AntiHatianismo

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mountainannie

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Ahthough the subject of race is banned on DR, the topic of Antihaitianismo is specific really, to the DR .

Here is a print out from the Corbett list, which is the moderated English speaking list serve which has been running for over 20 years..

Please keep the postings on topic, historical. and civil so that the thread does not get shut down.. or. I will have to take it Off Topic where the new posters cannot read it.

Although many newbies to the Island and the DR may think this is simply a matter of racism on the part of Dominicans.. while this may play a part.. it is certainly not the entire issue.

ok.. let us try,.

A Case of Mistaken Identity: Antihaitianismo in Dominican Culture
Haiti: Antihaitianismo in Dominican Culture
 

bob saunders

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Consider the development of both countries over the past century. Why did the DR develop so much more than Haiti, considering Haiti's greater population and resources (at the time) There was USA intervention in both countries but only the DR seem to benefit rom it. Antihaitianismo is not currently taught in Dominican schools.
 
Sep 4, 2012
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Good reading but I'll take with a grain of salt. These are the views mind you, of a Cuban descendent, born in NYC and whom attended school at PR. With these credentials there is a big margin for bias towards the DR and the subject at hanld.

Is there Antihaitianism in the DR? Of course there is, there have been and will always be; it's the nature of this island and the history among its people.
 
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"Notice again how Balaguer makes indistinct use of the terms "race" and "nation," so as to pretend that Haitians and Dominicans not only belong to different nations, but also to completely different races."

To pretend? They are different in race and are separate nations, has been the case from the origins of them both.

"The extinction of the indian race gave way for the population of Santo Domingo to be integrally constituted by European families, especially Spanish and French. Before the Treaty of Basel (1795), the colony's population was formed by the best of the families that had migrated to America, attracted by gold or by the fascinating mystery of remote expeditions [Balaguer 1984, 59].

In this brief passage, Balaguer helps to perpetuate the myth of the white Dominican by ignoring the fact that there was a considerable number of blacks and mulattoes in the colony before 1795 (Moya Pons 1977, 378-379). Balaguer's romantic notion of Dominican history is, unfortunately, shared by many Dominicans."

Myth?

The island was discovered and populated by Spaniards PRIOR to any slaves trades or blacks/mulattoes being in the picture.
 

Gurabo444

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It all started when a certain dude by the name of Henri Crishtophe decided to rape and massacre thousands of innocent Cibaenos, did I mention he also burned a bunch of towns to the ground? I know I know some of you are going to say why bring up something that happened 200 years ago? and why hold a grudge? Well I think is always good to know the root of a problem, in other words the reason that started it all.

BTW, not too long ago DR donated a university to Haiti, and to spit in the face of DR I guess, they decided to named it after this murderer. In good old Dominican Haitians are and always have been uno' malo' agradecidos, there's no other country who has helped them more than DR.
 
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I just re-read the article for the 5th time and can honestly conclude that it is bias and full of miss-information (sp). OP, please link some other source and article along with this one to have an objective discussion. Thanks
 

Salsafan

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Hi OP.
Yes, the article is a bit bias from the first sentences. Unfortunately. For me this whole thing DR >< Haiti is sad.
 

Chip

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A very typical foreign perspective omitting the massacres and cultural genocide during the occupation.

The author further fails to mention the outpouring of support for Haitians after the earthquake and the fact that no one else does more for Haitians than the DR.

This is not scholarly work.
 

GWOZOZO

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Dec 7, 2011
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WOW...it is incredible the amount of influence Haiti has had on the Dominican psyche.

DR is hardly ever mentioned in Haitian history books.

That is probably why we don't have a culture of Anti-Dominicanisme.
 
Sep 4, 2012
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WOW...it is incredible the amount of influence Haiti has had on the Dominican psyche.

DR is hardly ever mentioned in Haitian history books.

That is probably why we don't have a culture of Anti-Dominicanisme.

Dominicans didn't invade DR, Haiti did.
 

mofongoloco

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The more I learn the less I know.

I hadn't heard of bob corbett before. Not quite sure what to make of his stuff. fyi, OP, I didn't see a link in your post.

The article by Dr. Ernesto Sagas was good to read, because I learned new facts and the bibliography is priceless. I am previewing his book "the Dominican People: a Documentary History" (2003). I can't decide to get it digital or paper, but signed up for a library copy. Looks to have primary source material.

There has been some pretty harsh criticism regarding Sagas' credentials and scholarship. Anti-haitianism has parallels everywhere in today's world and historically. These parallels are found when suggesting that a persons ethnicity and where his parents chose to live and the location of his university begets a biased unscholarly work. BTW, most academic work is biased to prove or disprove, and focused on a single question to answer. He didn't ignore DR's support following earthquake, he just didn't include it. Also, he has lots of good citations. i am not sure what the question being answered in this article is,but I can't find his bias, especially after broadening my google search. Half the article is about Balaguer and he hardly lets him off the hook.

"Balaguer's bigotry is not only limited to Haitians, but includes all members of the black race. Two related facts are important. First, that Joaqu?n Balaguer has been president of the Dominican Republic on six occasions. He is not an obscure writer, but a person who has the power and influence to impose his views on the rest of the population. Second, La Isla al Rev?s became a national best seller, which suggests that many educated Dominicans share Balaguer's views."

Terms like race and nation in any language are malleable. Such terms change over time and often correlate strongly with other economic and political interests. I think that is the point of this article. That they change overtime and there are real and lasting consequences. Social scientists suggest that these consequences are predictable. In the US conspiracy theorists are renewed every ten years when the new census form comes out.

Can anyone provide links to Dominican census data? something like an ancestry.Punto.com website.

regards.
 

Chip

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How can anti topic of antihaitionismo be discussed without including one of the root causes, the occupation, massacres and cultural genocide??? This work is revisionist history.
 

NALs

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"Notice again how Balaguer makes indistinct use of the terms "race" and "nation," so as to pretend that Haitians and Dominicans not only belong to different nations, but also to completely different races."

To pretend? They are different in race and are separate nations, has been the case from the origins of them both.

"The extinction of the indian race gave way for the population of Santo Domingo to be integrally constituted by European families, especially Spanish and French. Before the Treaty of Basel (1795), the colony's population was formed by the best of the families that had migrated to America, attracted by gold or by the fascinating mystery of remote expeditions [Balaguer 1984, 59].

In this brief passage, Balaguer helps to perpetuate the myth of the white Dominican by ignoring the fact that there was a considerable number of blacks and mulattoes in the colony before 1795 (Moya Pons 1977, 378-379). Balaguer's romantic notion of Dominican history is, unfortunately, shared by many Dominicans."

Myth?

The island was discovered and populated by Spaniards PRIOR to any slaves trades or blacks/mulattoes being in the picture.
Its not really a myth, its that the vast majority of the population was composed by whites and lighter skin mulattoes and this was the case all the way to 1871, when Samuel Hazard (an American, BTW) visited both Dominican Republic and Haiti and a year later published his book Santo Domingo Past and Present with a Glance at Haiti and described the Dominican population as follows:

"White blood preponderates largely in Dominican Republic, but pure whites, in the popular sense of the word, are not numerous. The majority are of a mixed race, much nearer white than black."

"The great majority, especially along the coast, are neither pure black nor pure white; they are mixed in every conceivable degree. In some parts of the interior considerable numbers of the white race are to be found, and generally in the mixed race the white blood predominates."

Both quotes are on page 485.

Keep in mind that when he visited the country the immigration of cocolos had not taken place yet and neither had the immigration of Haitian sugar workers. Also, he never mentioned the presence of Haitian colonies in any of the Dominican towns or rural areas visited, but he did mentioned that some blacks from the British Islands had settled in Puerto Plata, that there were some blacks from the British Islands in Santo Domingo, and also the African Americans in Saman?.

This is all from an eyewitness and you can buy copies of the original book on Amazon.

So, with a population composed mostly by whites and mulattoes, and in the mulatto population the white heritage predominated in people's appearances even though the 22 year Haitian Occupation of 1822-1844 ended just 27 years before his visit; it should go without saying why there has been an emphasis on the white/light appearance of the average Dominican for centuries. That's because it was probably the case and the population began to darken starting at the end of the 1800s with the upsurge in black immigration from other parts of the Caribbean and through out the 20th Century as their kids began to mix with the local original Dominican population.

Notice that in the parts of the DR where much of this new black Caribbean immigration didn't took place are predominantly a very white/light skin populations (go to San Jos? de las Matas if you want to see an example of this.)

I've been saying that every time Balaguer mentioned things such as the rapid growth of the black population and the darkening of the average Dominican, that he was simply expressing what he witnessed through out the 20th Century. That man was born in the first decades of the 20th Century and died in 2001 (or was it 2002?)! The DR he was born in was completely changed in almost every aspect by the time he died!

Many people simply like to pretend this is not true, but there's eyewitness accounts from the 1800s and early 20th Centuries, written by foreigners, that simply helps explains many things about this country.

Another thing that is often ignored by some people is that the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo received the least amount of slaves (similar to Puerto Rico.) The estimates for imports of slaves through the first colonial period (1492-1801) is of only 30,000!!!

Cuba had a similar history regarding the import of slaves, very few until the last century when the French planters from Haiti settled in eastern Cuba and began to develop the sugar industry over there. That's when the paltry imports of slaves that had taken place in Cuba during the previous 400 years (it didn't even reached 100,000 total for all those centuries combined), in the 1800s the numbers of slaves imported into Cuba swelled to something like 400,000 or perhaps many hundreds of thousands more.
 

NALs

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How can anti topic of antihaitionismo be discussed without including one of the root causes, the occupation, massacres and cultural genocide??? This work is revisionist history.
Come on Chip, we all know that if the true origin of the fear of Haiti in Dominican Republic is taken into account, then the blame suddenly shifts several kilometers towards the west of the island and that sort of ruins the plan!!!

Its better to only go as far back as the Trujillo years, because then everything fits better with their purpose!
 

cobraboy

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Jul 24, 2004
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NALs, when some mention an "invitation" asking Boyer to come to the DR, who exactly did the "inviting?" The darker skinned free men, or the lighter skinned mulattoes?

There has to be a reason for the conflict in historical accounts...

What say you?
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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I forgot to mention that in the 1790s the Catholic Church did a census and almost 40% of the population was listed as Spaniards, which most likely meant white. This was before the mass emigration of almost 2/3 of the original colonial population to mostly Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Maracaibo region of Venezuela as the invasions from the west began to take their toll on the population.
 

NALs

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Jan 20, 2003
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NALs, when some mention an "invitation" asking Boyer to come to the DR, who exactly did the "inviting?" The darker skinned free men, or the lighter skinned mulattoes?

There has to be a reason for the conflict in historical accounts...

What say you?
I always ask myself why Boyer felt the need to cross to the eastern side and reach Santo Domingo with more than 20,000 armed soldiers.

I understand some personal protection is needed for a head of state and his delegates, but 20,000 soldiers to put in effect an "invitation"? It doesn't makes sense!

The new Dominican government, which as named Haiti Espa?ol (Spanish Haiti) in part to appease to any Haitian sentiments (that's why when N??ez de C?ceres sent a letter to Port-au-Prince noticing them of the new government in the east, the idea was not for Boyer to arrive with a full army), didn't even had an army of its own and that should had been known to Boyer. There's no way a government just two months old would have had not just an army, but any institution ready in such a short period of time.

To me it doesn't makes sense.

And to add icing to the cake, by that time the slave population was a small minority of the whole population and much of it concentrated in the vicinity of Santo Domingo. Most of the population was free despite being mulattoes and even most of the whites didn't even owned slaves because they were too poor to be able to own such.
 
Sep 4, 2012
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Its not really a myth, its that the vast majority of the population was composed by whites and lighter skin mulattoes and this was the case all the way to 1871, when Samuel Hazard (an American, BTW) visited both Dominican Republic and Haiti and a year later published his book Santo Domingo Past and Present with a Glance at Haiti and described the Dominican population as follows:

"White blood preponderates largely in Dominican Republic, but pure whites, in the popular sense of the word, are not numerous. The majority are of a mixed race, much nearer white than black."

"The great majority, especially along the coast, are neither pure black nor pure white; they are mixed in every conceivable degree. In some parts of the interior considerable numbers of the white race are to be found, and generally in the mixed race the white blood predominates."

Both quotes are on page 485.

Exactly my point and hence questioning the author of the article on the OP calling it a myth. What you just posted above makes more sense to the reality back then. True white Dominican is an oxymoron, there have never been nor will it ever. Great post BTW!
 
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