Black in Latin America- Ep. 1- Haiti & the Dominican Republic- An Island Divided

[Redscot]

I should have known Santiago would come up sooner or later. Look NOBODY on the planet knows or care about Santiago Dominican Republic unless they are Dominican or have ties to Dominican Republic by marriage of friends.

If you say Santiago to a person Chile will be the first place that pop into their heads. Santo Domingo is the capital of DR that is why is was there.

I have said this plenty of times. WE DO NOT need the Dominican Republic to accept their African roots, we have enough nations that respect the fact Africa is the motherland. If you look at the Haitian women dancing during that ceremony they look very similar to Puerto Ricans "Plena y Bomba" celebration and that is ALL AFRICAN ALL DAY

BTW I do see people in Madrid similar to people in Santo Domingo LOL!!! Also the BEST city in the Caribbean is Ponce!!!
Santiago DR man please!!!

It's all good JMB, but please....take off your JMB colored glasses and come and visit me in the Cibao my brother. We will tour not only Santiago, La Vega, San Jose de la Mata, Jarabacoa, Constanza, Mao etc. etc. etc. Your point regarding the negation of African lineage at large is well taken (and manifested in almost all countries where melanin is present unfortunately), but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. In this region there is a large melting pot of "white", "indio" y "negro" and once you get out of the city where the white higher class tends to be a bit nariz parao', you got yourself some of the finest mix of people I have encountered anywhere.

 

[Naked_Snake]

People also forget that much of the central part of Haiti, was Dominican territory until the beginning of the 20th century, when that territory was formally ceded to them in order to put an ended to the dispute regarding the border. The Haitian departments of Centre and much of Artibonite was all Dominican territory, which before the creation of the Republic, such land corresponded to the Spanish overseas province of Santo Domingo.

Our very own General Pedro Santana was born in Hincha, which today is the capital of the Haitian department of Hinche. San Miguel and San Rafael de Atalaya, which today are well into Haitian territory, was also Dominican and were settled by Spaniards from the Canary Islands. There are still some towns in Haiti that have not had their names translated to French, such as Las Cahobas, which is near El?as Pi?a and was also a Dominican town.

Many people, including many that participate in this very website, are simply ignorant of Dominican history. They make assumptions based on the histories of other countries and then assume it must apply here too, when in fact it doesn't. It never has and it never will, regardless to whom reality may dismay.

And that our "black language" is still intelligible with the Spanish/Castillian spoken in the other two Caribbean islands and the rest of the continent. Which can't be said about "Kreyol Ayisien" and French. Bob Corbett (a friend of the Haitians, if there ever was one), on his seminal work "Why is Haiti so poor?", mentions Kreyol Ayisien as one of the factors keeping Haiti down nowadays, specially when we consider the fact that the country is virtually surrounded by Spanish and English speaking countries.

 

[vacanodr]

That's based on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from generation to generation unaltered through the maternal line. Every DNA test that has been done on Dominicans shows a majority have African mtDNA.

But, the majority also has European Y-chromosomes, which are inherited from the father line. And Taino DNA is also present in most Dominicans, despite most not having Taino Y-chromosomes or Taino mtDNA. On average, the Taino component ranges from 5% to 13%. Roughly 15% of Dominicans have Taino mtDNA, which means that their maternal line goes back to a Taino woman roughly 500 years ago, which is before the massive modern migrations of Europeans and Africans started.

On average, autosomal DNA tests have shown that the genome of the typical Dominican tends to be between 40% and 60% European, very rarely does the African component surpases 50%, and the Taino component hardly never is greater than 13%. This is on an individual basis, which varies even within blood-related brothers, because the typical Dominican is the product of mixtures, with remixing in every generation. For most of Dominican history, most Dominicans have been mating with people that are triracial, which simply causes a shuffle of each DNA origin, but all three components are present in most people. A minority of Dominicans have more than 60% of their genome originating in Europe. Asian and Oceanic origins are negligible as well.

The major problems regarding Dominicans, is that most foreigners make assumptions based on what happened in other places, without truly looking into how the Dominican society actually formed.

By the late 1600s, most of the population was already of mixed race and lived free, mostly as subsistence farmers. There is even an account by S?nchez Valverde, who was complaining that the severe lack of slaves in the late 1600s, caused the cacao harvest to go unpicked, at time when most of the population had at least some African ancestry.

By the time slavery was officially abolished in the mid-1800s, the liberation affected a minority of the population and most of the population had been living as free men for centuries. This is also why among the Trinitarios, Francisco del Rosario S?nchez, a typical Dominican mulatto, was able to form part of the independence movement, along with many other mulattoes and blacks. Had they been slaves, it would had been impossible.

By the time slavery ended in many other parts of the Americas, most Dominicans had been living as free men for centuries and this greatly impacted social relations and race relations in the country. It also was the main reason for why most Dominicans have never suffered from a strong resentment and hate towards whites, which is what bothers many African descended people from other parts of the Americas when they visit the country. They completely dismiss the social formation of the country and simply assume that it was similar to how it occurred elsewhere, when it didn't.

There are even historical accounts in which even the Haitian military were struck as to why the Dominicans went to the aid of their white neighbors, when the Haitian army began to attack them. The Haitian military and high ranking officials couldn't understand why most Dominicans didn't felt the resentment and the hate towards the whites, as they themselves felt. The answer is in the social formation of the country. While Haiti got its independence due to a slave revolt, with over half of its population having been born in Africa at the time they separated from France and almost the entire population subjugated to slavery; the majority of the Dominican population had been living free for centuries. This was even a cause for concern to the French plantation owners, because some of their slaves would escape and enter the Spanish part of the island, and their property (ie. the slaves) were never returned by the Spanish authorities. They were allowed to become subsistence farmers as free men and women.

Basically, the memory of the first slave sugar economy that started in the 1500s and had extinguished itself by the end of that century, the lack of new massive slave imports after that period, the extreme poverty that affected Dominican society, in which even the wealthiest households were quite modest; and the very few Africans that were still slaves and worked in cattle ranches; caused the extensive racial mixing that has characterized Dominican society since the late 1600s and reduced the resentments and the hatred. This was a memory that was still alive and well among the Haitians, considering that most of the Haitian troops had been slaves of the French a couple of decades before they militarily invaded the DR. They still had the anger that time had extinguished on the Spanish side of the island. And this resentment is what characterizes many African descended people in the Americas, especially those from the former British Empire (USA, Jamaica, and the British islands in the Lesser Antilles.)

Click on the following links to see the documents:

Quote in which Juan Pablo Duarte expresses his admiration for Haiti.

The law put in effect by General Pedro Santana and the rest of the Dominican government in July 1844, 5 months after achieving independence from the Haitian military domination.

The Slave Trade (1619-1808): Notice the small amount that were taken to the DR and the bulk were imported before the mid-1600s. Notice Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, the USA, the Lesser Antilles. Also, keep in mind that in places like Cuba, large numbers of African slaves were imported until well into the 1800s, which explains why African influences have been better preserved there than in the Dominican Republic, despite a constant European influence.

Jamaicans have east Indian, native in them and sometimes white. African Americans often have white or Indian. Even in Africa, you have blacks with Portugese or Indian from India or other races in them. Dominicans are not the only blacks that are mixed. Look at the president, he is half white but he is black. What color is he? Is he white like his Dominican brothers and systems would be saying? Is he the first mixed mestizo president? Do people refer to him as mestizo? No, he is the first black president. Which group of people does he identify with? What did people call him his whole life white??? Blacks in Trinidad are often half or more than half east Indian and you can see it in their facial features. The Somali blacks in Africa have Indian facial facial features also. More than a quarter black is black by US standards. The ugly truth is that in the USA, all these Dominican so called mixed people would be called the N word and deal with racism and things like that. I have seen it happen with my own eyes. They come, learn their lesson and know the deal. There is a reason why there are so many shades and looks for African Americans. If someone is more than a quarter black they are black. It is just that the Spanish handled it differently. They were more liberal with the color line.



Why was one drop of black blood rule invented?
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Answer:
The one-drop rule was a tactic in the U.S. South that codified and strengthened segregation and the disfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites from 1890-1910. After Supreme Court decisions in Plessy v. Ferguson and related matters, White-dominated legislatures felt free to enact Jim Crow laws segregating Blacks in public places and accommodations, and passed other restrictive legislation. Legislatures sought to prevent interracial relationships to keep the white race "pure", long after slaveholders and overseers took advantage of enslaved women and produced the many mixed-race children.
The 1910-19 decade was the nadir of the Jim Crow era. Tennessee adopted a one-drop statute in 1910, and Louisiana soon followed. Then Texas and Arkansas in 1911, Mississippi in 1917, North Carolina in 1923, Virginia in 1924, Alabama and Georgia in 1927, and Oklahoma in 1931. During this same period, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah retained their old "blood fraction" statutes de jure, but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirtysecond) to be equivalent to one-drop de facto.[3]
Before 1930, individuals of mixed European and African ancestry were usually classed as mulattoes, sometimes as black and sometimes as white, depending on appearance. States often stopped worrying about ancestry at "the fourth degree" (3 x great-grandparents).
When the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Virginia's ban on inter-racial marriage in Loving v. Virginia (1967), it declared Plecker's Virginia Racial Integrity Act and the one-drop rule unconstitutional.
Multiracial people are typically identified instead as mixed-race, bi-racial, mulatto or mestizo, or Black or American Indian, for example, based on appearance. Latinos, the majority of whom are of mixed ancestry (usually Amerindian and white in Mexico for example, consider their Latino cultural heritage more important to their ethnic identities than appearance or ancestry. The one-drop rule is not generally applied to Latinos and Arab-Americans of mixed origin.
Many Latinos are also mulatto of varying degrees. The Dominican Republic, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Panama,parts of Colombia and Peru have Afrodescendentes- or in English people of mixed African descent. The majority of Africans bought to the New World in fact landed in Latin America and the Caribbean- the merican colonies imported roughly 11 percent of All blacks to coe here. Unlike the USA Latin America is moer liberal toward interracial unions hence the lack of a color line.

 

[Naked_Snake]

Why was one drop of black blood rule invented?

The one-drop rule was a tactic in the U.S. South that codified and strengthened segregation and the disfranchisement of most blacks and many poor whites from 1890-1910.

Essays on the U.S. Color Line ? Blog Archive ? The Invention of the One-Drop Rule in the 1830s North

 

[NALs]

Jamaicans have east Indian, native in them and sometimes white. African Americans often have white or Indian. Even in Africa, you have blacks with Portugese or Indian from India or other races in them. Dominicans are not the only blacks that are mixed. Look at the president, he is half white but he is black. What color is he? Is he white like his Dominican brothers and systems would be saying? Is he the first mixed mestizo president? Do people refer to him as mestizo? No, he is the first black president. Which group of people does he identify with? What did people call him his whole life white??? Blacks in Trinidad are often half or more than half east Indian and you can see it in their facial features. The Somali blacks in Africa have Indian facial facial features also. More than a quarter black is black by US standards. The ugly truth is that in the USA, all these Dominican so called mixed people would be called the N word and deal with racism and things like that. I have seen it happen with my own eyes. They come, learn their lesson and know the deal. There is a reason why there are so many shades and looks for African Americans. If someone is more than a quarter black they are black. It is just that the Spanish handled it differently. They were more liberal with the color line.

Some Americans are honest about race, but most are not.

Here is one that is honest:

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lWgamQdjnq0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Through out the Caribbean and the rest of Latin America, as well as in Africa, mixed race people are seen as mixed. Most Dominicans fall in that category and there is nothing you can do about it. Blood realities dictates this, not make-believe racial laws from a country that has among the worst record in race relations in the world.

The one-drop-rule simply never has applied south of Miami and to the dismay of many that live north of that city, it doesn't apply today and it never will. I suggest you spend your time on something more productive rather than wasting it on something that will never be.

 

[NALs]

I forgot to include in my previous response that even in Haiti, mixed race people are seen as mixed. No one is attempting to make them see themselves as something other than what they are, which is mixed. The 5% of Haiti's population that is mulatto must be the luckiest in the world. They are able to refer to themselves by that which they are and no one really cares. There are no attacks, no attempts on imposing on them an archaic rule invented in the USA, they are given the luxury of maintaining their dignity intact.

Such a shame that to one of the few countries in the world where mulattoes are a majority, there are so many people against accepting that reality.

So, the question we must ask ourselves is, why is it OK for Haitian mulattoes to refer to themselves are mixed and not black, but its wrong from mixed race Dominicans to affirm their mixed reality?

I think we all know the answer and its better to just leave it in the air, lest the underlining motivations behind the constant attacks on Dominican identity comes to light. LOL

I will end this by saying that the Dominican Republic will be going nowhere, the island will never be one, most of the people are mixed and have a right to assert that reality, and we are an Afro-Hispanic society, that has greater Taino influences than Africans, but all three are there. It has been like that for centuries and it will be for many more.

Those that don't like it, I suggest you pick some other topic to waste your time on.

 

[Naked_Snake]

I forgot to include in my previous response that even in Haiti, mixed race people are seen as mixed. No one is attempting to make them see themselves as something other than what they are, which is mixed. The 5% of Haiti's population that is mulatto must be the luckiest in the world. They are able to refer to themselves by that which they are and no one really cares.

Such a shame that to one of the few countries in the world where mulattoes are a majority, there are so many people against accepting that reality.

So, the question we must ask ourselves is, why is it OK for Haitian mulattoes to refer to themselves are mixed and not black, but its wrong from mixed race Dominicans to affirm their mixed reality?

I think we all know the answer and its better to just leave it in the air, lest the underlining motivations behind the constant attacks on Dominican identity comes to light. LOL

The Puerto Rican sociologist Frank Sweet (the writer of the article on the one drop rule I posted above) is very right when he asserts that the followers of the one drop rule are like the members of a cult. The same fanatical obsession with how others think/identify themselves as and oligophrenic behavior all around.

 

[NALs]

Yes, but I think we all know he's not going to read that. People with an agenda such as his, never take the time to see what the future holds for them and those that think like them; holding tight to rules that were invented for two related purposes, to keep white people are pure as possible and to discourage racial mixture.

To make the new trend easier to see, to make it clear that the one-drop-rule is on its way out even in the USA, it has to be put in a medium that is entertaining and easy on the eyes.

Less words, more video:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5j4LkOz9C8U?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That's the future he will have to accommodate to, regardless if he likes it or not.

 

[JoseArzabalceta]

Way too much pointless effort in trying to convince that Dominicans are not black.
I know Espa?a quite well and Dominicans don't look alike for the most part.
Last June i invited a girl from Argentina for a six day visit to Santo Domingo and i had
to ask her not to describe someone as negro to some Dominican friends when she was
telling a story about a tour we did that day and she said to me later :
"You mean this is like USA ? Do you have to say African American instead of negro ?"
I laughed so hard

 

[Chip]

The issue here is that most people are trying to look at issues in the DR through an American mindset. Since we Americans are so screwed up regarding race relations when we try to analyze another culture we impose all of our prejudices and false understandings on our assessment.

While the DR has it's racial issues, it is far superior to most every other culture in the world in my opinion. Yes the DR has racism but mostly what is seen is colorism and a nationalism based rejection of Haitian culture which has been seen historically as belligerent, primitive and godless.

Furthermore, while it is apparent most Dominicans have plenty of African genes, what is not apparent to most is that Dominicans identify 100% as Hispanics and mostly Christian as well and the latter will always dominate the Dominican mindset.

As far as darker Dominicans preferring light skin, they would appear so. Nonetheless, lighter Dominicans would seem to prefer darker ones as well, hence the centuries long tradition of intermarriage. At the end of the day with relatively very little social stigmas impeding intermarriage, except in the very small whitest/elitist families, intermarriage is such a way of life here that it goes relatively unnoticed mostly because it is considered normal. That can't be said of many other cultures none the least of which are Haitian or American. The implications should be obvious.

 

[the gorgon]

The issue here is that most people are trying to look at issues in the DR through an American mindset. Since we Americans are so screwed up regarding race relations when we try to analyze another culture we impose all of our prejudices and false understandings on our assessment.

While the DR has it's racial issues, it is far superior to most every other culture in the world in my opinion. Yes the DR has racism but mostly what is seen is colorism and a nationalism based rejection of Haitian culture which has been seen historically as belligerent, primitive and godless.

Furthermore, while it is apparent most Dominicans have plenty of African genes, what is not apparent to most is that Dominicans identify 100% as Hispanics and mostly Christian as well and the latter will always dominate the Dominican mindset.

As far as darker Dominicans preferring light skin, they would appear so. Nonetheless, lighter Dominicans would seem to prefer darker ones as well, hence the centuries long tradition of intermarriage. At the end of the day with relatively very little social stigmas impeding intermarriage, except in the very small whitest/elitist families, intermarriage is such a way of life here that it goes relatively unnoticed mostly because it is considered normal. That can't be said of many other cultures none the least of which are Haitian or American. The implications should be obvious.

there has to be intermarriage Chip. it is an arithmetical issue. not enough pure white people to go around.

 

[Naked_Snake]

Way too much pointless effort in trying to convince that Dominicans are not black.
I know Espa?a quite well and Dominicans don't look alike for the most part.
Last June i invited a girl from Argentina for a six day visit to Santo Domingo and i had
to ask her not to describe someone as negro to some Dominican friends when she was
telling a story about a tour we did that day and she said to me later :
"You mean this is like USA ? Do you have to say African American instead of negro ?"
I laughed so hard

Nobody here is saying that we look like Spaniards. What is under discussion here is OUR RIGHT to not abide to the hypodescent thinking that is the norm in the USA, nothing more, nothing less, specially in our own country. If hypodescent were to be applied to everyone on this continent, then Mexicans and Central Americans would have to call themselves ind?genas despite having significant Euro genes in their bloodlines. In other words, we are only reclaiming our right to our mixed race identity.

 

[the gorgon]

Nobody here is saying that we look like Spaniards. What is under discussion here is OUR RIGHT to not abide to the hypodescent thinking that is the norm in the USA, nothing more, nothing less, specially in our own country. If hypodescent were to be applied to everyone on this continent, then Mexicans and Central Americans would have to call themselves ind?genas despite having significant Euro genes in their bloodlines. In other words, we are only reclaiming our right to our mixed race identity.

by denying the African component?

 

[Naked_Snake]

by denying the African component?

No, by not denying the existance of the Euro and Amerind component as some of you people would like for us to do. As NAL's said a couple of posts above, it's highly hypocritical for you people not to take Haitian mulattoes to account when they acknowledge their mixed race condition when calling themselves with plethora of names (like Marabou, griffe, meti, etc.) and not neg/negre, despite their being a much smaller part of that population than even our own whites/blancos are here.

 

[the gorgon]

No, by not denying the existance of the Euro and Amerind component as some of you people would like for us to do. As NAL's said a couple of posts above, it's highly hypocritical for you people not to take Haitian mulattoes to account when they acknowledge their mixed race condition when calling themselves with plethora of names (like Marabou, griffe, meti, etc.) and not neg/negre, despite their being a much smaller part of that population than even our own whites/blancos are here.

is there any cedula issued with the racial appellation 'black"?

 

[Naked_Snake]

is there any cedula issued with the racial appellation 'black"?

Yes, there are those which have the "N" letter (letters are the ones used to denote race here, and these are B, I and N, I have seen my fair share of the latter). Besides, if the accusation from you people of our being whitewashers were to be true, then how come Dominican Americans were the Hispanic ethnicity to less identify with the white label in the US Census? and this is more significant when we compare it with Central American ethnicities that have less Euro component than us, like Guatemalans for instance.

 

[Naked_Snake]

The bottomline here is that, until you people get to read this essay:

La Raza C?smica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And digest what it has to say, you will never get to understand the aim of the mixed race movement.

 

[the gorgon]

Yes, there are those which have the "N" letter (letters are the ones used to denote race here, and these are B, I and N, I have seen my fair share of the latter). Besides, if the accusation from you people of our being whitewashers were to be true, then how come Dominican Americans were the Hispanic ethnicity to less identify with the white label in the US Census? and this is more significant when we compare it with Central American ethnicities that have less Euro component than us, like Guatemalans for instance.

i was just curious. my Dominican buddy is as black as the ace of spades, but his cedula has an I. we were both laughing our heads off at the idea, recently.

 

[Africaida]

I don't think anyone is saying that Dominicans are not mixed to a various degrees. But, boy, one of the component of this mix seem to bother them a great deal (as Nals eloquently demonstrated). If not why would amejorar la raza be acceptable ? And to be honest, this is something that I felt the most in DR that's why they get a bad rep I believe, never felt it in Cuba nor with Brazilians. Yet, these two places havre their share of colorism as well.

 

[Naked_Snake]

I don't think anyone is saying that Dominicans are not mixed to a various degrees. But, boy, one of the component of this mix seem to bother them a great deal (as Nals eloquently demonstrated). If not why would amejorar la raza be acceptable ? And to be honest, this is something that I felt the most in DR that's why they get a bad rep I believe, never felt it in Cuba nor with Brazilians. Yet, these two places havre their share of colorism as well.

You're dreaming if you think that Brazilians haven't the "melhorar a ra?a" thinking as well, or if this is only a DR phenomenon.