Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo

Departamento del Ozama y del Cibao Départements de l'Ozama et du Cibao
Haitian Territory
← 1822–1844 →
Flag
Capital	Santo Domingo
Language(s)	Spanish, French
Government	Republic
President
- 1822-1843	Jean-Pierre Boyer
- 1843-1844	Charles Riviere-Hérard
Governor
- 1822-1843	Gen. Borgella
- 1843-1844	Gen. Carrié
History
- Haitian occupation	February 9, 1822
- Independence	February 27, 1844
Area	48,442 km2 (18,704 sq mi)
Currency	Haitian Gourde

The Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo was Haiti's military invasion and ensuing 22-year occupation of the newly independent Republic of Spanish Haiti, formerly the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, what is present-day Dominican Republic, from February 9, 1822 until February 27, 1844.

The occupation is recalled by Dominicans as a period of brutal military rule, though the reality is more complex. It led to large-scale land expropriations and failed efforts to force production of export crops, impose military services, restrict the use of the Spanish language, and eliminate traditional customs. It reinforced Dominicans' perceptions of themselves as different from Haitians in "language, race, religion and domestic customs."^[1] This period also definitively ended slavery as an institution in what became the Dominican Republic.

Background

European colonization

By the late 18th century, the island of Hispaniola was divided into two European colonies: Saint-Domingue, in the west, governed by France; and Santo Domingo, governed by Spain, occupying the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola.

In 1804, following black slave uprisings since 1791, the French colony declared its independence as Haiti. Independence did not come easily, given that Haiti had been France's most profitable colony, as a result of the sugar plantations worked by slaves; sugar had become an expensive commodity in Europe.

Meanwhile, on the eastern side, composed mainly of Spanish descendants, mulattoes, freedmen, and some black slaves, the economy was stagnant, the land largely unexploited and used for sustenance farming, and the population much smaller than in Haiti. Accounts by the essayist and politician José Núñez de Cáceres cite the Spanish colony's population as around 80,000; Haiti, on the other hand, was nearing a million former slaves.^[2] At the time, Spain was more focused on mining for gold in Mexico.

Independence of Santo Domingo

On November 9, 1821 the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo was toppled by a group led by Núñez de Cáceres, the colony's former administrator,^[3][4] and the rebels proclaimed independence from Spain on November 30, 1821.^[5] The new nation was known as República del Haití Español (Republic of Spanish Haiti).^[4] On December 1, 1821 a constitutive act was ordered to petition the union of Spanish Haiti with Gran Colombia.

Justification of the invasion

However, a group of politicians and military officers favored uniting the new nation with Haiti, as various elite families sought for political stability under Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer. A large faction based in the northern Cibao region were opposed to the union with Gran Colombia and also sided with Haiti. Boyer, on the other hand, had several objectives in the island that he proclaimed to be "one and indivisible": to maintain Haitian independence against potential French or Spanish attack or reconquest; to maintain the freedom of its former slaves; and to liberate the remaining slaves in Haití Español.^[5][6][7]

Boyer was already in negotiations with France to prevent an attack by fourteen French warships stationed near Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. They soon agreed that France would sell the territory to the Haitian rebels for 150 million Francs (more than twice what France had charged the United States for the much larger Louisiana territory in 1803).

Invasion

The Dominicans were at serious disadvantage if they were to prevent the Haitian invasion. Mainly, they had no military forces whatsoever, their population was eight to ten times less than Haiti's, and the economy was stalled. Haiti, on the other hand, had formidable armed forces, both in skill and sheer size, which had been hardened in nearly ten years of repelling French soldiers, local colonialists, and military insurgents. The racial massacres perpetrated in the later days of the French-Haitian conflict only added to the determination of Haitians to never lose a battle.

After promising his protection to several Dominican frontier governors and securing their allegiance, Boyer invaded with a force of 10,000 soldiers in February, 1822, encountering little opposition. On February 9, 1822, Boyer formally entered the capital city, Santo Domingo, where he was met with enthusiasm and received from president Núñez de Cáceres the keys to the Palace.^[6] The island was thus united from "Cape Tiburon to Cape Samana in possession of one government."^[5]

Occupation

Haiti's constitution forbade whites from owning land, and the major landowning families were forcibly deprived of their properties. Most emigrated to Cuba, Puerto Rico (these two being Spanish possessions at the time) or Gran Colombia, usually with the encouragement of Haitian officials, who acquired their lands. The Haitians, who associated the Roman Catholic Church with the French slave-masters who had exploited them before independence, confiscated all church property, deported all foreign clergy, and severed the ties of the remaining clergy to the Vatican. Santo Domingo’s university, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, lacking both students and teachers, closed down.

In order to raise funds for the huge indemnity of 150 million francs that Haiti agreed to pay the former French colonists, and which was subsequently lowered to 60 million francs, Haiti imposed heavy taxes on the Dominicans. Since Haiti was unable to adequately provision its army, the occupying forces largely survived by commandeering or confiscating food and supplies at gunpoint. Attempts to redistribute land conflicted with the system of communal land tenure (terrenos comuneros), which had arisen with the ranching economy, and newly emancipated slaves resented being forced to grow cash crops under Boyer's Code Rural.^[8] In rural areas, the Haitian administration was usually too inefficient to enforce its own laws. It was in the city of Santo Domingo that the effects of the occupation were most acutely felt, and it was there that the movement for independence originated.

Resistance

Although the invasion effectively eliminated colonial slavery and instated a constitution modeled after the United States constitution throughout the island, several resolutions and written dispositions were expressly aimed at converting Dominicans into second-class citizens: restrictions of movement, prohibition to run for public office, night curfews, inability to travel in groups, banning of civilian organizations, and the indefinite closure of the state university (on the alleged grounds of its being a subversive organization) all led to the creation of movements advocating separation from Haiti.

In 1838 Juan Pablo Duarte, Ramón Matías Mella, and Francisco del Rosario Sanchez founded a secret society called La Trinitaria to win independence from Haiti. In 1843 they allied with a Haitian movement that overthrew Boyer. After they revealed themselves as revolutionaries working for Dominican independence, the new Haitian president, Charles Riviere-Hérard, exiled or imprisoned the leading Trinitarios. At the same time, Buenaventura Báez, an Azua mahogany exporter and deputy in the Haitian National Assembly, was negotiating with the French Consul-General for the establishment of a French protectorate.

In an uprising timed to preempt Báez, on February 27, 1844, the Trinitarios declared independence from Haiti, backed by Pedro Santana, a wealthy cattle-rancher from El Seibo who commanded a private army of peons who worked on his estates. This marked the beginning of the Dominican War of Independence.

See also

• History of the Dominican Republic
• History of Haiti

References

1. ^ Moya Pons, Frank Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-speaking Caribbean in the 19th Century. Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press 1985
2. ^ Dominican Consulate Cultural Page^{[dead link]}
3. ^ Lancer, Jalisco. "The Conflict Between Haiti and the Dominican Republic". All Empires Online History Community. http://www.allempires.info/article/index.php?q=conflict_haiti_dominican. Retrieved 2007-12-24. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ ^{a b} "Haiti - Historical Flags". Flags of the World. http://www.flag.de/FOTW/flags/ht-hist.html#span. Retrieved 2007-12-24. 
5. ^ ^{a b c} Gates, Henry Louis; Appiah, Anthony (1999). "Dominican-Haitian Relations". Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. http://books.google.com/books?id=xE-N8hh-VNQC&pg=PA617&lpg=PA617&dq=spanish+haiti&source=web&ots=K8EfPYcsI4&sig=iMgEI31tSdkdtfcURxRZKAaYyh0#PPA617,M1. Retrieved 2007-12-24. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Matibag, Eugenio (2003). "Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint: Nation, State, and Race on Hispaniola". http://books.google.com/books?id=EswJ7t1B0XgC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=spanish+haiti&source=web&ots=E2d1AIn61c&sig=C5SCyMsNCv85VwcU9Jekcvr94cY#PPA96,M1. Retrieved 2007-12-24. 
7. ^ Corbett, Bob. "1818-1843 The rule of Jean-Pierre Boyer". The History of Haiti. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/108.html. Retrieved 2007-12-24. 
8. ^ Terrenos comuneros arose because of “scarce population, low value of the land, the absence of officials qualified to survey the lands, and the difficulty of dividing up the ranch in such a way that each would receive a share of the grasslands, forests, streams, palm groves, and small agricultural plots that, only when combined, made possible the exploitation of the ranch.” (Hoetink, The Dominican People: Notes for a Historical Sociology transl. Stephen Ault Pg. 83 (Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore, 1982)