The French were definitely among the worst slave owners. The difference between the treatments by the French compared to the Spanish explains many things about this island, including why racial resentment has historically been much more prevalent and stronger in Haiti than in Dominican Republic. Also, perhaps, why racial resentments have generally been lower in Dominican Republic compared to the British Caribbean or even the United States.
THE SPANISH WAY:
“It is conceded and curios fact, that while the early Spaniards of Santo Domingo had been the severest of taskmasters to their negro slaves, as time wore on they seem, for some reason or other, to have lost this habit, and their slaves were infinitely much better treated than those of the French. This may partly be accounted for from the fact that population became so reduced in the island at one time, that master and slave relied upon each other for company and support, and the chains were in this way gradually lightened.
The actual slave laws of the Spaniards were in fact rather mild in their character, and even more lenient in some respects than those of the celebrated Code Noir. All their laws had for their object the facilitating the freedom of the slave who could ransom himself by reimbursing his master for his original outlay; for not only was the master compelled to receive installments on account of the desired freedom of the slave, but the law fixed a maximum price at which that liberty should be purchased, and which price being offered, the master was compelled to accept. Other articles there were, which, if strictly enforced, would serve to lighten the bonds of the slave very much. This facility of freedom had rendered it easy for the blacks of Spanish Santo Domingo to secure their liberty, of which they freely availed themselves, to such an extent, that at one time, of a population amounting to 125,000 in that part of the island, 100,000 were freemen.”
“It is also a notorious fact that the Spaniards never seem to have had the same stringent laws against their intermarrying with the negroes that the French had.”
“The effect of this loose system was soon seen in the mixed character of population, which, gradually extending itself as time wore on, has left its imprint on the present population of the island, where it is sometimes hard to tell where the white begins or the black leaves off.”
(Samuel Hazard; Santo Domingo Past and Present with a Glance at Haiti – p. 103 and 104)
THE FRENCH WAY:
“As early as 1685, when Louis XIV published the Code Noir, it was seen that great irregularities had sprang up between white masters, who had the power of life and death, and their female slaves, and in order if possible to prevent these, many articles, now curious in their character, were inserted; such, for instance, as the fining of a white two thousand pounds of sugar who should have children by his slave. If a white debauched a slave, the woman and her children were to be sold for the benefit of the hospital, without ever having the power to be repurchased.” (p. 108-109)
“The men of colour, though free as far as their personal service to individuals was concerned, were yet considered as the property of the public; and, as public property, they were subject to the caprice and tyranny of all those whom the accident of birth had placed above them.
By the Colonial Government they were treated, however, as slaves, being compelled, on reaching the age of manhood, to serve for three years in a military establishment called the Mar? Chauss?e.”
“Upon the expiration of their terms of service in the Mar? Chauss?e, the mulattoes were also subject to the work of the corv?es, a species of labour allotted for the repair of the highways, the hardships of which nearly all authorities agree in describing as terrible.”
“…they were nevertheless entirely deprived of any power to hold public office or employment, and were entirely debarred from all manner of liberal professions, and even the taint of blood spread to the latest posterity, so that no white man of any character ever thought of marriage with them. In the courts of justice, also, there was one justice for the white man and another for the coloured.”
“Of the horrible cruelties practiced upon the lowest class of the inhabitants –the negroes held in slavery- by their white masters, I shall in these pages give no details. They would fill volumes, and are to be found in the pages of every respectable authority of the time, as well French as Creole. Unfortunately, they are too familiar already to the public.”(109-110)
I have also read several historical accounts that took place in the Philippines during their Spanish period, and without fail there too foreigners commented on how freely the Spaniards mixed with the local population and how many foreigners were shocked to see so many non-whites and mixed people seated on the same tables as the Spanish to discuss political matters and such; very much unlike the strict racial segregation seen in the Dutch and other European colonies in Southeast Asia.
