Barnabe said:
No creole in DR.
Why? Any historic, or social reason?
How did the Spaniards communicate with their slaves? Or didn't they have slaves? Or did they teach them Spanish?
Barnab?
Another good reason behind such notion is the definition of what a slave is.
In French and British colonies, slaves were considered to be property, not human. In sharp contrast, in the Spanish colonies slaves were considered to be property, but they were also recognized as being humans and the same thing applied to the Native Americans in both cases.
In addition to this, the Spaniards purpose for colonization and that of the British and French were slightly different.
For the British and French, they wanted to colonize and did colonized for the purpose of reaping profits. That explains why British and French colonies tended to be more self sufficient than Spanish colonies.
On the other hand, the Spaniards colonized to take gold and move back to Spain, in other words, to become rich. The Spaniards also had a huge interest in spreading Christianity and so, their conquest took a religion twist to it. Spaniards also imposed their own culture to the slaves. It's a little known fact, but most of the slaves brought to Santo Domingo for the use in Santo Domingo were African slaves who were already working in Spain. As such, many of the Slaves who were brought were already very "hispanic". Contrast that to the many slaves that the British and the French directly imported from Africa, with only white indeture slaves coming from their mother countries.
Of course, as years went by, a number of real Africans infiltrated the DR via Haiti and during the occupations, but their effects (though still slightly noticeable especially in Samana and San Pedro de Macoris with the Cocolos) were less on the general population than that of the slaves brought from Spain.
In addition, many of the Tainos who survived and mingled and intermarry (it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the first mestizos came into existence 9 months after Columbus landed on the island and Spaniards accepting their children as their own further help move Taino traits into the population which later got mixed with African traits). There have also been some discrepancies in the assumption that all Tainos were annihilated, since many Tainos who adopted Spanish customs and lived a European lifestyle, as well as mestizos were considered to be Spaniards or Europeans. As such, nobody really knows how many Tainos and mestizos actually survived after the suppose annihilation of their people, simply because their categorization as Taino or Spanish or Mestizo was not really based on biological facts, but just on cultural implications. This very much parallels current patterns of Dominicans categorizing each other in manners that the rest of the world doesn't seem to understand.
Just how the Spaniards mixed very well and accepted these different peoples into their own sphere of existence, so too were the different characteristic of each culture blended. African, Taino, and European cultural traits were blended in just about everything by everybody. The food is a mixture of the three, the biological composition of many Dominicans is a mixture of the three, the music is a mixture of the three, the art is a mixture of the three, everything Dominican points to a mixture of African, Taino, and European elements. Even the language is a mixture of the three, with different words of the three languages and different speach patterns merging to become what we today know as "Dominican" Spanish.
Now, there have been many reasons for why the Spaniards were so open to so much mixture. In fact, the Spanish crown encouraged the Spaniards to mix and intermarry with locals and African slaves were often sexually exploited by their masters. Of all the reasons, the one that makes the most sense to me is the notion of the Spanish moorish conquest. During the time the Spanish were conquered by the Moorish, despite severe opposition, the Spaniards picked up many Moorish or Arabic cultural traits. Some words such as Alcazar, which is Arabic for Palace or Castle became part of the Spanish language. Architectural elements like multiple arches which is an element prominent in Arabic areas, became part of Spanish architectural norms. Even some musical styles resembles those of the Arabics and there was no doubt a biological mixture of Spaniards and Arabic. Many sociologist and anthropologist believe that the Spanish (and to some extent the Portuguese) exposure to these foreign peoples alleviated their stigma of mixing with non-Europeans once they made the crossing into the New World. This is in stark contrast to the attitudes of the French, British, and other European nationalities that made it to these shores.
