- Thread starter T.O.N.Y
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Dominican/Haitian animosity
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I don't think "animosity" is the right choice of word. I just think there is a general sense of superiority. The haitians live very poorly in DR. THey do backbreaking work for almost nothing. Most Dominicans won't do the work. Dominican land owners love the Haitians. At 12:00 when all the Dominican men are sleeping in the shade. the Haitians will still be in the fields working. But that makes them the poorest class. Which leads to the general Dominican sentiment.
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It is also about skin color. Haitians are basically (except for their mulatto class) direct descendants of slaves and are extremely dark-skinned, whereas dominicans, well, you would have to ask them what they think they are. But from what I have heard they seem very quick to deny any of their african heritage. It seems as if they are more comfortable acknowledging their taino background and some swear that they have just gotten off the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria.
Berzin said:
I agree with that. But I think the color issue has more to do with the Dominicans not wanting to be mistaken for Haitians because of their social status. They hated pena Gomez because he "looked" haitian.
There is also the political element here. At one point in history, the Dominicans fought for their independence from Haitian rule. So the anti-Haitian tradition goes back over several generations.
I believe that Dominicans in general are apprehensive that the large number of Haitians here might, at some future date become organized and again take control of the whole island. This is the reason that Haitians are 'personna non grata' here, and are carefully isolated in small groups in 'bateys', where they live in very poor conditions, often even having to walk long distances to get water. The only reason they are tolerated is that they cut the sugar cane and do virtually all the labour-intensive or dangerous jobs that are shunned by Dominicans. Canadian Bob.
I agree, and I think there are several reasons, it has to do with social status, also with the fact that Haiti occupied DR and this occupation went on for some 20 years (22). This was until 1844, but is still very much alive in the history in schools, in families and so on.
As you mention, the Haitians living here are to say the least, very, very poor. Here in Puerto Plata there is a few Haitian settlements, where they live basically without anything, not water etc. They work on the low-level works to feed themselves and the majority of them are refugees or born by refugees. They have no legal rights at all here, and yes, many Dominicans look down on them, exept when it comes to working in hard works, or work people dont want to do themselves.
As for the Dominicans, they are a mixture of origin.. yes there is an African heritage, but also French, Spanish, Cuban... In mid of 1700 also several hundreds of imigrants came here from Canary Islands ( as well as Cuba ) as they were the "specialists" of sugar plantations, that in turn was the interest of the Spanish king.. People moved alot around on the Caribbean islands in those days.
Take a look at the census for example of Puerto Plata in history, and it tells us something about the Haitians:
1888 for Puerto Plata: ( source: Historia la ciudad de Puerto Plata)
2862 Dominicans
449 English
395 Spanish
350 Cubans
96 Danish
61 North Americans
59 Haitians
39 Germans
38 Italians
31 French
22 Dutch
10 Venezuelans
6 Colombians
4 Chines
The Haitian settlements are quite new, as the disaster have become worse and worse in Haiti, the more people have moved here.
I don?t think the Dominicans believes that is the solution, and maybe part of the exlanation to Dominicans being not very fond of Haitians in general might be a reaction of this.
As you mention, the Haitians living here are to say the least, very, very poor. Here in Puerto Plata there is a few Haitian settlements, where they live basically without anything, not water etc. They work on the low-level works to feed themselves and the majority of them are refugees or born by refugees. They have no legal rights at all here, and yes, many Dominicans look down on them, exept when it comes to working in hard works, or work people dont want to do themselves.
As for the Dominicans, they are a mixture of origin.. yes there is an African heritage, but also French, Spanish, Cuban... In mid of 1700 also several hundreds of imigrants came here from Canary Islands ( as well as Cuba ) as they were the "specialists" of sugar plantations, that in turn was the interest of the Spanish king.. People moved alot around on the Caribbean islands in those days.
Take a look at the census for example of Puerto Plata in history, and it tells us something about the Haitians:
1888 for Puerto Plata: ( source: Historia la ciudad de Puerto Plata)
2862 Dominicans
449 English
395 Spanish
350 Cubans
96 Danish
61 North Americans
59 Haitians
39 Germans
38 Italians
31 French
22 Dutch
10 Venezuelans
6 Colombians
4 Chines
The Haitian settlements are quite new, as the disaster have become worse and worse in Haiti, the more people have moved here.
I don?t think the Dominicans believes that is the solution, and maybe part of the exlanation to Dominicans being not very fond of Haitians in general might be a reaction of this.
It is simple why some of us don't appreciate haitians much,T.O.N.Y said:
They have always claimed that many parts of the DR belong to them
They are the people that we went to war against.
They practice voodoo "witchery" which we dominicans do not tolerate. Especially when they sacrafice live animals in their rituals to include human beings to conduct evil spells. If you don't believe it, watch "The Serpent And The Rainbow" a movie based on a true story.
They are a threat to our rainforest because they burn our trees.
they can turn a lush green place into a desert with a quickness.
Whenever you see some deforestation around and some remains of a carbon pit, you know that there are some hatians around the erea.
And our parents always scared us by telling us that the Haitian was coming to get us if we did not behave.....So we always learned to be affraid and dislike them as early as being a child as well as all the true horror voodoo stories we heard.
In addition
To even think what they would do to Dominicans if they ever get the idea of disrupting our peaceful land is beyond anyone's imagination.
Of course, this happening today is very unlikely, but then again, it's not impossible.
But, first and foremost, it's the history. All those invasion attempts and their government has yet to apologize. In fact, several Haitian authorities claim that they did nothing wrong in the past when they invaded the DR numerous times. This is what infuriates many Dominicans, especially since Haitians point to the Massacre Trujillo did, despite his apology and reparations afterwards, something Dominicans are still waiting from the Haitians for their pillage of this side of Hispaniola.
It's a complicated matter. Only by reading the history book will you get an idea of the reasons behind this.
I suppose you can compare this to the many conflict that exist between rival peoples in many parts of the world, including Africa. The Congo has been in conflict with itself (two African races, one tends to be tall the other short, and the short ones despise the tall ones because the tall ones tend to be wealthier, believed to be more beautiful, etc etc). Among the many others, the darkest places in terms of conflict in Africa was in Rwanda during its ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s. That was African against African).
These are things that exist around the world, but each region has a different story that gives the same result.
For us, it's mostly the history, because if you are black and you make it clear that you are not Haitian, the tension will subsided tremendously.
Another thing, the only place where I have ever discussed this race deal has been in this board. On a day to day experience, the average person here (myself included) live sorrounded by Haitians (they are everywhere nowadays) in relative peace. I don't associate myself with them very often, other than telling them no whenever they try to sell me something in the streets. But, you can't go from point A to point B without seeing a Haitian in Dominican streets and Listin Diario last year discovered that 70% of children born in Santiago's hospital were of Haitian parents one can only imagine what is the situation in the rest of the country. This only suggest that more and more Haitians will be present as the years go by, we have seen tremendous growth of them in the past 20 years alone.
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=2183
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=76
http://www.pacoredo.org/PASADAS_EDICIONES/1033/haitianizacion_total.html
We keep seeing how the Haitians can't seem to live for even one decade without some form of stability in their own land. They are always in turmoil.Mr_DR said:
To even think what they would do to Dominicans if they ever get the idea of disrupting our peaceful land is beyond anyone's imagination.
Of course, this happening today is very unlikely, but then again, it's not impossible.
But, first and foremost, it's the history. All those invasion attempts and their government has yet to apologize. In fact, several Haitian authorities claim that they did nothing wrong in the past when they invaded the DR numerous times. This is what infuriates many Dominicans, especially since Haitians point to the Massacre Trujillo did, despite his apology and reparations afterwards, something Dominicans are still waiting from the Haitians for their pillage of this side of Hispaniola.
It's a complicated matter. Only by reading the history book will you get an idea of the reasons behind this.
I suppose you can compare this to the many conflict that exist between rival peoples in many parts of the world, including Africa. The Congo has been in conflict with itself (two African races, one tends to be tall the other short, and the short ones despise the tall ones because the tall ones tend to be wealthier, believed to be more beautiful, etc etc). Among the many others, the darkest places in terms of conflict in Africa was in Rwanda during its ethnic cleansing in the early 1990s. That was African against African).
These are things that exist around the world, but each region has a different story that gives the same result.
For us, it's mostly the history, because if you are black and you make it clear that you are not Haitian, the tension will subsided tremendously.
Another thing, the only place where I have ever discussed this race deal has been in this board. On a day to day experience, the average person here (myself included) live sorrounded by Haitians (they are everywhere nowadays) in relative peace. I don't associate myself with them very often, other than telling them no whenever they try to sell me something in the streets. But, you can't go from point A to point B without seeing a Haitian in Dominican streets and Listin Diario last year discovered that 70% of children born in Santiago's hospital were of Haitian parents one can only imagine what is the situation in the rest of the country. This only suggest that more and more Haitians will be present as the years go by, we have seen tremendous growth of them in the past 20 years alone.
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=2183
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=76
http://www.pacoredo.org/PASADAS_EDICIONES/1033/haitianizacion_total.html
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My 2 centimos!
We need not forget that there are many (note: many) dominicans that are very proud (orgulloso) and they think that it's beneath them to do a certain job. Example: I needed to cut my home's grass and clean the roof and I asked a neighbor if he wanted to do it, mind you, I was just trying to help him a little since he was out of work for more than a year. Even thought I was going to pay him about 5 times more than any other person, he looked straight at my face and said " what, it's too darn hot and besides, do I look like a Haitian to you?. My jaw just dropped. I did get a Haitian that did it for much less money.
We need to understand that there are many well-educated dominicans that do not blame every single Haitian for trying to better themselves. And in the same token, there are many non-narrow minded dominicans that think that ALL Haitians want to take control of the country.
I for one will never blame ALL Hatians for whatever their country did to the DR. Let's just not forget of all the "great" treatment that they have received from us over the years. It's like some of us still want to punish them for things that they had nothing to do with.
And yes, another reason is because they are black. Now, change their color to white and their country as being the US and they would not have the same problem!!!!!
I believe tht one of the reason is that many dominicans have the same mentality as any other foreign country were a poor person goes to better their lives. It happens with dominicans in Puerto Rico and it happens here in the US with ALL latinos. Their mentality is "they are taking OUR jobs", even though they, themselves, do not want to do such jobs.T.O.N.Y said:
We need not forget that there are many (note: many) dominicans that are very proud (orgulloso) and they think that it's beneath them to do a certain job. Example: I needed to cut my home's grass and clean the roof and I asked a neighbor if he wanted to do it, mind you, I was just trying to help him a little since he was out of work for more than a year. Even thought I was going to pay him about 5 times more than any other person, he looked straight at my face and said " what, it's too darn hot and besides, do I look like a Haitian to you?. My jaw just dropped. I did get a Haitian that did it for much less money.
We need to understand that there are many well-educated dominicans that do not blame every single Haitian for trying to better themselves. And in the same token, there are many non-narrow minded dominicans that think that ALL Haitians want to take control of the country.
I for one will never blame ALL Hatians for whatever their country did to the DR. Let's just not forget of all the "great" treatment that they have received from us over the years. It's like some of us still want to punish them for things that they had nothing to do with.
And yes, another reason is because they are black. Now, change their color to white and their country as being the US and they would not have the same problem!!!!!
Well, if they would have been white, then there would have never been a DR today.miguel said:
The main reason for DR independence was due to the deplorable condition the country fell under Haitian occupation. Yes, there were many good positive things, but the negative outweighted the positive.
When modern Haiti was under French control, the eastern part of the country was never invaded. It was ceded by Spain at one time, but never officially invaded.
Once the Africans took control of the French Colony, the eastern Spanish colony (later DR) saw some bloody and ambitious invasions. It's perfectly understandable for why the first black republic of the world wanted to destroy any European presence and ideologies on the island. There is no qualm about that.
The part that adds the bitter salt to the blood spewing wound was the massacre Haitian Dictator Boyer did in the Cibao during the retreat of Haitian soldiers out of DR back to Haiti. All Cibao towns lost people, but Santiago and Moca were completely destroyed. Every single person met their death in those two towns either via machete and/or bayonet.
From that point forward, Dominicans have feared Haitians to a degree that never existed prior to that moment in time. Just to think of the horrors Dominicans went through at that time. They had to burry all those massacred people, entire cities. Men, Women, and Children. I don't care who anybody think they are, when you have to burry your own countrymen because of some evil ruler from abroad massacre your own people, it's universal understanding that it will ignite discomfort. It's hard enough to burry a love one when he/she dies by natural causes, imagine what they went through having to burry hundreds of thousands who did not had to die in that fashion. Imagine those video clips of Rwanda that we saw in the news, just picture all those people dead in piles and on the side of the roads to be the Dominicans of those times who were massacred. It's not a pretty sight.
And the fact that no apology has ever come from them to us just further pushes this animosity further into the future.
I know you are not talking about what happened less than 200 years ago (not that long ago, considering that this island has been under modern rulers for about 500 years).miguel said:
But, in order for what you said to happen, then what I said need to be true. No DR would have come into existence.
And, in order to understand the animosity, one needs to understand the history and what happened as oppose to just ignoring the very same reason for the animosity.
For example: It's like saying that you are 30 years old, but that has nothing to do with the fact that you were born 30 years ago. In order for you to be 30, you had to be born 30 years ago. There is no way of explaining the present without looking into the past, plain and simple.
It's takes a lot to break the cycle of hate parent's teach their children.Mr_DR said:
It's very easy to condemn the many based on the actions of the few. I have nothing to back my statement, but I would be surprised if more than 1/10th of 1% of the population practice traditional ritualistic voodoo that you refer to. About 95% of Hatians consider themselves Christians (Roman Catholics, Baptists, and Pentacostals), albeit sprinked with some voodoo elements.
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