1929-1939, Depression in DR

Do Yo Know Something That We ( The Great Unwashed) Don't .
Yikes The Cdn $ Is Worth More Than The Green Back And We ( Cdns ) Are Not Happy About That.

tHANKS A LOT FOR THE SITE. , CAN NOT ANSWER YOUR ORIGINAL QUESTION , BUT POSE ANOTHER . WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER BE POOR., WARM OR COLD?

Then and Now

You can make interesting parallels with the 1930s and now if a depression follows a crash, but you can't sustain most of them for the reasons that:

1. the population is triple what it was then, or more.
2. the population has redistributed itself from rural to metro.
3. most all Dominicans are on the money economy one way or another, in the 30s most were not, so when money stopped flowing it didn't bother them.
4. the flow of money depends entirely on foreign "trade" by way of tourism, mfg. & mining, agri-export and billions in 'remises' -- almost none of the above was around in the 1930s
5. in the 1930s the powerful families were strong and the political power was 'mano duro' (Trujillo!). The big families today are more rich than powerful, and political power is diluted through an enormous number of government employees, all corrupt.
6. a large middle class exists now that practically didn't exist at all in the 1930s

If I were to experience a world-wide depression in the 1930s I would certainly prefer the DR where my family in the campo had no dependence on the outside to begin with. These days however, you can bet on instances of near anarchy in the metro-barrios among those who've lost their roots in the campos, and therefore they have not fallback. Those that still have close ties to the campo will do better. Anarchy in the barrios and fear among the rich will bring on an 'hombre fuerte' rather rapidly.
The middle class will disappear in short order, meaning that recovery in the DR will take a very long time.

pelaut said:

You can make interesting parallels with the 1930s and now if a depression follows a crash, but you can't sustain most of them for the reasons that:

1. the population is triple what it was then, or more.No, it is 9 times larger now, then then.
2. the population has redistributed itself from rural to metro.About 60/40
3. most all Dominicans are on the money economy one way or another, in the 30s most were not, so when money stopped flowing it didn't bother them.
4. the flow of money depends entirely on foreign "trade" by way of tourism, mfg. & mining, agri-export and billions in 'remises' remittances-- almost none of the above was around in the 1930s. Coffee, sugar, cacao and tobacco were the economic mainstays in the 1930s
5. in the 1930s the powerful families were strong and the political power was 'mano duro' (Trujillo!). The big families today are more rich than powerful, and political power is diluted through an enormous number of government employees, all corrupt. Probably accurate for the most part. Not worth nitpicking.
6. a large middle class exists now that practically didn't exist at all in the 1930s (Yes, it does and would be wiped out by a major recession or, gulp!, depression.

If I were to experience a world-wide depression in the 1930s I would certainly prefer the DR where my family in the campo had no dependence on the outside to begin with. These days however, you can bet on instances of near anarchy in the metro-barrios among those who've lost their roots in the campos, and therefore they have not fallback. Those that still have close ties to the campo will do better. Anarchy in the barrios and fear among the rich will bring on an 'hombre fuerte' rather rapidly.
The middle class will disappear in short order, meaning that recovery in the DR will take a very long time.

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In the 1930s, sugar, the economic mainstay, was selling for perhaps 1? a pound. Tobacco, cacao and coffee were also depressed. The Dominican economy was certainly hit hard but it was so small (a tiny fraction of the GDP of today) and had so few participants (little industry to speak of) that most of the population remained as it was before the depression": Poor and illiterate. Those in the rural areas survived with their crops and small animals.

Interesting question. Worthy of much more study.

HB

The Dominican Republic during the 1930's was under the absolute contol of Trujillo. What other posters have written is valid. The vast majority of Dominicans were extremely poor and lived in rural areas. They were not really affected by the Great Depression. Trujillo actually workd hard in the 1930's to bring the rural masses into contact with the Dominican government, to make them(hhhhmm, let me find the words) almost, well, dependent on the government. Perhaps beholding, grateful to the government for providing schools, clinics, roads, and bridges. The most iportant factor Trujillo brought to the DR was security. Crime, banditry was virtually eliminated(well, except for Trujillo himself). The DR went through a period of enormous growth(infastructure, public schools,etc) during the Great Depression. Trujillo was the reason for all of it. Trujillo's iron will guided the nation through a time of extreme global economic distress. Trujillo modernized ports and built the largest suspension bridges in Latin America, all during the Great Depression.

Agreed, Trujillo created the middle class, the Second World War and spiking commodities prices made that possible, along with paying off the nation's national debt in (from memory) in 1947.

Trujillo had hard core policies dealing with agriculture. A basic tenet of Trujillo's agro-policy was that nation had to be able to sustain itself. Food security was importnat to Trujillo. Trujillo gave out land to the avergae Dominican. He went so far as to break up large estates and give the land to the poor. But, there was a stiff condition. The "men of work" had to be productive. The lazy would find themselves sent to labor camps. Land could(and was) taken away from people who were idle or poor workers. Their were additional penalties that could inflicted on unproductive farmers. Crop yields soared, Trujillo used the surplus to fund many government programs and pay off the National Debt. Trujillo used the tobacco crop(almost exclusively) to pay for weapons purchased from French arms dealers who refused to accept "America's worthless paper currency". Before the fall of France to the Germans in 1940, almsot all Dominican tobacco was sold to the French.

I can add more details if you like.

How did the Dominican Republic handle the Great Depression? Remarkably well.

There were severe penalties dished out the the idle or inefficient farmers, a book that explores these policies is Foundations of Despotism,by Richard Lee Turtis. I highly recommend it.

I do realize that many of Trujillo policies only bore fruit(no pun intended) because of the Second World War(which started at the end of the 30's). However, Trujillo laid the groundwork for it in the 1930's with his government programs.

thanks Ogre and HB for your knowledge and insights, now the key question is:
is it Candelier? and how beholden will the new hombre fuerte be to Chavez?

Well, attempting to predict the future is tricky. If the DR decends into anarchy there is a very really possiblity of a strong man emerging. Or the DR could become Madmaxville. Could a Dominican politican/strongman emerge that has strong economic and political ties to Chavez? Of course. The future is looking rather tough, at least no one will be bored.

Ogre of the Caribbean said:

But, there was a stiff condition. The "men of work" had to be productive. The lazy would find themselves sent to labor camps.

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Ogre, HB and other historians - what were these labour camps like?

There were two that I saw shortly after he was killed:
One in ?zua, called El Sisal, that was turned into banana plantations shortly thereafter.
The other was in the El Factor-El Pozo area of Nagua. Some of the old buildings are still there. the old highway passed right by them. It was a huge rice farming operation.
I can only imagine the conditions there.

HB

On my first visit to the DR, I was in the south west but I don't remember exactly where. The place, which was in or around Barahona province, was called something like Ca?a Brava. We passed what looked like an old barracks, and the locals mentioned something about it being either a torture centre, prison camp or labour camp during the Trujillo regime.

Chirimoya said:

Ogre, HB and other historians - what were these labour camps like?

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The camps were horrendous. Tropical gulags. Men were often worked to death, died under torture, or perished from disease. Most of the inmates actually survived imprisonment and were eventually released, however these men were often physically, and more importantly, spritually broken, which was extremely important to Trujillo. These inmates served as living warnings to rest of the population. The labor camp population was relatively small, a lesson straight out of Sun Tzu(The Art of War), make examples out of a few and the rest will fall into line...

Would like to second Ogre's comments aobut Turits' book - the best book on DR history (albeit a specific issue - Trujillo's relationship with peasants) by a mile.

Don't forget that Trujillo was obsessed with reducing the foreign debt the DR had to the US, which he did and then gave himself the title of "Restorer of the Financial Independance of the Motherland" (or something similar). This only got completed when WWII raised sugar prices.

With regard to punishing 'lazy' peasants, Trujillo would just not include them in his land redistribution schemes. Remember that Trujillo got all of his power from the rural areas - although he was a murderous despot, the peasants loved him because he was the first ruler of the DR to actually consider them in his plans, and speak with them directly, rather than viewing them as a worthless mass to be controlled as the caudillos did.

George Holmes said:

Would like to second Ogre's comments aobut Turits' book - the best book on DR history (albeit a specific issue - Trujillo's relationship with peasants) by a mile.

Don't forget that Trujillo was obsessed with reducing the foreign debt the DR had to the US, which he did and then gave himself the title of "Restorer of the Financial Independance of the Motherland" (or something similar). This only got completed when WWII raised sugar prices.

With regard to punishing 'lazy' peasants, Trujillo would just not include them in his land redistribution schemes. Remember that Trujillo got all of his power from the rural areas - although he was a murderous despot, the peasants loved him because he was the first ruler of the DR to actually consider them in his plans, and speak with them directly, rather than viewing them as a worthless mass to be controlled as the caudillos did.

Click to expand...

Well, Truijillo gave people the opportunity to own land, if they were ineffective he would take the land away from them, they would become vagrants. Vagrants could be arrested and sent to the penal colonies/labor camps. Technically speaking, being an inefficient farmer was not against the law, but once landless, you could be caught up in one of the Gaurdia's dragnets then you were in real trouble.

There were two main penal colonies, one was in Auza("El Sisal") and the other one was in Nagua("Julia Molina"-How quaint, El Jefe named the camp after his mother.) Most of the inmates in this camp were not ex farmers, they were Trujillo's political enemies. I don't have solid statistics on the number of farmers sentenced to the penal colonies, but I think it was probably in the hundreds(at best), not thousands.