Dominican History with the Evidence

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NALs

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In this thread I will be adding various findings using historical documents to bring forth certain topics or points of views that are not usually considered in the various historiography of the Dominican people. Some of these topics are similar to other points of views that have been expressed in various formats while others may be completely novel.

This post in particular will be edited every time I add a new essay, with each new essay added to the table of contents with a direct link to its corresponding essay. The essays will not be published here in any order other than the order they were created, but the table of contents will list them in yearly order, to the best of my abilities. This way people will be able to follow in order through the different points in Dominican history by simply clicking on its title in the table of contents.

I will also add historical maps, images, and images of the cover of various historical documents. Some of the maps and images need to be right-clicked and then opened in a new tab in order to see them in their entirety.

TABLE OF CONTENT

The First Coat of Arms in America

Real Audiencia de Santo Domingo (1511-1800, 1812-1821, 1861-1865)

The 1586 Invasion of English Pirate Francis Drake (I of II)

The 1586 Invasion of English Pirate Francis Drake (II of II)

The Names of the Dajab?n River and the Following of the Virgen de la Altagracia

1784 Official Map of the Island of Santo Domingo

1785 Official Map of the City of Santo Domingo

The People of Color Massacred in the Haitian Invasion of 1805

Santo Domingo in the First Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy

Ignored Aspects of Dominican Independence (I of II)

Ignored Aspects of Dominican Independence (II of II)

Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (I of IV)

Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (II of IV)

Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (III of IV)

Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (IV of IV)

The African American Minority (I of III)

The African American Minority (II of III)

The African American Minority (III of III)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (I of VI)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (II of VI)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (III of VI)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (IV of VI)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (V of VI)

Charles Mackenzie’s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (VI of VI)

Dominican Republic in 1845 According to Francis Harrison

Dominican Republic in 1845 According to Abner Burbank

The Reasons Haitian Emperor Faustin I Invaded the Dominican Republic in the 1850's

Invasions of Haitian Emperor Faustin I Chronicled in The New York Times

Spaniards in Dominican Republic in 1854

Frederick Douglass on the Dominican Republic in 1871

The Lie of the Dominican-Haitian Relations from 1860 to 1930

Changes to the Dominican-Haitian Border (I of IV)

Changes to the Dominican-Haitian Border (II of IV)

Changes to the Dominican-Haitian Border (III of IV)

Changes to the Dominican-Haitian Border (IV of IV)

The Suppose Haitian Origin of Various Dominican Surnames (I of II)

The Suppose Haitian Origin of Various Dominican Surnames (II of II)

Dominican Migration History via Genetic Testing

New Study Shows How Traumatic Historic Events Genetically Affects The Descendants

Juan Ponce de Leon’s Coconut Legacy & a Modern Botanical Fraud

Confirmation of the Massacre of Spanish/Dominican Soldiers by Toussaint Loverture

Hints of the Migration History Based on the Y-Chromosome

The Sugar Industry in 1907

The 1914 Mausoleum to Columbus Proposal

The Dominican Republic in 1914

The Real Myth of the Quisqueya Name

Newest Genetic Study (Pub. March 2015)

North African Genes in Dominicans Despite No Major North African Migration

Default Latest Evidence that the Effects of Traumatic Events can be Genetically Inherited
 
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NALs

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1784 official map of the island of santo domingo

This map was created by D. Juan L?pez, a pensioner of the Royal Highness of Spain, in Madrid of 1784.

Some of the more interesting aspect of this map is that the demarcated border between the French colony of Saint Domingue and the Spanish territory of Santo Domingo is the one signed between Spain and France at the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1777. This border was the legitimate border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti until the first border treaty in 1929 and another one in the 1930's that changed the border to the current one, putting an end to the claim Haiti made on the 5,000 KM2 of the Guava Valley and including towns such as San Rafael de la Angostura, San Miguel de la Atalaya, Lares de Guava also known as Hincha, Las Cahobas among other original and legitimate Spanish/Dominican towns.

This map includes signs to denote various types of villages and towns, with a particular sign to denote the towns that were settled until then by Spanish families from the Canary Islands. Entire towns from the Canaries moved across the Atlantic to settle in the Spanish Indies, especially in the Spanish territory of Santo Domingo, which the Catholic Kings wanted to repopulate in order to contain the ambitions of the French in the less than the western quarter of the island, who pretended to move into Spanish territory in order usurp it. With the arrival of the Canaries many towns were refunded and others flourished, causing an economic boom (also due to the Catholic Kings granting the ports of Montecristi and Puerto Plata as free trading ports for ten years), with most of the population growth and economic dynamism taking place where the Canaries settled.

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NALs

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1785 official map of the city of santo domingo

This map of the city of Santo Domingo was created by D. Tom?s L?pez, official geographer of the Dominions of the Royal Highness of Spain, in Madrid in 1785.

Some of the more interesting aspects of this map is that it shows the original names (also alternate names) of the many military and religious buildings in the city, most of which are still standing today. Outside the city walls is clearly visible the San Carlos village, which was settled in the late 1600s by many families from the Canary Islands. The only thing left standing today in the San Carlos neighborhood of Santo Domingo is the colonial church; this is not far away from the National Palace. Also note that the full name of San Carlos is San Carlos de Tenerife, with Tenerife being one of the islands that make up the Canary Islands and speaks volumes as to where the original Canary Island settlers were from.

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NALs

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The people of color massacred in the haitian invasion of 1805

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Howard Temperly said:
?Dessalines?s land policy was as much anti-mulatto as it was anti-French or anti-white, a situation that exacerbated the tensions between Haiti?s two emergent elites and led to a mulatto-inspired conspiracy that prompted his assassination in 1806.?

Evaluating the document ?Memoria de mi salida de la isla de Santo Domingo el 28 abril de 1805? (Memory of my exit from the island of Santo Domingo on the 28th of April, 1805) by Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo, a native of Santiago de los Caballeros who witnessed and survived the assaults of the Haitian invasions of 1801 and 1805 as well as the genocide committed in 1805 in his town of origin; it becomes clear that a significant number of people of color were equally tortured and massacred by Dessalines? army. Also, various documents and historians of Haitian history effectively narrate the anti-mulatto sentiment of Dessalines, which eventually prompted his assassination by Haitian mulattoes that feared Dessalines would had put in place a new widespread massacre of the people of color.

Here are some of the usually ignored details that are present in his work. Please be aware that Arredondo Pichardo?s work is not the only historical document in existence where the actions of the Haitians against the Dominicans are detailed. There are others, after centuries are still in their manuscript form as well as published works, available in different sources on both side of the island (the documents held by the Haitians may not all exist today due to the effect of the earthquake in 2010), including the army campaign journals of Jean Jacques Dessalines. There are also records of trials that took place even well into the second half of the 1800s concerning claims to property some Dominicans made and that needed to be confirmed with eyewitness accounts or recollections due to the fact that all the property titles were burned in the fires the Haitians imposed on every town they passed through. The only La Vega document from 1805 that exist today is the baptism records that somehow arrived in Santo Domingo and were found in 1810. This also explains why the baptism record abruptly ends in 1805 and then starts in the second half of 1810, with this note where the 1805 records abruptly ends:

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The Massacre was Imposed Nationwide and in a Period of Many Days per Town

Many Dominican historians have a tendency to assume that the massacre of 1805 was limited to Santiago de los Caballeros and Moca plus a few rural villages in the surrounding area of the central Cibao. This assumption is incorrect mostly because the greatest details available are of the events that took place in Santiago and Moca. The reality is that the Haitian troops divided themselves into two groups, with one invading through the north (Cibao) and another invading through the south and both heading towards Santo Domingo where they would meet and impose the unsuccessful assault on the capital city for a month. Before the Haitians troops reached the vicinity of Santiago, Arredondo Pichardo says:

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
?us northerners were beginning to see the migrants from the south arriving into our territory; they were filled with ulcers, begging for their own survival, some were crying and lamenting the ruin of their families, all of them were scared of the events they witnessed and suffered, with the characteristic signs of their suffering and the announcement or the prognostication of what awaited us.

Rural Areas near the Towns and Along the Pathways Suffered Much Damage

In more than one occasion the author mentions ?the rural areas were not the only places to be devastated?, which brings to attention another detail of the massacre which is that even the rural people in their conucos and haciendas were subject to the horrors.

Some of the People of Color that Heroically Defended their People from the Haitian Assault

Many people of color played an important role in the attempt to defend their towns from the Haitian assault. Here are a few of them:

Jos? Serapio Reynoso del Orbe was mulatto native of La Vega. Before the arrival of the Haitian troops to the Santiago vicinity, due to various rumors the people of Santiago began to lose their confidence on the French, who were governing the former Spanish territory as a French colony since the day Paul Loverture, the brother of Toussaint Loverture, handed over Santo Domingo to French General Leclerc. By 1805 the former Spanish part was governed by French General Ferrand and all the Spanish towns were under the rule and vigilance of French military men while in the former French territory was ruled by the Haitians.

At this time the estimated population on the Spanish side was roughly 150,000 (roughly 30,000 were slaves and among the remaining free majority, half were white and half were people of color and most of the whites and people of color didn?t owned slaves; this demographic situation contrasted sharply with the one in Haiti where more than 90% of the population had been slaves) governed by roughly 2,000 French. The rumors caused a rift between the majority of the Santiago population and the French rulers, leading the Spanish population to ask for a removal of the French Commanding Officer. The Spanish population preferred to be represented by a fellow Spaniard, and they chose the mulatto Jos? Serapio Reynoso del Orbe to lead them, and French General Ferrand, who was in Santo Domingo, for the sake of keeping the population at ease, elevated Jos? Serapio Reynoso del Orbe to the position of Commanding Officer of the Spanish North, in order words the Cibao. It?s important to point out that Reynoso was the first and only non-white that the French allowed in a position of power while they ruled over the Spanish territory, and this was done at the petition of the Spanish population who wanted a fellow countryman leading the way.

This great man died in the first battle of resistance against the invading Haitian troops that took place outside of Santiago, near modern day Gurabo. In the middle of the battle, he was shot in the back by a Haitian soldier, dying instantly. Arredondo Pichardo then says about what the Haitian soldiers did to Reynoso?s body after he died:

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
Not long after his death, the cadaver of our Commanding Officer was hardly recognizable because the blood and the dust covered him that only because of his clothes we knew he was one of us, in effect that every time a Haitian walked by the cadaver they would hit it with their sables or the bayonet as if they were afraid he would resurrect, and with this brutal action it was clear the spirit of vengeance that dominated the Haitians.

Today, Jos? Reynoso del Orbe is still remembered in La Vega by having the street behind the Municipal Market named after him. Also, the last names Reynoso and Del Orbe are quite popular in the La Vega and central Cibao region. According to the Parochial Archives of La Vega, his beloved wife Maria Cerre?o died in 1847 at the age of 90; three years after our independence and having lived through the Haitian military invasions of 1801, 1805, 1822, 1844, and 1845; part of a period that is known as The Dominican-Haitian War (1844-1856).

Jos? Campos Tav?res was a mulatto native of Santiago de los Caballeros, who on his warning to the Santiago population of what the Haitians were going to do the civilians withing two hours, he defined himself as ?a friend, a Spaniard, and a fellow countryman.? His heroic act was limited to the warning he gave the Santiago population, which caused many to immediately leave town with what they had on themselves and head for the forests and towards the mountains while others headed to neighboring towns such as Moca and La Vega. Some of his comments include:

Jos? Campos Tav?res said:
?I put God as my witness that in giving you this warning I have not other intention, nor do I have another interest, than to save you and many innocent people that within two hours will be exposed to a sacrifice due to the most reckless and fearsome whim.

Jos? Campos Tav?res said:
I?m from the same country all of us were born in. I have been a fellow companion, and I can never dispense with the affection that I have always deserve for all of you always and in all times.

Domingo P?rez was a mulatto man and the only one that once Arredondo Pichardo left his family weeping because he refused to heed their advice to not put his life in jeopardy confronting the Haitians. All he asked was a single companion to be on his side in the most difficult moments, and while his entire family gave him their backs, this mulatto man was the only one who volunteered to put his own life in danger by promising to be on his side.

The People of Color were also Massacred

Another evidence of the heroic actions not just of the Spanish people of color, but of Campos Tav?res in particular, is in the following comment:

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
I was told by the Sexton of Moca of the lengthy conference that the priest of Santiago had with Henry Christophe (the Haitian leader of the part of the Haitian army that invaded through the north), after having been place at hte head of a line of men and women, all lined with their backs facing the edge of the hillside on the banks of the river, all condemned to the sword with a single signal from the Haitian chief... who approached them with a dagger on his hand and insulting them with the most vulgar manner. Everything changed when Campos Tav?res arrived, finally achieving that all the Spanish people of color about to be slaughtered to be given their liberty and the priest was held as a prisoner.

Other comments where the torture and massacre the Haitians put on the Spanish people of color is also in evidence (these sections are in capital letters):

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
...all the population and towns along the way the Haitian troops reduced to ashes, destroying even the holy altars. The priests that were encountered were all made prisoners and then sacrificed, forcing the ones that were left alive to march to Guarico (modern Cap Haitien), NOT EVEN THE PEOPLE OF COLOR WERE EXCEMPT FROM THIS... many dying due to hunger and thirst a long the way they were forced to march to the French part barefoot and without hats...

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
...Upon his exit he had left the order that we should all be passed through the sword in the same manner that many in the towns of B?nica, Hincha, Azua and others in the southern department, which were the first towns to be occupied.
Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
In addition to all the sacrifices and humiliations we were put through, it was prohibited even for the free people of color that voluntarily wanted to emigrate or didn?t want to separate themselves from those with whom they had spent their youth with. The Haitians prohibited this with the death penalty and it was a way to find motives to harass the population.

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
Among those forced to march to the French part by the Haitians was our old vicar Mr. Pedro Tav?res, a man in his 80?s of an exemplar virtue; the woman Francisca Hurtado, of the same age; THE HONORABLE BLACK JULI?N DE MEDINA, his old wife, both parents of Felipa; his daughters Zeferina, Florentina and Gregoria, Maria and Nicolaza, sisters of this one; all had the same fate, although the last two escaped and return to Santiago and because of them we knew of the cruel end to so many wretch people...

Gaspar Arredondo Pichardo said:
The well known by all of us MULATTO TAILOR Fernando Pimentel, who had not yet swallowed the Holy Eucharist, when he was beating to death with a bayonet and was left laying next to the door of the sanctuary. Whomever managed to escape the massacre within the church was later killed at the hands of those Caribs (the army lead by Henry Christophe) that swept through Santiago and didn?t forgive a single life wherever they found it.
 
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NALs

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The 1586 invasion of english pirate francis drake (I of II)

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Francis Drake

Francis Drake was an English pirate that attacked, sacked, and held for ransom various Spanish settlements and vessels on both sides of the Atlantic. From late-1585 to mid-1586, Francis Drake went on his first transoceanic expedition in which he attacked the city of Santiago (in the Cape Verde islands), Santo Domingo, Cartagena (in modern day Colombia), and San Agust?n (in modern Florida, USA).

The cited quotes are from a copy of (spelling as it appears) A Svmmarie and Trve Discovrse of Sir Frances Drakes VVest Indian Voyage – Wherein were taken, the townes of Saint Iago, Sancto – Domingo, Cartagena & Saint Augustine, the original was published in London by Roger Ward in 1589.

Right click here and click on “open in new tab” to see a gigantic map of Drakes invasion of Santo Domingo.

This invasion marks the end of Santo Domingo’s glorious days when the city and island was often referred to as “The Mother of the Spanish Provinces in America.”

The foreword is nothing more than the letter that a Thomas Gates wrote to the British Crown in order to formally present this work and he claims to had been a part of the expedition. Gates justification for why this document should had been published he explains in the following quote (all citations from the actual historical document is as is but I modernized the spelling; if you want to imagine what the actual spelling looks like, further up I copied the title with the actual spelling used in the document):

Thomas Gates said:
...although it be now a year and a half since the voyage ended, whereby some man will say that it is now no new matter; yet the present time considered, how doubtful some of our manor sort of people are of the Spanish preparations, I think this Discourse is a very fit thing to be published, that they may see what great victories a few Englishmen have made upon great numbers of the Spaniards, even at home in their own countries.

On the page where the maps are listed with the pages where they are located, it explains why it was published in 1589, three years after the expedition had ended:

The reader must understand that this Discourse was dedicated and intended to have been printed somewhat before the coming of the Spanish fleet upon our coast of England, but by casualty the same was forgotten and slacked for a time of some better leisure.


The Beginning of the Expedition

Contrary to the outrageous numbers that some historians, Dominicans included, say concerning the number of men that formed part of this expedition; it says:

...having prepared his whole fleet and gotten them down to Plymouth in Devonshire, to the number of five and twenty sail ships and pinnaces; and having assembled of soldiers and mariners to the number of two thousand and three hundred in the whole...

I have seen historians claim the expedition was made with upwards of 6,000 men, but the actual historical document states, as quoted before, that it comprised of 25 ships and 2,300 men. They departed from the port of Plymouth, in England, on the 12th of September, 1585.


Arrival in the Caribbean

It says that the first island in the Antilles that they reached was Dominica, where they found “savage people” that went naked and were hostile to the Spanish, in fact the pirates found a Spanish that the Carib indians held captive. Almost a century before, Christopher Columbus described the Carib indians as cannibals, the Tainos themselves were terrified of the Caribs, and the first Spanish did see Caribs eat human flesh. My guess is that the poor Spanish captive at a certain point became their dinner. Given that circumstance, they got some provision from the Caribs and then headed for the island of Saint Christopher (today known as Saint Kitts), which at the time was uninhabited and there they spent a few days, including Christmas.


The Invasion of Santo Domingo

After a few days on Saint Kitts, the pirates began to prepare for the invasion of Santo Domingo, for which they prepared very well. It’s also clear that the pirates had their highest hopes in capturing this city, considering how they described the city before they had even seen it. It’s also pertinent to note that Santo Domingo was then, as it is now, the largest city in the Caribbean.

...rather allured thereunto by the glorious fame of the city of Santo Domingo, being the ancient and chief inhabited place in all the tract of country thereabouts.

The pirates got tips of what to expect from a group of men they found along the way, as it’s clearly evident in this quote:

...by the way we met a small frigot bound for the same place... there was one [man] by whom we were advertised the haven to be a barred haven, and the shore or land thereof to be well fortified having a castle thereupon furnished with great store of artillery...

The pirates, considering all that the man told them regarding how well fortified Santo Domingo was, asked to be taken to the best place where they should land for an effective invasion.
They spent New Years Eve off the coast of the island and then:

...which was about the breaking of the day, and so we landed, being New Year’s day, nine or ten miles to the westwards of the brave city of Santo Domingo...

Once the troops were on the shores of Haina:

Our General having seen us all landed in safety, returned to his fleet, bequeathing us to God and the good conduct of Master Carliell, our Lieutenant General...

They began to march eastward towards the city of Santo Domingo at 8:00AM and arrived in the vicinity of the Puerta del Conde and Puerta de la Misericordia at around 1:00PM.

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Puerta del Conde
 
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NALs

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The 1586 invasion of english pirate francis drake (ii of ii)

The First Confrontation

The first confrontation with Spanish authorities took place just outside the city walls, in what today are the areas of Ciudad Nueva, Parque Independencia and vicinity.

...the gentlemen and those of the better sort, being some hundred and fifty brave horses or rather more, began to present themselves, but our small shot played upon them, which were so sustained with good proportion of pikes in all parts, as they finding no part of our troops unprepared to receive them... they were thus driven to give us leave to proceed towards the two gates of the town...

The two gates were heavily guarded by Spanish soldiers, so in order to make a better attack, the pirates imposed a strategy. Please note that some Dominican historians claim that the invasion was done with many thousand more men than what is actually written in the historical documents.

...we divided our whole force, being some thousand or twelve hundred men, into two parts to enterprise both the gates at one instant, the Lieutenant General having openly vowed to Captain Powell (who led the troops that entered the other gate) that with God’s good favor he would not rest until our meeting at the market place.

...the first man that was slain with the ordinance being very near unto himself [the Lieutenant General], and thereupon hasted all that he might to keep them [the Spaniards] from recharging their ordinance. And notwithstanding their ambuscades, we marched or rather ran so roundly into them as pell-mell we entered the gates, and gave them more care every man to save himself by flight...

Once the Spanish soldiers scattered given the great force of the British pirates entering through the gates and fighting with might, they headed for the market place, which they clearly state was next to the Santa Mar?a la Menor Cathedral, the First Cathedral in America.

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The Spanish Guards Flee the Ozama Fortress

As the pirates barricaded themselves in the vicinity of the cathedral and, in fact, made the cathedral their headquarters, the Spanish guards faced a serious dilemma. According to the pirates:

..the city being far too spacious for so small and weary troops to undertake to guard.

On the first night after the pirates established themselves in the heart of the city, they notice the following a the Ozama Fortress:

...after midnight they who had the guard of the castle, hearing us busy about the gates of the said castle, abandoned the same: some being taken prisoners, and some flying away by the help of boats, to the other side of the haven and so into the country.

In the chapter dedicated to the invasion of Cartagena, the pirates mention that this time the Spanish were well prepared and even awaiting their attack because they were warned by a few Spanish that escaped from Santo Domingo. There is quite a probability that the men that warned Cartagena were the guards of the Ozama Fortress.


Santo Domingo is Captured

The British pirates held the city of Santo Domingo, effectively imposing on the “mother of the Spanish provinces in America” under non-Spanish control for the first time in its history. Santo Domingo remained in this state of affairs for the period of a month. During the course of that month certain events took place between the British and the Spanish.


The Fate of the Black Messenger Boy

A black boy was used as a messenger by the British pirates to communicate with the Spanish authorities, who were frustrated for having lost their grip of the city to the pirates. This boy faced a sad fate.

...the General sent his message to the Spaniards a negro boy with the flag of white, signifying truce, as is the Spaniards ordinary manner to do when they approach to speak with us...

The anger that the Spanish authorities held couldn’t be contained when the messenger boy reached them with the message from the pirates.

...some of those who had been belonging as officers for the King in the Spanish Galley... furiously stroke the poor boy through the body with one of their horsemen’s staves, with which wound the boy returned to the General, and after he had declared the manner of this wrongful cruelty, died forthwith in his presence...

As a consequence, the British pirates retaliated by grabbing two of the Spanish prisoners they had captured.

...to be carried to the same place where the boy was stroked, accompanied with sufficient guard of our soldiers, and there presently to be hanged...

The pirates didn’t stop with the killing of the two Spanish prisoners, who were Friars, but instead:

...with this message further, that until the party who had thus murdered the General’s messenger were delivered into our hands, to receive condign punishment, there should no day pass wherein there should not two prisoners be hanged until they were all consumed which were in our hands.

In order to save the lives of the Spanish prisoners that were going to be hanged, on the next day the Captain of the Spanish King’s Galley was taken to the edge of town and handed over to the pirates. The pirates decided to punish the Spanish guy in the following way:

...it was thought a more honorable revenge to make them [the Spanish guards], there in our sight, to perform the execution themselves, which was done accordingly.


The British Pirates had to Punish a Fellow Pirate

During our being in this town, as formerly also at Santiago, there had passed justice upon the life of one of our own for an odious matter; so here likewise was an Irish man hanged, for the murdering of his corporal.


Attempts to Reach Agreements with the Spanish

Apparently there were many attempts to reach an agreement on the ransom the Spanish had to pay in order for the British pirate to evacuate the city of Santo Domingo, but most attempts failed. As a result:

we... spent the early mornings in firing the outmost houses...

But it was not an easy task...

...they being built very magnificently of stone with high lofts, gave us no small trouble to ruin them.

...we ordained each morning by day break until the heat began at nine o’clock that two hundred mariners did nothing else but labor to fire and burn the said houses without our trenches, while the soldiers in like proportion stood forth for their guard...

The wealth that characterized Santo Domingo during the first half the century meant that its houses were very well made. The pirates learn this the hard way:

...yet did we not or could not in this time consume so much as one third of the town...

As a consequence of the difficulty they had in burning the city of Santo Domingo, they decide to reach an agreement with the Spanish:

...we were contented to accept five and twenty thousand duckets, of five shillings six pence the piece, for the ransom of the rest of the town.


Random Additional Information about the Expedition

The following quotes exalt certain extra information that I found interesting and never quoted anywhere before about this criminal voyage of Francis Drake which ended on their arrival at Portsmouth, England on the 28th of July of 1586.

The economy of the island:

The chief trade of this place consists of sugar and ginger, which grows in this island; and hides of oxen and cows, which in this vast country of the island are bred in infinite numbers, the soil being very fertile, and the said beasts are fed up to a very large growth and so killed for nothing so much as for their hides..

The cost in human lives on the part of the British pirates:

We lost some seven hundred and fifty men in the voyage.

Some of the loot they got from Santo Domingo:

In S. Domingo about four score, whereof was very much great ordinance, as whole cannon, dimi-cannon, culverins, and such like.

The rest was iron ordinance, of which the most part was gotten at S. Domingo, the rest at Cartagena.

The loot from the whole expedition:

The total value of that which was gotten in this voyage is estimated at three score thousand pounds, whereof the companies which have traveled in the voyage were to have twenty thousand pounds, the adventurers the other forty. Of which twenty thousand pounds will redound some six pounds to the single share.
 
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NALs

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Ignored Aspects of Dominican Independence (I of II)

Dominicans Also Rejected French Rule

One of the more interesting aspect that is revealed in Gaspar Arredondo y Pichardo?s eyewitness account of the Haitian invasions of Toussaint Loverture (1801) and the beginning of the Era of France in Santo Domingo (1802-1809) is that the inhabitants of the eastern part of the island never fully accepted, at least not out of their own will, the rule of the French. There are other evidence of this even further back in time, especially in 1795 and in the late 1600s when anti-French sentiment was well entrenched in the population that never looked at the French as anything other than usurpers of legitimate Spanish land. Its also interesting to point out that it was the Dominicans who finish the job that was started by the Haitians, in other words expelling the French yoke from the island, with the very bloody war of Reconquest of 1808-1809, and the Spanish part of the island was subsequently returned to Spain, just as the population had yearn since the days the French/Haitian invasions ordeal started.

This rejection of the French would later become a rejection of the Haitians for similar reasons, basically incompatible cultural value systems that under an island wide communion would had necessitated the death of one of the two nations, and neither of the two nations wanted to disappear.

Gaspar Arredondo y Pichardo said:
?That?s how in this unlucky day the ominous government [invasion in 1801 of Touissant Loverture in the name of France] that has produce so much bitterness, and so many tears have been shed by the unfortunate population of this country, was constituted; and all in the middle of their happiness due to the affection of love and blind obedience to the will of the [Spanish] monarchy.?

Gaspar Arredondo y Pichardo said:
?...[The natives of Santiago] heeded to the [French] general Ferrand and resolved under oath to sacrifice and die for the good cause always aspiring that the island would return to the Spanish government and have the joy to proclaim as our leader Carlos IV, King of Spain.?


Juan Pablo Duarte Admiration for Haiti and the Haitians

Extract of Juan Pablo Duarte?s 1838 letter to Jos? Mar?a Serra:

Juan Pablo Duarte said:
?From the moment I studied the history of Haiti, I have admiration for the Haitian people, because I find them desperately fighting against greatly superior forces, and I see how they beat them and how they come out of the sad condition as slaves to constitute as a free and independent nation. I recognize that they have two eminent virtues, their love of liberty and their courage; but the Dominicans, which so many times have gloriously spilled their blood, have they done it to seal the insult that in their sacrifices their dominators demand a kiss to their hand? No more humiliation! No more shame! If the Spaniards have their Spanish Monarchy, and France her French Monarchy; if even the Haitians have constituted their own Haitian Republic, why must the Dominicans remain subjugated, first to France, then to Spain, then to the Haitians themselves, without thinking of constituting like the others? A thousand times NO! No more domination! Long live the Dominican Republic!?


The French Consul in Haiti (1838-1848) Witness the Event Unfold

Andrew M. Levasseur was the French Consul in Haiti from 1838 to 1848. During his term as French Consul in Haiti, he witnessed how Haiti almost disappears as the north, which is mostly black, and the more mulatto-dominated south split ways due to racial tensions and divergent commercial interests, and the east slips away because it never felt fully part or at ease with Haitian rule and cultural values.

The following extracts are of his 27th of June of 1843 letter written in Port-au-Prince:

Andrew Levasseur said:
?Its evident that the unity of the [Haitian] Republic is currently threatened by the separation of the south, whose sympathies and commercial interests are with the English, and by the separation of the east where the habits, language, religion, and memory continue to be Spanish...?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?I know the spirit of Haiti: win time and avoid its compromises. That?s the basis of the political men of this country.?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?You are aware, Mr. Minister, the condition that the spirit of the inhabitants of the former Spanish part are in. I think I have sufficiently shown you the desire of all of them to separate from the French part and constitute into an independent republic or to return to Spain.?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?Santo Domingo, that dethroned queen, in another time had a bishop, a seminary and a theological university. The [Haitian] Republic has taken everything away from her, and has destroyed everything, and the Spaniards still lament the loss of their sacred monuments...?


Extracts of Andrew Levasseur?s 31st of December of 1843 letter in Port-au-Prince:

Andrew Levasseur said:
?I occupied, since less than a year, the position that in 1838 the [French] king confided in me, and by that time I was already convinced that the population of the eastern part of Haiti was fully upset with everything that had to do with president Boyer?s administration, and also that the most eminent and lucid men of that population caressed the dream to return the Spanish nationality to their province as its forced union with the former French part of Haiti became less consistent...?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?From the first months of 1842, the inhabitants of the eastern part were fatigued by the brutality of their black chiefs or magistrates, who were imposed on them by force, and indignant due to the audacity and imprudence that Boyer?s administration hurt their most intimate sentiments and most valuable interests, attacking their properties, their organization and the dignity of their clergy; that they were seriously contemplating putting an end to a yoke that had become intolerable.?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?There?s a priest in Santo Domingo that has a lot of influence... it will suffice to have him say a few words so that the men with arms to line up in defense of our [French] flag, and without a doubt he will pronounce those words not with the hopes of satisfying his ambition or greed, because he doesn?t know those sentiments, but rather because of his love for his religion, that the Haitian government under Boyer?s administration has mistreated, and that the revolutionary government has threatened by supporting the rise of the English Methodists.?


Dominican Declaration of War against Haiti

The official declaration of war against Haiti was done in April of 1844, two months after the declaration of independence took place. This war lasted until 1856 (12 years), which is probably the longest lasting war of independence in America. is the official declaration of war and the reason why the independence movement took a violent turn.

God, Country, and Liberty

Dominican Republic

The Central Governing Board, representative and protective of the rights of the people.

Considering that the Haitian Republic has feigned ignorance on the principles of sovereignty that resides in the people and the supreme right that they have to safeguard and provide for its wellbeing and its happiness, which is the end of all associations.

Considering that, despite the officially submitted manifestation of the 16th of January, the Haitian government has also ignored the justified motives that the peoples of the former Spanish part have for separating en mass from them.

Considering that despite the frank and generous treatment that we have given to the Haitians, limiting our pronouncement to the act of Separation and to the means of natural defense, opening the door to honorable events, treating them with the most philanthropy, making sure respect was guaranteed to them as individuals and to their properties; they and their government have responded with outrages and vexations, neglecting the official communications and the capitulations that have been made in this city and in Puerto Plata, and since the 9th of March they have violated our territory and initiated the hostilities without warning, not even the customary preliminaries between civilized countries and nations.

Considering that the Haitian people, in other words their leaders, initiated an unjustifiable and scandalous war against us, have trodden all principles and ignore our rights, imprisoning and treating with the most cruelty our northern ministers, our priests, and some of our civilian men, women, and children; maintaining them in prison without giving them the necessary food to sustain their lives, in that manner adding new injustices to the many that gave rise to our separation.

Considering that by nature, the rights of the invaded are the same as those of the invader, and when a people or nation denies another what belongs to them, for the offended party there is no other recourse than to support its manifestation by force; and since we can?t expect any justices from the Haitians than that which we will gain with our arms on hand, due to its previous unfair conduct towards us, due to its current aggression against us, due to its perfidious dealings, due to the devastation, fires, looting, and assassinations that has been imposed on our countryside and towns where they have passed, against innocent and defenseless people; all of this gives us a double right to resist or die rather than subjugate ourselves to the Haitian government.

Due to all of these motives we decree what continues.

Article 1. We solemnly and in all forms declare open war, by sea and by land, to the harmful and our enemy Haitian nation.

We authorize our citizens, and to those who unite to our cause, to harass the Haitians; and as unjust aggressors, the Haitians will be responsible before God and the world for the ills and horrors that war brings forth, the bloodshed, the destruction of families, the rapine, the violence, the destruction, the fires; everything will be its own creation and as a consequence of its criminal conduct.

Article 2. There will be no peace, nor any transaction from our part, while the enemy occupies our territory, demarcated by its old limits; and while they refuse to recognize our rights, the separation that we have declared, and that the Dominican Republic is an independent and sovereign state.

Article 3. The war will be in the same manner as it is done to us, regular or irregular, with everyone determined to die rather than to support once again the heavy yoke of a cruel government; and we will not omit the retaliations that the circumstances demand.

Article 4. The Dominican Spaniards that remain with loyal to the Haitian cause, and that are discovered with arms in hand, will be treated as if they were Haitians and our enemies.

This decree will be printed, published, and executed in the entire territory of the Dominican Republic.

Santo Domingo, 19 of April of 1844 and 1st of the Nation

Bobadilla, presidente of the Board; Manuel Jimenes, vicepresident; Caminero, Echevarr?a, Carlos Moreno, Del Orbe, Valverde, J. Tom?s Medrano, Juan Pablo Duarte

Silvano Pujol, secretary of the Board​
 

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Ignored Aspects of Dominican Independence (II of II)

The Haitian Initiated Slavery Rumor

Typical of the Haitian modus operandi in its attempt to influence the Dominican people, Haiti?s government initiated a rumor that claimed slavery was going to be re-imposed. This lie was also spread by the Haitians during the re-annexation to Spain in 1861-65. In order to put an end to this lie, the Dominican government enacted the following law in June of 1844. This law also had an effect in neighboring Puerto Rico, where slavery was an established institution even though most of the population there were not slaves, but it did caused many runaway slaves to take yolas and attempt to reach Dominican shores. The number of Puerto Rican ex-slaves that reached Dominican shores is unknown, but I think they were an important minority because during the re-annexation to Spain, the Puerto Rican ex-slaves were among the most scared groups once the false rumors were spread.

God, Country, and Liberty

Dominican Republic

Central Governing Board

Considering: 1st. That despite in the manifestation of the people on the ten and six of January of this year, has been established that slavery has cease to exist among us forever, some badly intentioned spirits and that want to create division and destroy our faith are spreading false and dishonorably that to the unfortunates that in other times were slaves, would be subjected once again to such unworthy yoke.

2nd. That slavery goes against the natural liberty, the eternal principals of our religion, reason, and good policy.

3rd. That it?s necessary that the government should secure from whatever means possible the state of the people, the union, and the tranquility of its inhabitants.

Having all of this in mind, what the cultured and civilized nations have done and are doing to abolish and destroy slavery, and protect the civilization everywhere:

Decree:

Article 1. The introduction of slaves to the territory of the Republic, regardless if its directly from Africa or from any other place, is absolutely prohibited; and the slaves that step foot on the territory of the Dominican Republic, will be considered and treated immediately as freemen.

Article 2. Any citizen in the Republic, without distinction of class or person, that does anything to send ships to Africa to extract slaves or that lend himself and takes part in that shameful and inhuman trade, buying or selling them, will be considered a pirate, judged and punished with THE DEATH PENALTY.

This decree will be printed, published, circulated, and executed in the entire territory of the Republic.

Given in Santo Domingo on the 17th of June of 1844 and 1st of the Nation.
Pedro Santana, president of the Board; Felix Mercenario; Francisco [del Rosario] S?nchez; Del Orbe; C. Moren; [Manuel] Jimenes; Toribio Ma?on; Bobadilla; Santamar?a, secretary ad-hoc.​


The French Consul in Haiti Description of Events in Haiti after Dominican Independence

Extract from Andrew Levasseur?s 7th of July of 1845 (a year and five months after independence) letter in Port-au-Prince:

Andrew Levasseur said:
?...Public opinion and the very Port-au-Prince cabinet invited us [the French] to make the Spanish part [of the island] an asylum for Haitian mulattoes, because they were threatened by the anger of the blacks...?

Andrew Levasseur said:
?...The Haitian government felt impotent to make the Spaniards return to obedience, and became convinced that any new tentative in that respect will only cause calamities for the entire island...?


Dominican-Haitian Hostile Attitude Remained through out the XIX Century

Samuel Hazard, the author of ?Santo Domingo Past and Present with a Glance at Haiti,? was an American commissioner sent in 1871 by the government of the United States to the Dominican Republic and Haiti in order to gather the opinion of the Dominican people about the possibility of being annexed to the United States, and also describe the condition of the country. These were some of his impressions regarding Dominicans and Haitians during his visit in 1871, 27 years after the independence and 6 years after the restoration of the Republic.

Samuel Hazard said:
?[Dominicans] gave me some amusing accounts of their fights with the Haitians, and seem to hold them in great contempt, as the Dominicans did not hesitate to attack with the odds against them of sometimes five to one. At the time I considered this as braggadocio, but I was credibly informed by the Haitian generals this was absolutely the fact...?

Samuel Hazard said:
?...Although no open war is declared between Dominican Republic and Haiti, yet such are the relations existing between them, that no vessel is cleared from the ports of one to those of the other...?

Samuel Hazard said:
?...[The Haitians] dreaded the machete of Dominican soldiers, a sort of sword with which all Dominicans of the lower ranks are armed, whether they are soldiers or civilians.?

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Dominicans exhibited the machetes in public well into the 20th Century, as is seen in this photograph of December 1959. This tradition is no longer in use (at least I?m not aware of it), but it initiated during the quarrels with the Haitians.


Dominican-Haitian Hostilities Continued into the XX Century

NYT 1912: Santo Domingo Wants Loan to Fight Haiti ? We May Dissuade Them (click here to see article)

One of Our Most Sacred National Symbols

The Dominican flag is one of our most sacred national symbols, because it embodies the basic values on which the Dominican nation was founded on.

Red = Honors the brave men that gave their lives for the values that the Dominican flag represents.

Blue = To live in liberty.

White Cross = The union of all the races in a civilization based on Christian values.

Dominican%20Republic.jpg
 

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Santo Domingo in the First Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
So many circumstances have conspired to render the Spaniards proud of the possession of Saint-Domingo, that they will probably never pardon the French for having extorted a part of that possession.

Interesting insights into how Santo Domingo was treated in the first Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy compared to the other provinces.


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Article I:

The Spanish nation is the reunion of all Spaniards in both hemispheres.

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Article V:

Spanish are:

1st. All freemen born and domiciled in the domains of the Spains, and their offsprings.

(...)

4th. The freedmen as soon as they acquire their liberty in the Spains.1

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Article X:

The Spanish territory is composed on the peninsula and its possessions and adjacent islands: Aragon, Asturias, Castilla la Vieja, Castilla la Nueva, Catalu?a, C?rdoba, Extremadura, Galicia, Granada, Ja?n, Le?n, Molina, Murcia, Navarra, Basque Provinces, Seville and Valencia, the Baleares Islands, and the Canary Islands with the other possessions in Africa.

In North America: New Spain with New Galicia and the Yucatan Peninsula2, Guatemala, Eastern Internal Provinces, Western Internal Provinces, the island of Cuba with the two Floridas3, the Spanish part of the island of Santo Domingo4, and the island of Puerto Rico with the adjacent islands to these islands and the continent in both seas.

In South America: New Granada5, Venezuela, Per?, Chile, Rio de la Plata Provinces6, and all the adjacent islands in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In Asia: the Philippines Islands and all that depend on its government.

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Article XXXIII:

If there is a province with a population that is less than 70,000 but not less than 60,000, will elect its own diputado; and if its less than this number, it will be united to the nearest province to complete the required 70,000. The island of Santo Domingo is exempt from this rule, she will send a diputado regardless of the size of her population.7

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BONUS:

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The cover of the civil code of the Spanish province of Santo Domingo.


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1 Slaves were less than 20% of the population in Santo Domingo. They also were a minority among the population of color.

2 New Spain, New Galicia, and Yucatan are modern Mexico.

3 The two Floridas consisted of the Florida peninsula in the USA and a part of the panhandle that included the coastal areas of Alabama and I think Mississippi too.

4 See map in the second post to see the extent of the Spanish territory on the island.

5 New Granada is modern Colombia plus Panama and I think Ecuador.

6 Rio de la Plata is much of modern Argentina and I think Paraguay and Uruguay.

7 This privilege was given to this single province in the entire kingdom.
 
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Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (I of IV)

This is a collection of written descriptions by the following persons regarding various demographic aspects of Spanish Santo Domingo and later the Dominican Republic. This also includes some mentions of how the slave system functioned in the Spanish world, especially in Santo Domingo.

The quotes from the 1900s are from before the 1990s. Unfortunately in the 90s is when the NGOs began to take some form of relevance and by the end of that decade a few pro-Haitian NGO groups have gone to great strides in attacking the DR by presenting the country in ways that not only don’t correspond with reality, but also contrasts sharply with the historical legacy. This distorted vision has also permeated much of the judgments that foreigners make about the country, including some people in academia, especially in the United States. It now seems to have reached the level of pop culture with a recent “documentary” that is widely rejected by Dominicans because of the inherent misrepresentation.

The quotes from the British William Walton explain certain aspects of the slave system in the Spanish world and the French Moreau de Saint-Mery gives further details on how the slave system was applied in Spanish Santo Domingo. All of this contrast sharply with the treatment the slaves faced in French or British possessions.

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The mixing of the three major origins has given rise to the modern Dominican population.

1700s

Antonio S?nchez Valverde, a native of Cotu?, in 1785 described to great detail the Spanish part of the island including the people, economic potential, etc. Here are some of his impressions not just as an eyewitness, but also as a native to this society in the 18th century.

Antonio S?nchez Valverde said:
Most of the production is consumed among the inhabitants, and barely anything is exported to Puerto Rico and rarely to Spain; because the owners don’t have many black slaves, utensils, and a sizeable market. The French, who occupy a smaller section of the island with inferior quality of the soil, produce much more of which we will talk about later, and the main reason for their higher production is their abundance of black slaves...

Antonio S?nchez Valverde said:
...[the Spanish] masters don’t have more than 2 or 3 slaves, and the master has to work with his slaves because otherwise they wouldn't produce enough to survive; and despite all working, it doesn't produces enough.

Antonio S?nchez Valverde said:
...even the ones that have a butler to administer their fields... its necessary that the master sacrifices himself by taking part and sharing the work with his slaves, and this leads to a much more work-focused life compared to the French side, where activities consist of luxuries, greed, and other vices...


Moreau de Saint-Mery, a French, in 1798 described in great detail the Spanish part of the island, and later the French part, concerning everything from the physical description of the island and economy to the population, their attitudes, culture, and overall lifestyle. This is what he wrote concerning the society he visited on the Spanish side, which centuries later would become Dominican society.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
Over the whole of this country, mountains and places, containing, as I have already observed, about 3,200 square leagues, are spread 125,000 inhabitants of which 110,000 are free and 15,000 slaves...

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
The population of the Spanish part is composed of three classes, the whites, of which I have just spoken, the freed-people, and the slaves.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
The freed-people are few in number if compared with the whites, but their number is considerable if compared with that of the slaves. By a principle of religion, adopted by the Spaniards of Saint-Domingo, they look on the legacy of liberty, that a master leaves to his slaves, as an act of piety... we ought not to be surprised that it is common to see many slaves at a time rendered free by the last will of their masters.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
That prejudice with respect to color, so powerful with other nations, among whom it fixes a bar between the whites and the freed-people and their descendants, is almost unknown in the Spanish part of Saint-Domingo.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
Their colonial laws respecting freed-people subject them to a particular tax, incapacitate them to serve as registers or notaries, forbid them to have Indians to wait on them or to carry arms, on pain of perpetual banishment. Other of these laws subjects them to the penalty of returning to slavery if they take part in, or favor, the revolt, the pillage, or robbery of slaves. Some of them go so far as to forbid this class to wear anything in gold, pearls, silk, or even a cloak to come lower down than the waist, on pain of forfeiting these ornaments. But, all these laws are absolutely disregarded in the Spanish part.
 
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Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (II of IV)

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
...the political constitution of the colony admits of no distinction between the civil rights of a white inhabitant and those of a freed person.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
With respect to the priesthood, people of color are admitted into it without difficulty, according to the principles of equality, which form the basis of the Christian religion...

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
From the removal of this prejudice with regard to color, necessarily arises lenity to the slaves. They are usually fed as well as their masters and treated with a mildness unknown in the colonies of other nations.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
...as long as the negroes remain so few in number, and are spread over such an immense surface of country, there can never be but handful here and there; and it being impossible in such a state to subject them to an exact discipline, which is useful in great manufactures and habitations only, their treatment will ever be analogous to the situation of their masters, to whom they will be rather companions than slaves.

Moreau de Saint-Mery said:
The Spanish colonial laws subject the maroon negroes to the punishment of whipping and being ironed, the negro cannot absent himself without a written permission from his master, one who dares strike a white person is liable to be put to death, and they are all forbidden to carry arms. But, as I have already observed, these laws are, as to these points, null at Saint-Domingo...


1800s

In 1810 William Walton, a British, published his two volumes Present State of the Spanish Colonies in which the first volume is devoted almost entirely to Spanish Santo Domingo.

William Walton said:
The population of the Spanish division of Hispanola at present amounts to about 104,000 persons of all ages, a number larger than generally supposed by those who visit the island, in consequence of its being scattered over such an extent of territory.

William Walton said:
...for it may be confidently asserted that the Spanish slaves in general are the most orderly in the West Indies, and though surrounded with incentives to revolt, they have uniformly adhered to their masters.

William Walton said:
A considerable impediment to the progress of culture in Spanish possessions, is the great number of feast days that interfere with the labours of the field, and the lax regimen by which working slaves are governed.

William Walton said:
In Spanish American settlements the masters are humane, frequently in the extreme, and the indulgences which negroes enjoy, are not altogether congenial to their characters and habits.

William Walton said:
...the Spaniards appear to have made very imperfect regulations on this head [legal treatment of slaves]; what exists is an assemblage of exemptions and regulations, in which humanity more than policy has been attended to.
 

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Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (III of IV)

William Walton said:
A [Spanish] slave has the right to redemption; and in any dispute with his master, has the privilege of choosing an arbitrator. If he be not contented to live in the servitude of a particular person, by whom he may be ill treated; and can produce sufficient motives, and another purchaser, the law abliges the master to make the transfer...

William Walton said:
Piety, also, amongst the Spaniards places the emancipation of slaves amongst the most acceptable offerings to the Divinity, and sometimes forming the condition of a testament, deprives a successor of an inheritance.

William Walton said:
In the Spanish colonies, however, they [freed slaves] become equal citizens of the state; serve in the militias, enjoy the same rights as those born free, with few exceptions, that have more to tincture of punctilious etiquette, than of constitutional privation...

William Walton said:
...dispensations from the crown can wipe away even the stains of African blood, and place it on an equal scale of society with perfect whites; and the man who then publicly reproaches them with the traces of their origin, however remote, becomes subject to the prosecution of the law.

Samuel Hazard, an American, visited the DR and Haiti in 1871 as part of a commission sent by the US government to investigate the conditions of the island and what the people thought of the possibility of the annexation of the Dominican Republic. This is the society he found in the DR during this island-wide tour.

Samuel Hazard said:
The great majority, especially along the coast, are neither pure black nor pure white; they are mixed in every conceivable degree. In some parts of the interior considerable numbers of the white race are to be found, and generally in the mixed race the white blood predominates.

Samuel Hazard said:
They seem to be practically destitute of prejudice of class, race, or color. In their intercourse with each other and with strangers, they are courteous in manner, respectful, and polite.


Smith M. Weed, an American, visited the country in 1894 and in that same year published an article, The Charm of San Domingo, in The New York Times describing the Dominican society.

Smith M. Weed said:
Yes, I have just returned from a very enjoyable visit to San Domingo, and am filled with pleasant impressions of its beauty, productiveness, and the kind politeness of its people. It has a population of something more than 500,000, two-thirds of whom, I should say, are straight-haired people, while the other third have more or less of the curly hair which is a characteristic of the negro race. All are dark, for the hot climate soon bronzes the residents of Dominica, and the natives, even those with a pure Spanish ancestry, have become dark-complexioned, while those with Indian blood in their veins are naturally so.
 

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Population, Slavery, etc in Spanish Santo Domingo (IV of IV)

1900s

Otto Schoenrich, an American, descriptions of Dominican society in 1918.

Otto Schoenrich said:
At the present time the pure negroes are in a minority, constituting probably less than one-fourth the entire population. The great majority of the inhabitants are of mixed Spanish and African blood, their color ranging from black to white. The lighter shades predominate, especially in the Cibao. There is also a sprinkling of pure whites, the majority of whom are to be found in the Cibao region or are foreigners residing in the larger cities.

Otto Schoenrich said:
...there have never been political parties based on color and the relations between the races have always been cordial. In company, side by side, mulattoes, blacks and whites have lived, worked, enjoyed themselves and fought their revolutions. There is absolutely no color line. A friend of mine from Virginia received quite a shock the first time he attended a state ball in Santo Domingo and saw an immense negro, as black as coal, a member of Congress, dancing with a girl as white as any of the foreign ladies present. He rushed to the refreshment room and beckoned to a tall mulatto in a dress suit: ?I?ll have something to cool off, here waiter?? He was stopped just in time for he was mistaking the secretary of foreign affairs for a waiter; but after his experience he was afraid of giving his order to anyone else for fear he might be offending some other high official.

Samuel Guy Inman, an American, in his 1919 Through Santo Domingo and Haiti: A Cruise with the Marines, gives these descriptions of the Dominican society he visited.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
Racially the people of the Dominican Republic are of Spanish descent, some pure white, others mixed with negro blood, others with an admixture of Indian, and still others carrying the racial inheritance of all three of these races.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
Haiti retains its uniform blackness to a remarkable extent, but in the Dominican Republic the racial mixture is very complete, and your typical citizen may exhibit the predominant characteristics of either the white, the black or the red men.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
Along the coast and on the plantations there are many negroes from Turks Island, the Bahamas, Jamaica and the other West Indies; while at Monte Cristi and in other localities there are many native Dominican and Haitian blacks.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
Socially, commercially and politically there seems to be little color line drawn, for men and women of white and colored skins are seen mingling and conversing freely. Whites and colored intermarry and hold office on an equality.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
Besides Spanish, the English and French languages are heard to a limited extent. On the Saman? peninsula as much English as Spanish is spoken, and in the coast towns San Pedro de Macor?s, Puerto Plata, Monte Cristi and Santo Domingo, it is often heard from the lips of the negroes from the British islands.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
To understand Santo Domingo, it must be constantly kept in mind that, different from Haiti, it is Spanish-American in historical inheritance, religion, problems, ideals and culture.

Samuel Guy Inman said:
If Santo Domingo is noted for its backwardness in most respects, it is equally noted wherever the Spanish language is spoken for excellency of literary production.
 

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The First Coat of Arms in America

The island of Santo Domingo was not only the place in America with the first cities to receive their coat of arms, but also the island itself got a coat of arms establishing a tradition that would later be applied to the other Spanish kingdoms on this side of the Atlantic.

In the seventh volume of Historia General de Espa?a y Am?rica: El descubrimiento y la fundaci?n de los reinos ultramarinos (General History of Spain and America: The Discovery and Foundation of the Overseas Kingdoms) says:

The assignment of coat of arms to cities and towns on the American continent starts with the first coat of arms granted by King Ferdinand the Catholic's Royal Order (C?dula Real), as administrator of the kingdoms of his daughter Queen Juana I of Castille, on the 7th of December of 1508, to the Spanish Island (La Espa?ola or Santo Domingo) and some of the existing towns on her.

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The coat of arms of Espa?ola is the one granted to the island.

The original coat of arms of Santo Domingo has been modified, as can be confirmed by looking at the modern coat of arms of the city. However, the modified modern version contains all the details of the original one, but is not as ostentatious. With this said, the original coat of arms of Santo Domingo was the most ostentatious of all coat of arms granted by the Spanish Monarchy to all the Spanish cities in America, demonstrating the privileged position or at least the high esteem with which the first city of the Spanish provinces in America was held.

Other coat of arms, such as Santiago de los Caballero's, Bonao's or San Juan de la Maguana's among others, have not been changed during the course of the past five centuries and continue to be the official coat of arms of these cities.

The Spanish towns in what is now the Dominican Republic:

Puerto de Plata = Puerto Plata
Buena-Ventura = Doesn't exist anymore, but was located near modern day Los Alcarrizos.
Bonao
Santiago
San Juan de la Maguana
Santa Cruz = El Seybo
Compostela de Azua = Azua
Santo Domingo
Salvale?n = Hig?ey
Concepci?n de la Vega = La Vega


The Spanish towns that currently are in Haiti (modern Haitian territory was Spanish territory from 1492 to 1697, afterwards roughly half of the modern Haitian territory became French territory and in 1929 the other half of the modern Haitian territory was ceded by the Dominican Republic to Haiti; in 1929 the Haitians officially took over Dominican Lares de Guhaba also known as Guaba or Hincha in Spanish, the birth place of Pedro Santana and the original homes of Dominican families such as Cabral (moved to Ban?), Mej?a (moved to Ban? and then to Santiago de los Caballeros), Santana (moved to Santiago and then to El Seybo), etc):

Lares de Guhaba = Hinche
Vera-Paz = Port-au-Prince
Puerto Real [de Bayaj?] = Fort Libert?
Villanueva de Y?quimo = Jacmel
Salvatierra de la Sabana = Les Cayes
 
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NALs

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The African-American Minority (I of III)

During the Haitian Occupation by the Haitian despot Jean Pierre Boyer a new ethnic minority was added to the Dominican population.

In 1824 a total of 6,000 African Americans, mostly from Philadelphia and New York City, arrived upon an invitation offered by Jean Pierre Boyer. Many of the African Americans were trying to get away from the delicate racial situation that existed in the United States and almost all of them were born as slaves and given their freedom. For this reason among Dominicans they and their descendants became known as “los negros libertos” (the freed blacks) and as "los americanos" (the Americans.)

Two reasons explain why the Haitians desired and did everything they could to attract freed slaves from the United States: 1. to increase the black population in the Spanish part of the island, 2. to increase the agricultural output island-wide.

As can be seen in this official letter sent by Jean Pierre Boyer to an American diplomat in the United States, this was the geographic settlement of the African American colonies on the island of Santo Domingo:

xf5m.jpg


The red boxes outline the numbers that were settled in the Dominican Republic which amounted to almost half of all African American immigrants.

Roughly 1,000 arrived through the Puerto Plata seaport and were settled in Puerto Plata itself, Altamira, Santiago, Moca, Macoris (San Francisco), and La Vega. They were meant to increase coffee, tobacco, and cocoa production.

Roughly 200 arrived via Saman? and were settled there to increase coffee and provisions.

Roughly 1,200 arrived via Santo Domingo and were settled in Santo Domingo, El Seybo, Hig?ey, Monte Plata, Boy?, Bayaguana, Los Llanos, San Crist?bal, and Ban?. They were meant to increase the production of coffee, cocoa, and sugar cane.

Of the 600 that arrived via Jacmel an undetermined amount was settled in Neyba. For the sake of discussion I assume 100 were settled in that town and its vicinity.

In total, roughly 2,500 African Americans were settled in Dominican territory. This contrast with what is claimed by a few Dominican historians, because many have the habit of counting every African American that was brought to the island as if they were all settled on Dominican territory, but that wasn't the case.


Current Estimate of Dominicans with at least Partial African American Ancestry

According to various sources, more than half of all African Americans moved back to the United States within 5 years of their arrival.

The American Samuel Hazard said the following in his 1871 book Santo Domingo Past and Present with a Glance at Haiti regarding the presence of the African Americans in the Dominican Republic. Keep in mind that this was 6 years after the War of Restoration and 27 years after Independence or the end of the 22 years Haitian Occupation. I mention this because the most visible colonies of foreigners and their descendants that Hazard noticed during his 1871 visit, he mentions the Europeans and African American colonies but not the Haitians. Apparently the Haitians didn't had a minority presence that was big enough to be noticed.

Samuel Hazard said:
It seems probable that more than nine-tenths, perhaps nineteen-twentieths, are native Dominicans. The others are – first, coloured emigrants from the United States; secondly, European traders who do not settle anywhere, but sojourn at commercial points.
 
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NALs

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The African American Minority (II of III)

Samuel Hazard said:
They are all Roman Catholics, except the American emigrants sent out in 1824 and succeeding years, who, with their descendants, now form a number of settlements and amount to several thousand persons. These are mostly Methodists and Baptists. They live among the Catholics in peace and harmony.

Samuel Hazard said:
At different times there have been a number of American negroes brought out and located on the island, but in most cases bad faith was kept with them. In the case of those who came out with Redpath, many of them were deceived, and forced to work two days in the week for the [Haitian] government in order to contribute to the money for their passage out.

Today the area where descendants of African Americans are most noted is in Saman?, especially on the eastern half of the peninsula. This is what Samuel Hazard said about the size of the Saman? population in 1871:

Samuel Hazard said:
The population is not over 800 or 1,000 souls, the majority of whom are blacks, either emigrants themselves or descendants of those who came from the United States in Boyer’s time.

Considering that more than half moved back to the United States, and that the colony established in Saman? has traditionally been perceived as the largest of the African American colonies in the Dominican Republic, it's logical to assume that the Saman? colony possibly became the largest as the other colonies in the rest of the country were depleted as many moved back to the United States.

Taking the largest estimate of Samuel Hazard, the 1,000 African Americans he found in Saman?, in 2010 their descendants should at most amount to 49,920 or 49% the population of the province of Saman? or 86% the population of the municipality of Saman? in that same year.

On a nationwide scale, my estimate of the number of Dominicans with at least partial African American ancestry is 230,400 or 2.5% of the 2010 nationwide population. Assuming that the population didn't migrate within the DR or to the exterior, then at the very most the African American descendants from Saman? make up 22% of the total of Dominicans with at least partial African American descent with the remaining living elsewhere in the country. This, however, is unrealistic considering the massive migration the country has experienced since the end of the Trujillo dictatorship, both within the country as well as towards other countries, but my estimates are quite liberal and this means that the true numbers are most likely less, but how much less is hard to say.

Another finding from my estimate is that it's quite possible that the descendants from Saman? are not the majority of the Dominicans of at least partial African American descent, but is rather the colony that has best preserved their American traditions including the English language and their food. This could be due to the isolated nature of the Saman? colony that until recently was almost completely a separate society from mainstream Dominican society, because when the African Americans arrived in Saman? the peninsula was practically uninhabited. The other colonies were integrated into mainstream Dominican society because of constant contact with Dominicans.
 
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The African American Minority (III of III)

The African American Descendants of Puerto Plata

Of the African Americans that lived in Puerto Plata during Samuel Hazard's 1871 visit, this is what he said:

Samuel Hazard said:
The ones who came out from America appear particularly intelligent, retaining all the habit of neatness peculiar to our best coloured people. Some of them, in their towering high bandana head and gay coloured striped dresses, were models in this way. However, in conversation with many of these people, I learned they were all willing to work, and work steadily, if they got pay; many of them were perfectly willing to go upon the farms in the vicinity and perform agricultural labours, provided they were sure of pay; but there is no general agriculture and those engaged in it are of limited means and cannot afford to employ labourers.

In Germ?n Camarena’s 2003 book Historia de la ciudad de Puerto Plata (The History of the City of Puerto Plata) mentions the following about the African Americans that settled in Puerto Plata:

Germ?n Camarena said:
The [Haitian] government gave them and their descendants Haitian citizenship, even though most maintained their North American quality.

Germ?n Camarena said:
In 1839 Mr. Jorge Kingsley, with authorization of the Haitian authorities, brought a new group of [African-]American colonists from Florida. They were settled in the sections of Mu?oz, Cabarete, and Sabaneta de Y?sica, most of whom were Protestants-Methodists.

He also included the following portraits of some of the African Americans settled in the Puerto Plata area or their descendants:

Libertos_PP.jpg


A large percentage of the English last names in Puerto Plata were introduced by African Americans and black immigrants from the British Caribbean during the 19th and early 20th centuries.


Dr. Milton Ray Guevara, the highest ranking Dominican of African American descent in Dominican society

5216516c29cf3.jpg

Dr. Milton Ray Guevara, the current President of the Constitutional Tribunal, is a native of Saman?, a partial descendant of African Americans, and the highest ranking Dominican of partial African American descent in the Dominican government.

[video=youtube;r_12eR0hedU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_12eR0hedU[/video]​
 
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Charles Mackenzie?s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (I of VI)

Charles Mackenzie was a Scottish diplomat and British consul in Haiti from 1826 to 1827. Keep in mind that the Haitian Domination started 4 years before he became consul in Haiti and Dominican independence was 17 years into the future after he ended his diplomatic duties, not to mention 103 years before Trujillo rose to power.

Mackenzie wrote extensively about Haitian and Dominican societies based on his own observations on both sides of the island. The following are some of his impressions of Dominican society under Haitian rule.


Size of the Dominican Population

Mackenzie gives the population estimate of a few years before the initiation of the troubles on the French part and then offers two sets of data about the possible size of the population during his time.

Charles Mackenzie said:
In 1785 the population of the Spanish side of the island was estimated to be

Free people of all colours.........122,640
Slaves....................................30,000
Total......................................152,640

Four or five years after, that is, at the commencement of the troubles in the western colony, the number was computed at not more than one hundred and eight thousand five hundred (108,500); and this is supposed to have dwindled to one hundred thousand (100,000), immediately before the annexation of the east to the west.

The following numbers he copied from an American newspaper that he doesn’t name, but claims it was published at the time emigration of African Americans to Haiti was “anxiously promoted.” It gives a total of 61,468.

Charles Mackenzie said:
Santo Domingo......20,076
Puerto Plata...........10,622
Santiago................10,419
La Vega..................6,178
Azua......................3,500
San Juan................2,745
Neyba.....................2,581
Saman?..................2,209
Montecristi..............2,112
Las Matas de Farf?n.1,026

The following he copied from the 1824 census and gives a total of 71,223.

Charles Mackenzie said:
Santo Domingo............11,205
Santiago......................11,056
La Vega.......................5,650
El Seybo......................5,364
Puerto Plata..................4,534
San Crist?bal................4,020
Neyba..........................3,516
Mara............................3,437*
San Juan de la Maguana.3,386
San Francisco................3,357
Azua............................3,208
Ban?.............................2,321
Las Matas de Farf?n.......1,917
Cotu?............................1,776
Bayaguana....................1,702
Hig?ey..........................1,655
Los Llanos.....................1,142
Montecristi.....................1,029
Saman?.........................754
Sabana de la Mar............194

* Might be Moca.
 
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Charles Mackenzie?s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (II of VI)

Santiago’s Population Characteristics

Charles Mackenzie said:
The population, as a body, is more respectable than usual. The proportion of white and colored men is very considerable; and the blacks are a stout fine race of men. There is no one rich person, or, at least, who would be so considered elsewhere; but there are degrees of wealth even there. By the most intelligent persons to whom I had access, I was informed that even in the town there are none absolutely poor; for wages are high, being three rials a day, or one shilling and sixpence, or two rials with food. All classes have the means of decent subsistence.

Since the revolution and the establishment of the [Haitian] republican government, great fidelity had been displayed by the former slaves to their masters. They had never been numerous, the discipline never very rigorous, nor had the labor exacted been ever severe. One of the old proprietors, who, from having no other resource, remained with his wife and family, informed me that not one of the former slaves on a small sugar property near to the town had left him; that they retained all the old customs, called him still “amo,” and asked his blessing on their knees whenever he visited them.


Race/Color Relations in the Cibao and Dominican Attitudes Towards the Haitians

Charles Mackenzie said:
From this and other statements it would appear that there is a kindly and good feeling of all the castes towards each other in this district; and all of them appear to be what they are represented, highly respectable and well conducted. In proof of this, no insult was offered to the whites at the period of the [Haitian] revolution. I was not a little amused with the contemptuous mode in which even the blacks speak of their western neighbors as “aquellos negros” [those blacks].

Charles Mackenzie said:
First a black boy and then a black man appeared, each ringing the changes, to all entreaties and supplications, on the two melancholy words “no hay”...

Profoundly ignorant, my host could give no information on any subject; yet he spoke of his western neighbors with contempt, as inferior to himself and his countrymen of the east. He remembered the inroads in the time of Dessalines, but could give no account of anything beyond the fact that the army was “muy barbaro” [too brutal].

Charles Mackenzie said:
I spent the best part of the day with the General and the “Commandant de la Place,” Colonel Charlemagne, one of the few educated black men I had known personally. The former had been Count de Gros Morne under Henry [Christophe], who is reported not to have treated him with much delicacy; yet it was clear that there was a lingering feeling of regret for stars, ribbands, and privileges, which are no longer attainable. Both these officers confirmed all that I had ever heard from others of [Henry] Christophe’s depravity and intelligence. This personage had secured as favorable associations with his name at La Vega as at Santiago, having there committed, in 1805, unheard-of atrocities. The want of energy and the moral paralysis of the present day was strongly contrasted, by my informants, with the vigor and activity of the older system.
 
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Charles Mackenzie?s Impressions of Spanish Santo Domingo (III of VI)

Dominican Opinions About the Haitian Domination

Charles Mackenzie said:
Such were the consequences of the revolution when I witnessed them; and I am disposed to infer, from what I heard at different periods, that the parties referred to attempted in vain to find any trace of compensation for the sacrifice of all their ancient predilections, and even prejudices. They consider their clergy degraded and injured, by being almost reduced to a state of dependence on the already stinted means of their flocks, their religion consequently insulted, for they have no confidence in French or Port-au-Prince Christianity. Their university no longer exists; the public schools are destroyed; and they insist that it is mockery to talk of national schools, the teachers of which are utterly incompetent; but the greatest grievance (and it is a terrible one) is that, at the very age when their sons require the utmost care of a parent, they are bound by the existing law to become soldiers, and to be initiated into all the profligacy of a guard-house, as privates; from which scene of degradation no merit can raise them, while the son of the most worthless chief in the west is at once raised to the rank of an officer. They complain too, that their morals being thus corrupted, there is little chance of the unfortunate individuals ever resuming respectable or decent habits. All these points have been most strongly and feelingly pressed on me by sufferers, in nearly the language used.

Besides these grievances, there has been no compensation for the slaves liberated at the revolution, many of whom having become soldiers, have left the proprietors without laborers, thus depriving their late masters of their only means of support. The French language too is substituted for Spanish, an insult fully appreciated; and in return for this beautiful independence, it is found not to be recognized by either France or Spain; yet the present government expects the disfranchised Spaniard to contribute his proportion to the liquidation of the French indemnity.

The reduction of the value of property affords also, where grumbling is permitted, a tolerable good reason for venting occasional complaints. With the effects of these facts I have nothing to do, my present business being merely to record my observations.

Some time before my arrival in the island, feelings of discontent had displayed themselves so unequivocally that prosecutions were instituted, some individuals shot, and others banished.


Size and Growth of the Cibao Population

Charles Mackenzie said:
The population of the district forms more than one-sixth of that of the whole of the east, and was estimated at eleven thousand and fifty-six souls, which is augmenting...

This rapid increase is ascribed by the inhabitants to the salubrity of the climate, the facility of maintaining a family, and to the general practice of one man having only one wife, which does not prevail to the same extent in the French side.
 
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