white, Catholic and Spanish. But

culturally, the Dominican-Haitian border region did not reflect the govemment’s new

249

image of itself. The border region was heterogeneous. In many instances, Dominicans
and Haitians intermarried, reared and baptized their children together. For as long as
anyone could remember, people crossed the porous border zone to trade with each
other in various currencies, including the Haitian gourde which floated throughout the
regional economy.

For Trujillo’s state-building project these very strong and historical interethnic
relations had to be destroyed. First through violent state killings and then the creation
of a new border whose new existence emerged fiom the violent and murderous death
of innocent Haitians and Dorrrinicans of Haitian descent. During this time, border
Dominicans through various state and religious institutions were indoctrinated and
expected to accept this new identity by ending their contact with their Haitian
neighbors. The state used institutions as mechanisms to create a new Dominican
citizen.

Many schools were constructed where for the first time border children were
exposed to formal state education. Moreover, residents of this region were being
incorporated as new citizens of a larger community: the Dominican nation. Since the
border was considered backward, due to its proximity to Haiti, schools became one of
several institutions through which the state molded Dominicans into culturally correct
citizens. Music promams and musical academies were established in many border
towns, which the state underscored as yet filrther proof that their side was more
“civilized” than Haiti. Health promams were established among border residents to
prevent and cure diseases such as tuberculosis. Hygiene was also taughtand stressed
especially for the young school children. Religion, particularly Catholicism, became a
tool for the state to incorporate border citizens into the nation. Roving priests were
sent throughout the border to proselytize to rural communities often delivering a

sermon whose message was a combination of biblical scripture and nationalistic

250

fervor.

At the local level, state cultural agents were responsibility for transforming
Dominican border residents (accustomed to simrificant Haitian influence) into
becoming citizens of a country whose national identity rested on the total rejection of
Haiti. These government appointed administrators, often highly educated, were sent to
the border region to expose and teach Dominican culture to its residents. Musical
bands and guest lecturers were but a few of the events coordinated by these state
bureaucratic agents to expose and instruct border residents on the nationalistic criteria
on being “Dominican”. Despite the enormous state effort by the Dominican
government to separate its citizens from Haitians, inter-ethnic contact persisted.
Govermnent archival sources reveal that following the massacre in the early 19403 at
the height of the border project and endless anti-Haitian diatribes in the press,
Dominicans continued to associate with Haitians in more ways than one. On the
mound level there were numerous examples that showed that Dominicans entered
Haitian territory to visit family members or conducted business transactions despite
government efforts to sever cultural ties between the two peoples. Ironically, the
traditional Dominican historiomaphy paints a different portrait of the border at this
time.

During this period, Dominican intellectuals were intent on spreading the myth
of Haitian (read black) inferiority along with a xenophobic attitude, which they
justified as an appropriate defense against past and present Haitian agmession.
Although Haiti had ceased being a military threat to its eastern neighbor, Dominicans
intellectuals warned of a “silent invasion”: the escalating amount of Haitian sugarcane
cutters mimating to the Dorrrinican Republic. This allowed Dominican intellectuals to
cleverly rewrite the massacre as a violent self-defense encounter reminiscent of

bygone nineteenth century Haitian military campaigns.

251

My research on the post-massacre institutionalization of the border revealed
that while the press and Dominican intellectuals were creating a discourse of
separation and fear, inter-border cultural and economic exchange continued albeit
under the gaze of the new state surveillance. My research also shows that although
Dominican border officials informed their superiors in Santo Domingo of this
persistent contact, the historic linkages created over centuries of trade made further
state (violent) anti-Haitian reprisals unfeasible. Many elderly Dominicans I spoke
with confirmed the archival docmnents. Most of them told me that initially the
massacre had suspended contact and trade between Haitians and Dominicans.
However, it only took a year or two before things stabilized along the border. Many
border Dominicans recalled that at the height of the Dorrrinicanization project it was
normal to travel to Haiti and buy food in Haitian markets. The persistence in inter-
border trade only a few years after a bloody genocidal campaiml and during a period
where the state was initiating an intense policy of state-building based on the rejection
of Haiti, ultimately undermined and limited Trujillo’s goal of Dominicanizing this
region.

The refusal of many Dominican border residents to follow wholeheartedly
anti-Haitian state ideology represents a resistance that is so characteristic of the
history of this region. It also points to the failure of Dominican officials to either
underestimate the historic and entrenched interethnic and economic relations in the
border or the state’s inability to reach and convince residents to stay away from Haiti
or both. In the end, this historic semi-autonomous zone called the border,
encompassing Dominicans, Haitians, and bilingual descendants of both moups proved
stronger and durable than the killings 20,000 Haitians and the subsequent state
policies intended to destroy this community.

The 1937 Haitian Massacre and the subsequent Dominicanization of the

252

border is also important in understanding the origins of modem anti-Haitianism in the
Dominican Republic. Today there are thousands of Haitians who live and work in the
country without any legal documentation. Many arrived as cane cutters in isolated
sugar mills of the east in towns such as San Pedro, La Romana, and Barahona, while
others mimated to the countryside or cities for agricultural and urban work. The
mowing number of Haitians in Dominican territory has provoked many nationalists to
resurrect the rhetoric first institutionalized by Trujillo intellectuals sixty years ago.
Phrases in the media such as a “silent invasion” or “invisible war” abound in
Dominican newspapers and magazine articles. Many articles are blatant in their
description of Haitian irnmimants as being carriers of disease and even describing
them as insects and rodents.1 Moreover, as in many societies, where racial, ethnic or
religious minorities are scapegoated and are often blamed for the deterioration of the
host country, there exists a popular and simlificant strain in Dominican society that
sees Haiti and its irnmimants as a serious threat to the sovereimrty of the nation. Many
Dominicans blame the demise of their country to the simlificant and mowing presence
of Haitian irnrrrimants. There is a Malthusian fear that the Dominican Republic will
not be able to withstand the population pressure caused by Haitian mimants.
Moreover, right-of-center politicians warn that a simlificant number of Haitian
mimants are carriers of AIDS thereby exposing his country to a significant health
hazard (as if Dominicans cannot be carriers of the virus).2

In a country where Haitians are seen as outsiders, crimes committed by the

 

'Reporter Santiago Estrella Veloz writes, “There are like flies because they are everywhere: in the
marginal bateyes, in the affluent and poor neighborhoods; in the streets and avenues...it is about
Haitians who multiply like rats without any need to subsist.” See Santiago Estrella Veloz, “The
Haitians like Flies: they are everywhere.” Canabrava Junel 1, 1999, pg.9.

2Angel Lockward never mentions statistics for Haitians and their medical conditions in the Dominican

Republic. Rather, citing Haitians in Cuba, he wants the reader to make the connection between “studies

made in the Haitian boat people population which arrived in Guantanamo, in Cuba three years ago

[1994] who have a 35% incidence of AIDS”, and those who are entering the Dominican Republic

today. See Asuntos de Mimacion: Haiti en las calles dominicanas,” Listin Diaria July 20, 1997, 9A.
253

latter are frequently underscored. For example the rape of an unidentified woman by
four Haitians in Santo Domingo made front-page news in one of the Dominican
afternoon dailies.3 Although the newspaper article never disclosed the woman’s
nationality, shocking headlines feature crimes by Haitians which filel even more
Dominican fear and contempt for irnmimants from Haiti. There is a palpable alarm in
many xenophobic Dominican circles that Dominican sovereimrty is being eroded by
the presence of ever increasing Haitian enclaves. Some have even warned of the
Balkanization of the Dominican Republic where Haitians residing in Dominican
territory would in the near future petition the international community for autonomous
rights.4 This fear of being overwhelmed by Haiti can be traced to the 1822-44 Haitian
control of the entire island. Since then this historical event has become an unrelenting
theme in the collective memory of Dominicans. Today anti-Haitianism in Dominican
society has led many Dominicans to believe that Haitian irnmimation is a prelude to a
reunification of the island. Many Dominicans feel Haiti maintains imperial aspirations
to control the entire island as it once did in the nineteenth century by mentioning its
constitution which supposedly states that the island is one and indivisible. Yet, as one
imminent Dominican historian has written, after 1935, the Haitian constitution
dropped the controversial clause and replaced it with: “Haiti is an indivisible,
sovereiml, independent, democratic and social Republic.”5 Here historical myth as
memory is stronger than fact. For many Dominicans, the overwhehning Haitian

presence in various sectors of the Dominican economy confirms this fear: that

 

3
“4 haitianos violan mujer,” See Ultimo Hora April 30, 1997.

4See “Kosovo y Haiti,” Listin Diario, March 3, 1999, 8A. “When those ‘independent corrrmunities’
develop, surely we will have here the OAS, the United Nations, France, the United States, and Canada
supporting the ‘just dernands’ of the noble and long-suffering Haitian people.” Also see “?Albano-
Kosovares=haitianos~barahoneros?,” Rumba No. 271 April 12, 1999, 45.

5Frank Moya Pons, ?una e indivisible?, Rumba March 3-9, 1994, 6. Similar articles continued to appear
five years after the previous article stating that “The Haitianization of the Dominican Republic is
everywhere...it appears to be fate, a destiny or a calamity: ‘The One and Indivisible.”’ See Salvador B.
Dajer S. “Francisco de Rosario Sanchez,” El Hay March 8, 1999, 6.

254

Haitians are once again taking over. Yet, economic conditions not hyperbole best
explain why Haitians leave their country for brighter horizons across the border.

Dominican newspapers have echoed similar remarks by the World Bank
describing Haiti’s economic conditions of extreme poverty as war-like. In Haiti,
infant mortality rate in the first year is 150 out of 1,000; life expectancy is 52 years.
There are 30 students per 10,000 inhabitants and nine doctors per 1,000 persons
leading one reporter to say that Haiti is “without armed moups confronting each other
like in Africa, the ex-Yugoslavia or the Middle East. It is a war that is not seen if it
weren’t for the physical infiastructure, economic and institutional destruction of the
country.”6 But similar to the United States and Mexico, Dominicans shares a border
with Haiti whose citizens comprise the largest immimant moup in the Dorrrinican
Republic. Haitians have been rrrimating to the eastern end of the island for years.
Some mimate to work in the agricultural sectors, others in the field of construction far
from the border. While others mimate twice a week to markets on the Dominican side
of the border to buy and sell food and other items with Dominicans like their mothers
and meat-mandmothers before them only to return to their country at the end of the
day.7 Despite state-building projects, Haiti has continued to have a simrificant
economic and cultural impact on the border region. Haitian business and trade
represent an economic lifeline for the sustainability of the region. But the anti-Haitian
rhetoric emanating from the major non-border cities that demonize Haitians and
support their deportations belie the local reality of Dominican dependence on Haitian
trade and labor.

Throughout the deportations of Haitians in the 19903, the Haitian embassy in
the Dorrrinican Republic voiced its complaints with the Dominican government.

Haitian officials have called the periodic deportations of their nationals as arbitrary

 

 

6
7See “Haiti, tan cerca y tan lejos,” Listin Diario March 28, 1999, pg.3D.

Annet Cardenas Vega, “Portada,” Rumba April 12, 1999, 37-38.
255

and “excessive”. For example this arbitrariness in times of repatriations means that
illegal and legal Haitians are not distinguished from each other and thus also risk
being repatriated. These arbitrary measures, according to one Haitian Ambassador in
Santo Domingo, Guy Larnothe, are reflected in cases when Haitian tourists possessing
legal documents have also been repatriated.8 Repatriations also affect many
Dominicans as well and challenge the very notion of Dominican identity and what
criteria are required to fillfill it.

The official anti-Haitian discourse as official policy ended with Trujillo’s
assassination in 1961 however the legacy of the modern anti-Haitianism his regime
gave birth to during the last twenty-three years of his dictatorship has survived till the
present day. Almost sixty years after state anti-Haitianism in the form of ethnic
cleansing emerged it has remained entrenched in Dominican society. The same border
where revolutionary Haitians and Dominicans together plotted against their respective
central governments while shouting the battle cry of freedom against foreiml US
intervention has become a lightning rod for Dominican conservatives and xenophobes
who see it as the nation’s exposed weak link of the Republic. Education is the key if
current Dominican attitudes about Haitians are ever going to change. School curricula
needs to rigorously teach students about the positive history Dominicans share with
Haitians. Schoolchildren should be constantly shown through pictures, songs,
lectures, and games of Haitians as their friends. Throughout K-12 Dorrrinican history
especially the period of the Haitian expansionism into the Dominican Republic should
be taught without the antagonistic and nationalistic fervor that unfortunately
underpins part of Dominican pedagogy on this subject. Teaching Dominican students

about their wars of independence with Haiti does not have to be taught along anti-

 

8 F ior Gil, “Ernbajada Haiti denuncia deportan truistas haitianos,” El Hay, March 27, 1999, 14. During
the massive deportations of Haiti in the late 19903, several Haitian conmessmen proposed a conrplete
econorrric boycott along with the closing of the border in response to the deportations. See “Piden
boicot contra Santo Domingo,” El Pois, February 20, 1997, 7.

256

Haitian lines.9 For example, there is neither popular nor official anti-British sentiment
on the part of the citizens of the United States today. The reason being that Americans
from a very young age are not taught to fear or hate the British although the latter
exploited the American colonists and stood in the way of their political independence.
The same case can be made for the elimination of anti-Haitianism in the Dominican
Republic. No Dominican is born fearing or disliking Haiti/Haitians. Dominicans as all
human beings learn their prejudices as children. Dominicans are no different. They
are taught to be anti-Haitian by familial and popular discourses, which are reinforced
and influenced by state institutions.

Anti-Haitianism crystallized under Trujillo was taught and projected as an
official ideology of the state. Only a similar campaiml with official support,
consistent, with wide coverage from the state can undermine fundamentally sixty
years of racist and xenophobic indoctrination. Dominican children should be taught
that although they might share a similar language with Argentina or Spain their
historical struggles against colonialism shows they have as much in common with
Haiti. Already as they travel more outside of their countries and as diasporic
communities mow and come in closer contact with other societies in the United States
and Spain Dominicans are becoming painfirlly aware of Trujillo’s false racial identity
as they confront their own place in the Afiican Diaspora in such disparate cities as
New York and Madrid.

Trujillo’s doctrine of anti-Haitianism and hispanidad sought to underscore
Dominicans’ cultural similarities with Spain when in reality Dominicans shared just

as much with Haiti. Teaching a less chauvinistic and more accurate (border oriented)

 

9One example is a high school history book by Ruben Silie that attempts to offer balanced view of the
infamous 1822-1844 unification of the island. Rather than focus on and exaggerate the evils of Boyer’s
control of the entire island, the textbook asks students to discuss “the positive and negative measures of
Boyer.” See Ruben Silie’s Ciencias Sociales, Cuarto Grado (Santo Domingo: Sec. de Educacion y

Cultura, 1997), pg.137.
257

version of Dominican-Haitian history may begin the transformation of Dominican
attitudes towards Haiti and perhaps increase sensitivities toward immimant rights in
their country. A transformation in the cunicula along with reinforcement by the
popular media will also heightened the consciousness of Dominicans by protesting
more vehemently whenever the government tries to deport Haitians. ’

The massacre must not be seen as an isolated incident or an aberration by a
dictator and his band of soldiers in a remote region of the country. The massacre as
history lesson must show how mostly ordinary Dominican soldiers and ordinary
Dominican civilians participated willingly and unwillingly in the killing of thousands
of Haitians men, women, children. Similar debates that other countries face in their
participation in the destruction of a moup of people must take place in the Dominican
Republic. For example Germans today continue to understand why many of them
participated in the killing of Jews and other minorities when they knew their actions
were morally wrong. In the Dominican Republic a country much smaller in size and
economic production and in many ways very different than Germany should be asking
the same questions: how could Dominican civilians near the border who were familiar
with Haiti and her people assist the army in hunting and at times themselves kill
Haitians?

With all the talk of globalization in the Dominican Republic the government
has failed to globalize the way it remembers its past. At a time when there is a global
movement to remember genocides and other crimes against humanity the Dominican
Republic has refused to acknowledge or commemorate the memories of the victims of
the massacre, while simultaneously stripping Haitians of their basic human rights to

live and work in a country.

Americans especially should be made aware of this massacre because

258

President Roosevelt through diplomatic correspondence knew that killings were
taking place but failed to reprimand or punish Trujillo. For the sake of Latin
American solidarity and the success of his Good Neighbor foreign policy President
Roosevelt never scorned Trujillo or adopted a policy to isolate him. All would be
forgotten when the United States entered World War Two against Germany and Japan
and Trujillo declared his unflinching support for the allies. But Trujillo was never
punished for these crimes against humanity. Nor were any of his ideologues many of
which have since died, ever brought before a judge to be tried in a court of law.
Others, like Joaquin Balaguer, have sadly gone on to become president several times
and even publish racist books excoriating Haitians.

Today there are still many Trujillistas like Balaguer who occupy positions of
power throughout Dominican society. Fortunately, one of the ways that Dominicans
can begin rethinking the past and cleansing itself of Trujillo’s political and racial
residue on how history is presented is by actively remembering, as do societies
throughout the world, their nation’s mistake. Benedict Anderson writes that there is
no shame in feeling ashamed of your country’s past mistakes and the entire citizenry
should condemn crimes committed by the state--past or present. Using the case of
America’s role during the Vietnam War, Anderson writes that Americans “felt
ashamed that ‘their’ country’s history was being stained by cruelties, lies, and
betrayals. So they went to work in protest, not merely as advocates of universal
human rights, but as Americans who loved the common American project. This kind
of political shame is very good and always needed.”10 Dominicans need to have
shame as a collective moup concerning not only Trujillo’s genocidal policy against
Haitians in 1937 but also other human rights violations that continued during the

regime and that went well beyond his dictatorship. These crimes range from the 1937

 

10
See Benedict Anderson’s “Indonesian Nationalism Today and in the Future,” in The New Left Review,
No.235 (May/June 1999), pg.18.
259

massacre, the murder of the Mirabal sisters, and countless political murders during
Trujillo’s regime to crimes under his protégé’s-- Balaguer--govemment (1966-1978;
1986-1996) of which the most famous ones are the murder of journalist Orlando
Martinez and university Professor Narciso Gonzalez. Commemorating the past
through physical space such as a memorial or monument to the dead Haitians will
begin the long overdue process for Dominicans to lift the numbing veneer of years of
Trujillo politics. Dominicans themselves will have to reclaim their soil independent of
politicians and the elite in order to establish monuments that truly present their past.
As one scholar writes, “We can take back the landscape. It does not belong to the
dead, but to the living. Monuments and markers are messages to the future, and the
future does not belong to the rich alone but to all of us. We must not act in haste, but
we must act to make the landscape ours. We must initiate a dialogue with the past
from countryside to city square, which will also begin a dialogue with each other.”11 It
will also mark a radical and sincere overture to Haitians that today’s Dominicans
repudiate all types of anti-Haitianism whether it be violent ethnic cleansing as in the
past or forced and mass deportations of today.

Today more than ever the concept of remembering a nation’s shameful past
through various methods has become an extremely important tool in how nations
learn to cope with uncomfortable parts of its history. In South Africa the government
has created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the crimes committed
against Blacks under the Apartheid government as a way to come to terms with the
past. Swiss banks have ameed to pay more than a billion dollars to Nazi Holocaust
survivors and their families whose accounts were hidden by the banks. Recently,
Sweden’s Prime Minister Goran Persson began reevaluating his country’s role and

collaboration with Hitler’s army during World War Two. “Mr. Persson broke 60 years

 

11
See James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: The
New Press, 1999), pg.453
260

of tradition by ending a defense of neutral Sweden, which, it has emerged, sold iron
ore to Germany for munitions and let German troops cross its territory into Finland
and Norway.”12 Trials against those persons who masterminded the genocide in
Rwanda have been conducted albeit at a very slow pace. Even former US President
Clinton who almost apologized for black slavery in the United States during his trip to
Africa became the first sitting US President to apologize to African-Americans for the
painful and reprehensible government project called the Tuskegee experiment. If
governments throughout the world can come to mips with their nation’s unspoken and
shameful histories than surely the Dorrrinican Republic can begin the painfill but

redemptive process of remembering the victims of the 1937 Haitian massacre.

 

'2“chden: Admitting Mistakes,” in the New York Times, Jan.21, 2000.
261

USE FOR ARTICLE***
The most palpable example of contemporary anti-Haitianism was the racist campaign
waged against the late Dr. Jose Francisco Pena Gomez by former Trujillo underling
Dr. Joaquin Balaguer Ricart.

During the 19903 Pena Gomez the Partido Revolucionario Donrinicano’s
(PRD) presidential candidate and the Vice-president for the Socialist International
endured countless racial diatribes by Balaguer, his supporters, and Dominicans alike
claiming that Pena Gomez was Haitian and thus did not qualify to be president of the
Dominican Republic. Gomez, who was black, suffered humiliating attacks on his
person. He was called Haitian because of his complexion and, his loyalty was
questioned by many who believed his ascendancy to the presidency would usher in a
torrent of Haitian imrrrimation to the Dominican Republic. For many Dominicans an
excess of melanin revealed your Dominican identity and country loyalty. People flatly
rejected Pena Gomez perhaps the best-qualified and experienced candidate during the
19903 because he was black and born to Haitian parents. Ironically, Pena Gomez’s
resume reflected unquestionable patriotic loyalty.

During the US invasion of 1965, Pena Gomez like the many Dominicans of
his generation was outspoken and led many public gatherings denouncing the

invasion. A man who had risked his life and participated in that noble dream of
262

creating a democracy in the Dominican Republic by standing-up with his fellow
citizens against 22,000 Marines and an intransigent and fearfill elite in the 19603, was
now the victim of a political and media campaign that questioned his nationality and
allegiance and urged Dominicans to “‘save’” the homeland from the Haitian threat.”13
Alluding to Pena Gomez Dominicans like Balaguer urged patriotic voters to
protect the nation and elect the ‘Dominican’ candidate. Through fraud, the same
Balaguer who denied that a massacre had ever taken place in 1937 and throughout the
19403 fanned the flames of Dominican racism and manipulated Dominicans’
traditional fears of Haiti to defeat Pena Gomez in 1994. During the 1990a, anti-
Haitiarrism was alive and well through the countless indiscriminate repatriations and
deportations of Haitians in the Dominican Republic. For years Haitians have been
employed by the Dominican government to cut sugar cane in their fields. According
to the contract when it expired the worker had to return to Haiti. Many remained and
created their own communities in the Dominican Republic and raised families as well.
The living conditions in the sugar plantations were and still are deplorable. Indeed
many have compared the appalling conditions in these bateyes to modern slavery.14
Indeed the entire world discovered just how bad conditions were for Haitians in an
anti-slavery society study conducted in the mid-eighties that exposed to the world the
abuse and system of force labor on these sugar mills.” Moreover the study also
examined how Dominican officials particularly the army literally bought and sold
Haitians and transported them to Dominican sugar plantations in the east. In its report
on contemporary forms of slavery the United Nations also was very concerned about

the conditions of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic. It stated that:

 

13
See Silvio Torres-Saillant’s El retarna de las yolas. Ensayas sabre diaspora, democracio y
flaminiconidad (Santo Domingo: Libreria Trinitaria/Manati, 1999), pg.84.
See Howard French, “Consuelito Journal: Sugar Harvest’s Bitter Side: Some Call it Slavery,” New
York Times, April 27, 1990, pg.4
Roger Plant, Sugar and Modern Slavery: A Tale of Two Countries. (London: Zed Books, 1987).
263

The committee on the Application of Standards of the 77th International labour
Conference in June 1990, had noted with mave concern the continued failure of the
Dorrrinican Republic to eliminate serious deficiencies in the application of the
Convention. As a result the country had been listed under the heading ‘Continued
failure to implement’. It was noted that the committee seldom lists countries under
this heading. In the last 10 years it had done so on only three occasions with regard to
two countries.16

The situation on the sugar plantations has not changed much for the Haitian
worker. They remain within a system that is labor intensive and exploitative as ever in
order to maximize its labor during the harvest. One of the major problems that further
exploit and marginalizes Haitians in the Dominican Republic and contributes to the
myth of the Haitian as the Other is that many of the children of Haitian parents born
in the Dominican Republic are denied Dominican citizenship. The Dorrrinican
constitution states that everyone born in Dominican territory is 3 Dominican citizen.
Yet for thousands of children born in on Dominican soil to Haitian parents the reality
is that they are in effect nation-less. No country claims them as its citizens and they
live without any official papers to identify them or confirm their legal existence. They
lack legal and political rights and are subject to the wrath of repressive state policies
depending on which way the political winds are blowing. The refusal to give
Dominicans of Haitian descent citizenship also sets ups an excuse for the state to
implement unjust and punitive anti-Haitian measures. Again deportations are
implemented when the government deems it politically feasible.

The last twenty years has seen the Dominican government carry out massive
deportations of Haitians with the excuse that they are illegal irnmimants and have no
identity papers. Many of the supposed Haitians that have been deported were as

Dominican as the next person (born and raised) but because they were denied the right

 

'6 United Nations Economic and Social Council, Cormnission of Human Rights Sub-Commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Forty-second session, Agenda item 16,

E/CN.4/SUB.2/1990/44, 23 August 1990, pg. 10.
264

to belong to the Dominican nation (the nation of their birth) they were and are forced
from the only home they have ever known by force. In 1991 , 50,000 Haitians, along
with several dark-skinned Dominicans, were deported under president Joaquin
Balaguer who aside fiom his participation in covering-up the massacre has written

17
widely on the racial inferiority of Haitians.

Deporting Haitians has become a politically expedient strategy for the
Dominican government during times of internal crisis. The Dominican elite has
successfully used this strategy to shift the focus of internal dissent toward a familiar
and easy target. Recently in November of 1999 President Leonel Fernandez ordered
the deportations of thousands of Haitians for lacking documentation precisely because
the government refused to issue identification papers. People were rounded-up
without little notice or preparation and taken to the border for expulsion. There were
human rights moups that protested such as MUDHA: an organization composed of
Haitian and Dominican-Haitian women calling for equal treatment before the law for
Haitians and their children in the Dominican Republic. Yet the deportations continued
like they did in 1991 without any serious challenge to this policy. Meanwhile Haitians
remain vulnerable to the whims of government officials who find it politically
expedient to deport Haitians rather than address more fundamental issues such as a
fair and consistent imrrrimation policy toward Haiti, unemployment and extreme
poverty that affects most Dominicans.

In order to protect Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans, the Dominican
government must recognize each person born on its soil as a citizen. Often when a
Haitian mother takes her newborn to the municipal offices to claim her citizenship

papers she (poor, black, and unable to speak Spanish) is rejected by the ordinary

 

17
Joaquin Balaguer, Lo isla al reves: Haiti y el destina dominicana. (Santo Domingo: Libreria

Dominicana, 1984).
265

Dominican bureaucrats who reject them outright. According to one journalist: “There
are testimonies available of hospitals where women who have come from the other
side of the island give birth but because they lack [identification] papers they are not
even offered a birth certificate there for her son or daughter by which the child is
already marked; the child will have difficulties being inscribed to go to school and for
everything else. In that very instant he/she begins to be excluded.”18 No other
imnrimants that I am aware receive this treatment in the Dominican Republic. A
United Nation’s study underscored the need for the Dominican state to politically
emancipate this nation-less moup. According to the report there needs to be a
“regularization of the status of Haitians who have lived and worked in the Dominican
Republic for a given period of time and the issue of identity papers to persons born in
the Dominican Republic.”19 But even with identity papers that allow people to legally
reside in the country, government deportation of Haitians and its lure of being able to
repatriate without provoking a policy-changing backlash among Dominicans will
persist.

The human rights abuses are not just limited to Haitians. During many of the
deportations carried out there are always Black Dominicans who suffer the indimrities
of deportation because they were black and mistaken for Haitian. According to one
black Donrinican, Frank Darling, who was almost deported: “They almost took me in
the October raid. Because I am very black they swore that I was Haitian. Can you

believe it: 1 don’t even know how to speak that language! What would have happened

 

18See “El racismo destruye la democracia,” Rumba No.27? May 24, 1999, pg.22 An example of this
exclusion was the case of Claubian Jean Jacques an eighteen year old Dominican of Haitian parents
who although an excellent student with a 99.3 GPA could not maduate because authorities in spite
refused to issue him a Dominican birth certificate. See El Siglo April 6, 1999, pg. 13.

l9United Nations Econonric and Social Council Commission on Human Rights Sub-Commission on
prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Working Group on Contemporary Forms of
Slavery Fifteenth Session 30- July-3 August 1990 Eradication of the Exploitation of Child Labour and
of Debt Bondage, Review of Developments in other Fields of Contemporary Forms of Slavery,
E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.2/1990/5add.4, 10 July 1990, pg.2.

266

to me! It’s incredible: here in this part of the country [Santiago] the racial abuse is
terrible. And the people are racist. I feel it. I receive a lot of violence. And I’m
Dominican.”20

Some Dominicans have not been as lucky as Darling. There have been
numerous complaints lodged against the government by human rights moups. The
president of the Dominican Committee on Human Rights Virgilio Almanzar
denounced the arrest and expulsion from the country of several dark-skinned
Dominicans. In just one sugar mill housing settlement (Batey Nuevo) 15 Dominicans
were deported to Haiti. “All being descendants of Haitians but born in Dorrrinican
tenitory.”2|

Deportations not only reveal the extent of Dominican anti-Haitianism towards
Haitians by current and previous governments but they also show how they can
similarly strip Dominicans especially black Dominicans of their presumed and
unquestionable nationality falsely created during Trujillo’s dictatorship but
maintained till the present day by the country’s elite. This is why the recent
deportations of Haitians have made the issue of remembering the 1937 Haitian
massacre more imperative than ever. At the turn of the new 213t century and the third
millennium many Dominicans continue to see Haitians as the invader. The reason
why Dominicans in general continue to perceive Haitians as a threat is because they
have not been agmessively taught to see Haitians in a different light. Although Haiti
attempted three times to invade unsuccessfully the Dominican Republic it is also true
that relations between both countries especially along the border have been more

collaborative than adversarial. Since the mid to late nineteenth to the early twentieth

 

20Ibid. “El racismo destruye la democracia,” Rumbo No. 277, May 24, 1999, pg.22. “They ahnost took
me in the October raid. Because I am very black they swore that I was Haitian. hmgine that: I who do
not even speak the language. What would have happened to me?! It’s incredible: here the racial
mistreatment in this part of the island is terrible. And the population is racist.”

2
1See Jose Rivas, “Denuncian expulsan criollos nemos a Haiti,” El Hay, March 22, 1999, 7.
267

centuries Haitians and Dominican border residents created an interdependent and
mutual space where negotiation, understanding, and interaction was the norm.

In an informative 1997 report in a Dominican newspaper the five provincial
border governors at the time addressed two realities. The first was their official duty
to follow the govemment’s deportation policy; the second contradicted the first,
underscoring the importance and impact of Haitian labor in their economies and the
counterproductive outcomes associated with such policies. One such governor of the
southern province of Pedemales reflected his dual obligation to the patria mande and
patria chica by supporting the deportations of undocumented persons but making
exceptions for Haitians. “Anyone who is illegal in a country should be deported but
with the Haitians what needs to be established is flee trade where after selling their
merchandise they return to their country.”22

There are many Dominicans who argue that placing a memorial or monument
on the border as a commemorative symbol for those who lost their lives is unpatriotic.
Many say instead that a montunent should be erected to those Dominicans who fought
valiantly against three successive and unsuccessful Haitian invasions into the
Dominican Republic. I have no problem with these monuments however there is
always room for a memorial. And what about Germans? Are they less patriotic
because they acknowledge their country’s role in the extermination of Jews? No. I
believe that the Dominican Republic has not had a cathartic cleansing of itself, as do

many other nations, which have undergone years of dictatorships and totalitarian

. 23
remmes.

 

22Jose Medrano, Governor of Pedemales Province “La flontera: no es final, es el inicio del pais,” Listin
Diaria May 12, 1997, 6C. Provincial Governor of Elias Pina Miguel Mateo says, “I do not amee with
the deportation with those who have made a life in the region and are legal but those who are illegal
should be deported. When the deportations were being produced I fulfilled my obligations.”

I thank Dr. Silvio Torres-Saillant for helping me conceptualize how the Dominican national conscious

should be healed.
268

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