Haitian Occupation of Dominican Republic

Los tira piedras

On the 19 of March, 1844, Haitian troops attacked Azua. The population was forewarned, abandoning the town, and taking to the hills. My great great grandfather Jos? Leger, held back one of the three Haitian columns with an old Spanish cannon filled with shrapnel, at a place called Los Conucos. When the Haitian army advanced toward the East, they were received and stopped by a shower of boulders and stones thrown by the people of Azua hiding atop a hill still called El N?mero. Since that day, Azuans are proudly called ?Los tira piedras?.

I am not sure, but a friend of mine who is dominican working w/ Batey Relief Alliance told me that it was a group of vende patrias who sold us to the Haitians after the independence from Spain in 1821, and that the Haitians accepted, as they just wanted to "protect" us from....I don't know what.

Lots of literature on the subject.
The French were ceded the eastern side of the island in 1798(?) by the Treaty of Basel. Due to the French Revolution, they were not really in a position to take control of the eastern portion.
The why and wherefores are just too complicated to explain here. I suggest you read Moya Pons' account of the years preceding the takeover. It is in the PUCMM library..
Let me say that what you have been told is BS.
The Haitian occupation was a mess from start to finish and a lot of what happened was caused by resistance by those that remained in the Dominican side. But read on it is good reading.

BTW, nothing was "sold".......

HB

aguakateyplatanotolodia said:

You're right, nothing was "sold", after Haiti invaded DR Spain practically abondoned us.

I still don't know why Dominican Republic is called Dominican Republic though. Can anyone please tell me? And I would still like more details about the Haitian Occupation. Thanks you guys. That was very interesting about Azua and los tira piedras now I know why they call them that lol I kept hearing that phrase being used but I wouldn't ask why they were called that because I didn't want to look stupid in front of people, lol.

I NEED MORE KNOWLEDGE!!!!! >:O :Ogre:

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Take Hillbilly's advice and read the book he suggested.

By the way, he's a history professor at PUCMM.

I have some documents on PDF format concerning various historical aspects of the DR. Send me a PM with an email address I can send you such as an attachment. If you want to, create a new email on hotmail or gmail or yahoo or whatever.

-NALs

As I understand the history of the island I don't feel that it was an invation. Hatian slaves won independece by that time spain had given france the eastern part of the island so the hatians came to get what was theirs.

The truth is that the Hispaniola had stopped being of any importance to spain LOOONG before any of this happened.

just so you know... 27 de febrero we celebrate our independence form Hatian rule.... in august we celebrate la restaurasion because we had to fight again but that time it was against spain since I believe Pedro Santana turned the country over to Spain

Regarding the OP's question about why Dominican Republic. I believe the name has a lot to do with Bartolome de las Casas. He was a Dominican Friar. He wrote a book called Historia de Las Indias where he talks about the injustice that spaniard committed against natives.

The city of Santo Domingo de Guzm?n might have something to do with that. Plus the fact that Duarte and the Trinitarios established the name, the National Shield, and Motto.
The city was always Santo Domingo. For the French it was Saint-Dominique.
The date of Basel is 95 not 98.

There were lots of interests during the period. English, French and Spanish.
And all three tried to get a piece of Haiti.

Neither the French nor the English could do much against the mosquitoes. The French lost over 55,000 men and the English close to 25,000 in their attempts. Illness plus the fact that the former slaves were willing to die rather than return to slavery defeated the two best armies in the world..

HB

Don't blame the mosquitoes...

Hillbilly said:

....Neither the French nor the English could do much against the mosquitoes. The French lost over 55,000 men and the English close to 25,000 in their attempts. HB

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You are right, the French army under General Leclerc (Napoleon's brother-in-law) was not defeated in battle, most of the French soldiers succumbed to malaria, which the African slaves had an immunity against, including the anopheles mosquito, the unfortunate vector for such a devastating desease. I suggest building a large monument to the anopheles mosquito in the center of Port au Prince.

OP I read this book, I can't remember the name it was writen by juan bosh. It was very informative. I think it was something like Dominican history from 1492 to 1961 or something like that. in this book bosh talks about the early periods of the colony how there was a flight of people, how spain didn't let people trade, how they moved everyone from the west to the east and that is how pirates and the french were able to get a hold of that side of the island. It was really eye opening. I always knew our colonizers weren't the brightest bunch put this book really puts it into perspective.

corporanr said:

OP I read this book, I can't remember the name it was writen by juan bosh. It was very informative. I think it was something like Dominican history from 1492 to 1961 or something like that. in this book bosh talks about the early periods of the colony how there was a flight of people, how spain didn't let people trade, how they moved everyone from the west to the east and that is how pirates and the french were able to get a hold of that side of the island. It was really eye opening. I always knew our colonizers weren't the brightest bunch put this book really puts it into perspective.

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I do not believe there's an English translation to the book, which is titled: El Caribe, Frontera Imperial: De Cristobal Col?n a Fidel Castro written by Juan Bosch, circa 1970

(which translates roughly to: The Caribbean, Imperial Border: From Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro)

Hillbilly said:

The city of Santo Domingo de Guzm?n might have something to do with that. Plus the fact that Duarte and the Trinitarios established the name, the National Shield, and Motto.
The city was always Santo Domingo. HB

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You are right I found this about Santo Domingo de Guzman, not the city but the saint. He was the founder of the Dominican order

Santo Domingo de Guzm?n

And the city was named after him...

HB

Just to answer your point on Dominican attitudes towards the Haitian occupants, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of Dominicans under occupation were in favour of the Haitian rule, and perhaps against the trinitario.

The reason I give for this is that the majority of the Dominican population at this point were the rural poor, and a central aim of the Haitian administration was the redistribution of land, particularly the large estates owned by the elite who supported Duarte et al. This is just speculative, and I wonder if there is any research or evidence for this.

Anyway, I would imagine that given the current discourse on the trinitario as 'popular' actors representing the 'Dominican' people, this would ruffle a few feathers.

George Holmes said:

Just to answer your point on Dominican attitudes towards the Haitian occupants, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of Dominicans under occupation were in favour of the Haitian rule, and perhaps against the trinitario.

The reason I give for this is that the majority of the Dominican population at this point were the rural poor, and a central aim of the Haitian administration was the redistribution of land, particularly the large estates owned by the elite who supported Duarte et al. This is just speculative, and I wonder if there is any research or evidence for this.

Anyway, I would imagine that given the current discourse on the trinitario as 'popular' actors representing the 'Dominican' people, this would ruffle a few feathers.

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Interesting speculation. I think most Dominicans will have a very different opinion from the Haitians.

However, more importantly I believe history has shown that the Trinitaria did the right thing because who could imagine a present day DR run by the Haitains - not a pretty picture probably.

When my daughter Alexandra, working on a school assignment, asked my help to find a brief, succinct, and relatively faithful account of the historical characters, events, and conditions surrounding the Independence of the Dominican Republic, I did a quick search in the web, and found and printed for her the following text:

Independencia Dominicana

The Haitian occupation of the east side of the island was annexed from Spain with the consent of the dominican people(the majority that weren't part of the elite spanish group). One has to look at the quarrels between mainly France and Spain over territory on the island of Quisqueya/Haiti/Bohio the indigenous name of the island which Christopher Columbus renamed Hispaniola which means "Little Spain". Constant invasion by the French from the island of Tortuga to the mainland of hispaniola was finally successful when the treaty of Ryswick was signed in 1697 which had the same name as the spanish side but in french "Saint Domingue".

Now in 1795 Spain signed off the spanish side to France because more property in South America were more valuable in goods. Note: The black nor mulattos on the french side had any involvement of this take over nor did the blacks and mulattos of the spanish side. This was a transaction between the colonisers which didn't consider neither of the people of the island nothing more than property. At this time French system was implemented on the former spanish colony.

Thirteen years, 1808, later Spain re-possess the spanish side but by this time the blacks and mulattos had defeated the French. A Republic named Haiti was created which still wasn't recognised by French nor Spain not even the young USA that defeated the British. BTW, haitians helped americans in the battle of Savannah, GA against the british something that is barely mentioned. Basically all that so called independence wasn't official and meant nothing to the super powers. Blacks/mulattos caught on the spanish side was subject to slavery. thus, the spanish side was always a threat to the new republic that accepted all people of colour as free men.

Now in 1821 an uprise by the spanish speaking people on the spanish side due to bad treatment and abuse was the resurrection by what we know as the present day dominicans. Unfortunately, with no weapons and experience going up against Spain would be suicide thus a group of the common dominican folks not the elite (spanish descendants) establish an agreement with the haitian government to free them from slavery and bondage. Thus, haitian military troops invade spanish territory and not the dominican people. Now depending if you were from the spanish elite group then the haitian invasion was terrible and meant lost of property but if your ancestors were toiling the soil then it might have been a good thing. This is the beginning of the Haitian occupation.Now the haitian military indeed masscred spanish troops and ousted the catholic priest who were also culprits in the oppression of people not the dominican people.

Now this is where things went sour between the haitian government and the dominican people. Due to lack of resource and extorsion from France to pay millions of francs which is probably the equivalent of billions today just to be recognised as an independent country lead the haitian government to take revenue from
haiti espa?ol to pay off the debt. Haitian government even took loans out to pay off the extorsions from France and other co-conspirators. This is what lead the dominican people to align with the elite spanish descendants to gain independence from Haiti. Ever since the propaganda has been fed to the common folks that the haitian were/are the oppressors and enemy.

Simple questions about the relationship between the dominican people and the spanish elites on the island would quickly dispell the myths. The dominican republic was not colonised by the haitians and were not oppress by them. Unless many dominicans are part of the 1% elite group that saw their property divided away to campesino dominicans then the haitian occupation would be indeed the worse thing that ever happened in dominican history.

George Holmes said:

Just to answer your point on Dominican attitudes towards the Haitian occupants, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of Dominicans under occupation were in favour of the Haitian rule, and perhaps against the trinitario.

The reason I give for this is that the majority of the Dominican population at this point were the rural poor, and a central aim of the Haitian administration was the redistribution of land, particularly the large estates owned by the elite who supported Duarte et al. This is just speculative, and I wonder if there is any research or evidence for this.

Anyway, I would imagine that given the current discourse on the trinitario as 'popular' actors representing the 'Dominican' people, this would ruffle a few feathers.

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Keep in mind that the population on the Dominican side was barely over 200,000 total (perhaps considerably less).

There were large land owners, but there was still plenty of land for rural squatters to appropriate through slash and burn techniques.

Your speculation is interesting, but there are other factors that needs to be taken into account and one of them is population size. The DR of those times was a completely depopulated place, Pedro Mir's poem "Hay un pa?s en el mundo" mentions the depopulation of the country and his poem was written in the 20th century at a time when the population was barely 3 million.

-NALs

Mirador I believe it was yellow fever that plagued the French troops rather than malaria (though that existed certainly and still does in some places along the border). There is no such thing as immunity to malaria.

Ironically malaria was almost eradicated in the 20th century but extermination of the anopheles mosquito was halted before it could achieve this end.