D.R ( I can use D.R from
here on out right?) has such a rich and colorful history. The original
inhabitants of the island were the native groups called the Tainos. There
is not much written history prior to the arrival of Columbus and not much oral
history survived thanks to the destruction of the native population. Fun
fact, the Tainos called the island Quisqueya which is supposedly translated
into mother of lands, and when I am listening to alot of bachata (music type
originating in D.R) they always refer to Quisqueya! I was all like "wut is
thaaat" but I later learned that many Dominican artist refer to New York
as Quisqueya. Well in New York there are a lot of persons of Dominican
descent about 800,000. My husband Luis even made his way through there
when he first came to the U.S. But immigration patterns of people from
D.R is for another time, back to the history...
One Columbus came and
"civilized the island" it was bad news bears for the native
population. They suffered a dramatic decline in population thanks to
smallpox, warfare, and forced slave labor. For the Spaniards that meant
their free labor was drying up so they got permission from good ol' Ferdinand
and Isabella to import African slaves. By the time the Africans got to
"Hispanola" there were less than 75,000 natives. African slave
labor replaced indigenous and off they went to work the sugar cane plantations.
The sugar cane was very profitable for Spain...until the conquered the
mainland. they redirected their attention toward the silver mines and
many new Spanish colonists passed the island up. The island was no longer
that important or profitable to Spain so the island began to live in poverty
and intermingle (*race mixing). The intermarriages or interrelations
would not have been permitted prior to the 1600's because of the strong belief
in the casta system and you know that whole notion of "European
superiority". In addition to Africans, Spaniards and Natives, there
was also a Dutch population that brought over goods from the Netherlands!
Then the French came
Basically, the Spaniard
moved everyone over to a corner of the island (modern day D.R) because they
were upset with the illegal trading with the Dutch. Many settlements were
destroyed and people killed, the Spaniards moved (forcibly) most of the
population around Santo Domingo, which became the capital. The French
moved in on the other side of the island and called it Haiti.
My last name is Eloy
pronounced (EL WAH), and it is of French origin so even though my husband says
(claims*) he is 100% Dominican, it makes me wonder if there was some Haitian
mixing going on :).
Any who, two European
crowns were ruling the island of Hispaniola the French and the Spanish.
There was a lot less race mixing during this time on the Haitian side and
they also still heavily relied on slave labor. So naturally the slaves
revolted and the Hatian republic began in 1804. Haitians took control
over the island and were apparently very rude to the Dominicans. Messing
with their land ownership, churches, overall quality of life. After all
the turmoil, the Domincan’s realized they wanted their own independence and
thanks to Juan Pablo Duarte & Co they gained independence from Haiti in
1844. Cool beans right? Not! Haiti wanted control and raged attacks all the way
until 1856. Pedro Santana took advantage of all the civil unrest and
declared himself president (he was Dominican) without much resistance.
D.R began to establish
itself as an independent nation, there was a lot of trial and error,
revolutions and overthrowing of government. Four revolution and 5
presidents within 7 years, Yikes! Other nations began to see that the country
was falling apart and countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands
wanted to make sure their debt were repaid (they had invested in the young
republic) and that's when captain save a country (the USA) came in a promised
to help repay those debts.
Bad idea... it is always
a bad idea to get the U.S involved... especially in Latin America. Peep
Nicaragua, the Sandinistas or how the U.S created its drug trafficking problem
by meddling/occupying in places they should not during the 70's and 80's.
U.S marines landed in Santo Domingo in 1916. Military presence led to a military
government and implementations in the D.R.
Keep in mind the “progressive” mindset of Americans during the early 20th
century, many did not coincide with the culture of the D.R. Some of the implementations included
“reorganization
of the tax system, accounting and administration, expansion of primary
education, the creation of a nationwide police force to unify the country, and
the construction of a national system of roads, including a highway linking
Santiago to Santo Domingo.”
Although this brought
some good, many Dominicans resent the foreign presence (duh!). Especially because none of the foreigners
bothered to speak Spanish or care about the actual welfare of the people. It didn’t help that the U.S imposed censorship
laws and put any jail any who opposed the U.S occupation. They also broke up land to profit from more
sugar plantations and left many farmers without anything. U.S occupation ended in 1924 and Rafael Trujillo
came into power.
Trujillo ruled for 30
years as a dictator and created El Partido Dominicao which means the Dominican
party. This guy was horrible. He massacred tens of thousands of Haitians
who had come over to work on the sugar plantation. He killed many who opposed him as well as the
Maribal sisters (google them). This guy
was a dictator in every sense of the word, he kept in power by monopolizing
everything. He owned 50-70 percent of
the land and his business were responsible for 80 percent of commercial activity. Eventually he was killed in 1961.
This history has set
the tone for modern day conflicts, traditions, and customs. I will try through each part of culture I explore
to tie it back into history and make connections :)
