History of the Dominican Republic

Early map of Hispaniola

Early history to 1540

The island of Hispaniola, of which the Dominican Republic forms the eastern two-thirds and Haiti the remainder, was originally occupied by Taínos, an Arawak-speaking people who called the island Quisqueya (or Kiskeya). The island was divided by a system of five major Cacicazgos (chiefdoms) - Marien, Maguana, Higuey, Magua and Xaragua (Also written as Jaragua). These chiefdoms were further subdivided into subchiefdoms. The Cacicazgos were supported by a tributary arrangement, consisting of food provided by the Taino. Among the remaining cultural inheritances from the Taino-era are cave paintings scattered throughout the country and words from the Arawak language, including "hurricane" (hurrakan) and "tobacco" (tabakko).

The arrival of the Guamikena (the covered ones)

On December 5, 1492, the Europeans arrived. Believing that these horizon were in someway supernatural, the Taínos welcomed the Europeans with all the honors available to them. This was a totally different society from the one the Europeans came from. One of the things that piqued the curiosity was the amount of clothing worn by the Europeans. Therefore they came to call them "guamikena" (the covered ones). Guacanagarix, the chief who hosted Christopher Columbus and his men, treated them kindly and provided him with everything they desired. Yet the Taínos' allegedly "egalitarian" system clashed with the Europeans' feudalist system, with more rigid class structures. This led the Europeans to believe the Taínos to be either weak or misleading, and they began to treat the tribes with more violence. Columbus tried to temper this when he and his men departed from Quisqueya and they left on a good note. Columbus had cemented a firm alliance with Guacanagarix, who was a powerful chief on the island. After the shipwrecking of the Santa María, he decided to establish a small fort with a garrison of men that could help him lay claim to this possession. The fort was called La Navidad, since the events of the shipwrecking and the founding of the fort occurred on Christmas day. The garrison, in spite of all the wealth and beauty on the island, was wracked by divisions within and the men took sides, that evolved into conflict amongst these first Europeans. The more rapacious ones began to terrorize the Taíno, Ciguayo and Macorix tribesmen up to the point of trying to take their women.

Viewed as weak by the Spaniards and even some of his own people, Guacanagarix tried to come to an accommodation with the Spaniards, who saw his appeasement as the actions of someone who submitted. They treated him with contempt and even took some of his wives too. The powerful cacique of the maguana, Caonabo, could brook no further affronts and attacked the Europeans, destroying La Navidad. Guacanagarix was dismayed by this turn of events but did not try too hard to aid these guamikena, probably hoping that the troublesome outsiders would never return. However, they did return.

In 1493, Christopher Columbus came back to the island on his second voyage and founded the first Spanish colony in the New World, the city of Isabella. An estimated 400,000 Tainos living on the island were soon enslaved to work in gold mines. As a consequence of oppression, forced labor, hunger, disease, and mass killings, it is estimated that by 1508 that number had been reduced to around 60,000. By 1535, only a few dozen were still alive.^[1]

During this period, the Spanish leadership changed hands several times. When Columbus departed on another exploration, Francisco de Bobadilla became governor. Settlers' charges against Columbus of mismanagement added to the tumultuous political situation. In 1502, Nicolás de Ovando replaced de Bobadilla as governor, with an ambitious plan to expand Spanish influence in the region. It was he who dealt most brutally with the Taínos.

Although Caonabo had previously been captured, his queen, Anacoana, had carried on his rule. Because of her highly respected position among the Taíno chiefs, de Ovando requested that she welcome him as the new governor by hosting a feast. She agreed, and invited eighty other chieftains to the celebration. Instead of attending, de Ovando ordered his soldiers to burn down her palace with everyone inside. Most of them perished. Although a few managed to escape, they were captured and tortured. Anacoana was given a mock trial, then hung. De Ovando's ploy to eliminate Taíno chiefs was so successful, he used similar methods on the other side of the island. Stripping the Taínos of their leaders made rebellion far more difficult.

One rebel, however, successfully fought back. Enriquillo, leading a group of those who had fled to the mountains, attacked the Spanish repeatedly for fourteen years. Finally, the Spanish offered him a peace treaty. In addition, they gave Enriquillo and his followers their own city in 1534. The city did not last long, however; several years after its establishment, a slave rebellion burned it to the ground, killing anyone who stayed behind.

African enslavement

In 1501, the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand I and Isabella, first granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves, which began arriving to the island in 1503. These African importees arrived with a rich and ancient culture that has had considerable influence on the racial, political and cultural character of the modern Dominican Republic. In 1510, the first sizable shipment, consisting of 250 Black Ladinos, arrived in Hispaniola from Spain. Eight years later African-born slaves arrived in the West Indies. Sugar cane was introduced to Hispaniola from the Canary Islands, and the first sugar mill in the New World was established in 1516.^[2] The need for a labor force to meet the growing demands of sugar cane cultivation led to an exponential increase in the importation of slaves over the following two decades. The sugar mill owners soon formed a new colonial elite, and convinced the Spanish king to allow them to elect the members of the Real Audiencia from their ranks. Poorer colonists were forced to subsist by hunting the herds of wild cattle that roamed throughout the island and selling their hides.

The first major slave revolt in the Americas occurred in Santo Domingo during 1522, when enslaved Muslims of the Wolof nation led an uprising in the sugar plantation of admiral Don Diego Colon, son of Christopher Columbus. Many of these insurgents managed to escape to the mountains where they formed independent maroon communities.

1540-1844

Although sugar cane dramtically increased Spain's earnings on the island, large numbers of the newly imported slaves fled into the nearly impassable mountain ranges in the island's interior, where they joined the growing bands of cimarrones-literally, 'wild animals'-which absorbed the remaining Taínos and raided isolated plantations. By the 1530's, cimarron bands had grown to the extent that in rural areas the Spaniards could only safely travel outside their plantations in large, armed groups. By the 1540's, the Caribbean Sea had become overrun with English, French and Dutch pirates. In 1541 Spain authorized the construction of Santo Domingo's fortified wall, and decided to restrict sea travel to enormous, well-armed caravans. In another move, which would had disastrous consequences for Hispaniola's sugar industry, Havana, more strategically located in relation to the Gulf Stream, was selected as the designated stopping point for the merchant flotas, which had a royal monopoly on commerce with the Americas.

Colonial decline, French encroachment and the Haitian Revolution

With the conquest of the American mainland, Hispaniola quickly declined. Most Spanish colonists left for the silver-mines of Mexico and Peru, while new immigrants from Spain bypassed the island for the greater wealth to be found on the American mainland. Agriculture dwindled, new imports of slaves ceased, and white colonists, free blacks and slaves alike lived in poverty, weaking the racial hierarchy and aiding mulatización, which resulted in a population of predominantly mixed Spanish and African descent. With the exception of the city of Santo Domingo, which managed to maintain some legal exports, Dominican ports were forced to rely on contraband trade, which, along with livestock, became the main source of livelihood for the island dwellers. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake captured the city of Santo Domingo, collecting a ransom for its to Spanish rule.

In 1605, Spain, unhappy that Santo Domingo was facilitating trade between its other colonies and other European powers, attacked vast parts of the colony's northern and western regions.^[3] Spanish authorities forcibly resettled their inhabitants closer to the city of Santo Domingo. This action, known as the devastaciones, proved disastrous; half of the resettled colonists died of starvation or disease.^[4] Although it was intended to make the colony easier to defend against pirate attacks, French and English buccaneers took advantage of Spain's retreat into a corner of Hispaniola to colonize the island of Tortuga in 1629, which France established direct control over in 1640, expelling the English, reorganizing it into an official colony and expanding to the north coast of Hispaniola itself. Spain ceded the western end of the island to France in 1697, under the Treaty of Ryswick, which, in 1804, became the Republic of Haiti. In 1655, Oliver Cromwell dispatched a fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir William Penn, to conquer Santo Domingo. After encountering heavy resistance, the English retreated, taking the island of Jamaica instead.

The Bourbon dynasty replaced the Habsburgs in Spain in 1700, introducing economic reforms that gradually began to revive trade in Santo Domingo. The crown progressively relaxed the rigid controls and restrictions on commerce between Spain and the colonies and among the colonies. The last flotas sailed in 1737; the monopoly port system was abolished shortly thereafter. By the middle of the century, the population was bolstered by emigration from the Canary Islands, resettling the northern part of the colony and planting tobacco in the Cibao Valley, which became a profitable export, enabling renewed importation of slaves. The population of Santo Domingo increased from about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790.^[5] However, it remained a small and neglected colony, particularly in contrast to neighboring French Saint-Domingue, the wealthiest colony in the New World in the 18th century, supplying most of Europe's sugar, indigo and coffee and supporting a population of over 500,000, 90% of whom were slaves. Saint-Domingue offered the main market for the cattle industry of Santo Domingo.

With the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution, the rich urban families linked to he colonial bureaucracy fled the island, whie most of the rural hateros (cattle ranchers) remained. Spain saw in the unrest an opportunity to seize all, or part, of the western third of the island in an alliance of convenience with the British and the rebellious slaves. They were defeated by the forces of the black Jacobin General Toussaint L'Ouverture, who initially allied with the Spanish, and in 1795, France gained control of the whole island under the Treaties of Basel. In 1801, L'Ouverture arrived in Santo Domingo, proclaiming the abolition of slavery on behalf of the French Republic. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon dispatched an army to subdue the island. Even after their defeat by the Haitians, a small French garrison remained in the former Spanish colony, where slavery was reestablished. In 1805, after crowning himself Emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines invaded, reaching Santo Domingo before retreating in the face of a French naval squadron. In their retreat through the Cibao, the Haitians sacked the towns of Santiago de los Caballeros and Moca, slaughtering most of their residents and helping to lay the foundation for two centuries of animosity between the two countries.

The French held on in the eastern part of the island, until defeated by the Spanish inhabitants at the Battle of Palo Hincado on November 7, 1808 and the final capitulation of the besieged Santo Domingo on July 9, 1809, with help from the Royal Navy. The Spanish authorities showed little interest in their restored colony, and the following period is recalled as La España Boba – 'The Era of Foolish Spain'. The great ranching families such as the Santanas came to be the leaders in the south east, the law of the "machete" ruled for a time. In 1821, the Spanish settlers, under the leadership of lieutenant-governor José Núñez de Cáceres, declared independence from Spain, as Haiti Español, drafting a constitution declaring themselves a province of Gran Colombia, but Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, occupied the whole island just nine weeks later and held it for 22 years.

Haitian occupation

The twenty-two-year Haitian occupation that followed is recalled by Dominicans as a period of brutal military rule, though the reality is more complex. It led to large-scale land expropriations and failed efforts to force production of export crops, impose military services, restrict the use of the Spanish language, and eliminate traditional customs such as cockfighting. It reinforced Dominican's perceptions of themselves as different from Haitians in "language, race, religion and domestic customs."^[6] Yet, this was also a period that definitively ended slavery as an institution in the eastern part of the island.

Haiti's constitution forbid whites from owning land, and the major landowning families were forcibly deprived of their properties. Most Dominicans of Spanish descent emigrated to Cuba, Puerto Rico or Gran Colombia, usually with the encouragement of Haitian officials, who acquired their lands. The Haitians, who associated the Roman Catholic Church with the French slave-masters who had exploited them before independence, confiscated all church property, deported all foreign clergy, and severed the ties of the remaining clergy to the Vatican. Santo Domingo’s university, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, lacking both students and teachers, closed down. Since Haiti was unable to adequately provision its army, the occupying forces largely survived by commandeering or confiscating food and supplies at gunpoint. In order to receive diplomatic recognition from France, Haiti was forced to pay an indemnity of 90 million francs as reperations to the former French colonists, and Haiti forcibly extracted a large portion of this indemnity from Santo Domingo. The Haitians attempted to redistribute land to former slaves, but the newly emancipated slaves resented being forced to grow cash crops under Boyer's Code Rural.

1844-1929

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Juan Pablo Duarte y Diez

In 1838 Juan Pablo Duarte, Ramón Matías Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sanchez founded a secret society called La Trinitaria, to win independence from Haiti. In 1843 they allied with a Haitian movement in overthrowing Boyer. By revealing themselves as revolutionaries working for Dominican independence, the new Haitian president, Charles Riviere-Hérard, exiled or incarcerated the leading Trinitarios. At the same time, Buenaventura Báez, a Azua mahogany exporter and deputy in the Haitian National Assembly, was negotiating with the French Consul-General for the establishment of a French protectorate over the former Spanish colony. The Trinitarios timed their uprising in order to preempt Báez. On February 27, 1844, independence was declared from the Haitians. The military forces that drove the occupiers out were led by Pedro Santana, a wealthy hatero from El Seibo who commanded a private army of peons who worked on his estates.

Independence from Haiti

The Dominican Republic's first constitution was adopted on November 6, 1844. It adopted a presidential form of government with many liberal tendencies, but it was marred by Article 210, imposed by Pedro Santana on the constitutional assembly by force, which gave him the privileges of a dictatorship until the war of independence was over. These privileges not only served him to win the war, but also allowed him to persecute, execute and drive into exile his political opponents, among which Duarte was the most important. During the first decade of independence, Haïti mounted five invasions to reconquer the eastern part of the island: in 1844, 1845, 1849, 1853 and 1855-56. Although each was repulsed, Santana used the ever-present threat of Haitian invasion as a justification for consolidating dictatorial powers. Given the nation's poverty and small population (estimated at 150,000 in 1851), for the white elite of Santo Domingo-mostly landowners, merchants and priests-the threat of re-conquest by more populous Haïti was sufficient to seek annexation by an outside power. ^[7] Offering the deepwater harbor of Samaná bay as bait, over the next two decades, negotiations were made with Britain, France, the U.S. and Spain to declare a protectorate over the country.

 

General Pedro Santana Familias

Without adequate roads, the regions of the Dominican Republic developed in isolation from one another. In the south, the economy was dominated by cattle-ranching (particularly in the southeastern savannah) and cutting mahogany and other hard woods for export. This region retained a semi-feudal character-with little commercial agriculture, the hacienda as the dominant social unit and the majority of the population living at a subsistence level. In the Cibao Valley, the nation's richest farmland, peasants supplemented their subsistence crops by growing tobacco for export, mainly to Germany. Tobacco required less land than cattle ranching and was mainly grown by small holders, who relied on itinerant traders to transport their crops to Puerto Plata.

Santana antagonized the Cibao farmers, enriching himself and his supporters at their expense by resorting to multiple peso printings that allowed him to buy their crops for a fraction of their value. In 1848, he was forced to resign, and was succeeded by his vice-president, Manuel Jimenes. After returning to lead Dominican forces against a new Haitian invasion in 1849, Santana marched on Santo Domingo, deposing Jimenes. At his behest, Congress elected Buenaventura Báez as President, but Báez was unwilling to serve as Santana's puppet, challenging his role as the country's acknowledged military leader. In 1853 Santana was elected president for his second term, forcing Báez into exile. Three years later, after repulsing the last Haitian invasion, he negotiated a treaty leasing a portion of Samaná Peninsula to a U.S. company; popular opposition forced him to abdicate, enabling Báez to return and seize power. With the treasury depleted, Báez printed eighteen million uninsured pesos, purchasing the 1857 tobacco crop with this currency and exporting it for hard cash at immense profit to himself and his followers. The Cibao tobacco planters, who were ruined when inflation ensued, revolted and recalled Santana from exile to lead their rebellion. After a year of civil war, Santana seized Santo Domingo and installed himself as President.

Annexation by Spain and War of Restoration

Santana inheriting a country on the brink of economic collapse, and shortly after he returned to power the American Civil War began, rendering the U.S. incapable of enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. In Spain, Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell was advocating renewed imperial expansion. In March 1861, Santana restored the Dominican Republic to Spain. This move was widely rejected and on August 16, 1863, a national war of "restoration" began in Santiago, where the rebels established a provisional government. Spanish troops reoccupied the town, but the rebels fled to the mountains along the ill-defined Haitian border, staging guerilla raids. Fearing that the Spanish intended to restore slavery, Haitian President Fabre Geffrard provided the Dominican rebels with sancutary and arms, sending a detachment of his presidential guards (the Tirailleurs) to fight alongside them. Santana initially was named Capitan-General of the new Spanish province, but it soon became obvious that Spanish authorities planned to deprive him of his power, leading him to resign in 1862. Condemned to death by the provisional government, Santana died under mysterious circumstances in 1864, and is widely believed to have committed suicide.

Heavy-handed religious reforms promulgated by the Spanish Archbishop, discrimination against the mulatto majority, and restrictions on trade all fed resentment of Spanish rule. Largely confined to the major towns, the Spanish army was unable to defeat the guerillas or contain the insurrection, and lost even greater numbers of troops to Yellow Fever. However, the rebels themselves remained in political disarray. The first presidents of the provisional government, Pepillo Salacedo (who favored the return of Báez was deposed by General Gaspar Polanco in September 1864, who was deposed by General Antonio Pimentel three months later. The rebels formalized their provisional rule by holding a national convention in February 1865, which enacted a new constitution, but the new government could exert little authority over the various regional guerilla caudillos, who acted largely independent of one another. Unable to extract concessions from the disorganized rebels, with the end of the American Civil War and the fall of O'Donnell, in March 1865, Queen Isabel II annulled the annexation and independence from Spain was restored, with the last Spanish troops departing by July.

Second Republic

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Gregorio Luperón

By the time the Spanish departed, most of the main towns lay in ruins and the island was divided among several dozen caudillos who fought amongst themselves for power. José María Cabral controlled most of Barahona and the southwest with the support of Báez's mahogany-exporting partners, cattle rancher Cesáreo Guillermo assembled a coalition of former Santanista generals in the southeast, and tobacco merchant Gregorio Luperón controlled the north coast. The Partido Rojo was composed of the cattle ranching latifundia and mahogany-exporting interests of the south, and was dominated by Buenaventura Báez, who continued to seek annexation by a foreign power. The Partido Azul was composed of the tobacco planters and merchants of the Cibao and Puerto Plata and was nationalist and liberal in orientation. From the Spanish withdrawal to 1879, there were twenty-one changes of government and at least fifty military uprisings.^[8]

Within a month of the nationalist victory, Cabral, whose troops were the first to enter Santo Domingo, ousted Pimental, but a few weeks later, a rebellion in support of Báez broke out under General Cesáreo Guillermo, forcing Cabral to resign and allowing Báez to retake the presidency in October. Báez was overthrown by the Cibao farmers under Gregorio Luperón, leader of the Partido Azul, the following spring. When Luperón's allies turned on each other, Cabral installed himself as President again in a coup in 1867, but after bringing several Azules into his cabinet the Rojos rose up in arms, returning Báez to power. In 1869, he signed a treaty with President Ulysses S. Grant, selling the country to the U.S. for $150,000.^[9] Backed by Secretary of State William Seward, who hoped to establish a Navy base at Samana, in 1871 it was defeated in the U.S. Senate through the efforts of Senator Charles Sumner. In 1874, Rojo General Ignacio María González, governor of Puerto Plata, staged a coup in support of an Azul rebellion, but broke with his erstwhile allies and was deposed two years later. In February 1876, Ulises Espaillat, backed by Luperón, was named the new President, but was deposed after ten months, and troops loyal to Báez returned him to power. One year later a new rebellion allowed González to seize power, only to be deposed by Cesáreo Guillermo in September 1878, who was in turn deposed by Gregorio Luperón in December 1879. Ruling the country from his hometown of Puerto Plata, enjoying an economic boom due to increased tobacco exports to Germany, Luperón enacted a new constitution setting a two-year presidential term limit and providing for direct elections, suspended the semi-formal system of bribes and initiated construction on the nation's first railroad, linking the town of La Vega with the port of Sánchez on Samaná Bay.

The Ten Years' War in Cuba, from 1868 to 1878, brought Cuban sugar planters to the country in search of new sugar lands and security from the insurrection that freed their slaves and destroyed their property. Most settled in the southeastern coastal plain, where land was cheap, and, with assistance from Luperón’s government, they built the nation's first mechanized sugar mills. Cuban planters were joined by Italians, Germans, Puerto Ricans and Americans in forming the nucleus of the Dominican sugar bourgeoisie, marrying into prominent local families and reinvesting their profits in the local economy. While small-scale sugar-cane cultivation for the local market had existed since the colonial era, the disruptions in global sugar production caused by the Ten Year's War, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War allowed the country to become a major exporter. Over the following two decades, the sugar industry brought new prosperity to the region, transforming the former fishing hamlets of San Pedro de Macorís and La Romana into thriving ports. An 1884 slump in sugar prices led to a wage freeze, and a subsequent labor shortage was filled by migrant laborers from the nearby Leeward Islands-the Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla, St. Martin, and Antigua (referred to by Dominicans as cocolos). ^[10] These English-speaking blacks were met with racism from lighter-skinned Dominicans. However, many remained in the country, finding work as stevedores, in railroad construction and industrial positions in sugar refineries.

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Ulises 'Lilís' Heureaux

Lilís and U.S. dominance

Allying with the emerging sugar interests, the dictatorship of General Ulises Heureaux, popularly known as Lilís, brought unprecedented stability to the island through iron-fisted rule that lasted almost two decades. The son of a Haitian father and a mother from St. Thomas, Lilís was distinguished by his blackness from most Dominican political leaders, with the exception of Luperón. A former lieutenant of Luperón, he served as President from 1882-1883, 1887 and 1889-1899, welding power through a series of puppet presidents when not occupying the office. In 1889, Lilís imposed constitutional amendments abolishing term limits and popular elections, allowing him to rule directly until his death. Incorporating both Rojos and Azules into his government while developing an extensive network of spies and informants to crush all potential opposition, he destroyed the Dominican Republic's incipient party system through a combination cooptation and terror. Aided by the newfound prosperity, his government undertook a number of infrastructural projects, including the electrification of Santo Domingo, the construction of a bridge over the Ozama River and the completion of a single-track railroad linking Santiago and Puerto Plata, financed by Dutch capital.^[11]

Lilís brought the government to its knees by borrowing heavily from European and American banks-to enrich himself, stabilize the existing debt, strengthen the bribe system, pay for the army, finance infrastructural development and help set up sugar mills. However, world sugar prices underwent a steep decline in the last two decades of the 19th century. When his principle European creditor, the Amsterdam-based Westendorp Co., went bankrupt in 1893, he was forced to mortage the nation's customs fees, the main source of government revenues, to a New York financial firm called the San Domingo Improvement Co., which bought out Westendorp, taking over its railroad contracts and the claims of its European bondholders, in exchange for two loans, one of $1.2 million and the other of £2 million, to pay interest on the national debt. ^[12] Combined with the beginning of steamship service to New York, it was the spearhead through which U.S. investors came to dominate the sugar industry. In 1897, with his government virtually bankrupt, Lilís printed five million uninsured pesos, known as papelitas de Lilís, ruining most Dominican traders, and inspiring a conspiracy that ended in his death. In 1899, when Lilís was assassinated by the Cibao tobacco merchants he had been begging for a loan from, the national debt was over 35 million pesos, fifteen times the annual budget.

Afterwards, the country returned to the cycle of chronic civil strife; the following six years witnessed four revolutions and five different presidents. ^[13] The Cibao politicians who had conspired against Heureaux-Juan Isidro Jimenez, the nation's wealthiest tobacco planter, and General Horacio Vásquez-after being named President and Vice-President, quickly fell out over the division of spoils among their supporters, known as Jimenistas and Horacistas. Troops loyal to Vásquez overthrew Jimenez in 1903, but he was deposed by Jimenista General Alejandro Woss y Gil, who seized power for himself. The Jimenistas toppled his government, but their leader, Carlos Morales, refused to return power to Jimenes, forming an alliance with the Horacistas. He soon faced a new revolt by his betrayed Jimenista allies.

With the nation on the brink of defaulting, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands sent warships to Santo Domingo to press the claims of their nationals. In order to preempt military intervention, Theodore Roosevelt introduced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring that the U.S. would assume responsibility for ensuring that the nations of Latin America met their financial obligations, by force if necessary. In January 1905, in the principle application of this corollary, the U.S. assumed administration of the Dominican Republic's customs. Under the terms of this agreement, a Receiver-General, appointed by the U.S. President, kept 55% of total revenues to pay off foreign claimants, while remitting 45% to the Dominican government. After two years, the nations external debt was reduced from $30 million to $17 million. ^[14] In 1907, this agreement was converted into a treaty, transferring control over customs receivership to the U.S. Bureau of Insular Affairs and providing a loan of $20 million from a New York bank as payment for outstanding claims, making the U.S. the Dominican Republic’s only foreign creditor. ^[15]

In 1906, Morales was forced to resign, and Horacista vice-president Ramon Cáceres became President. After suppressing a rebellion in the northwest by Jiemnista caudillo General Desiderio Arías, his government witnessed a period of political stability and renewed economic growth, aided by new American investment in sugar industry. However, his assassination in 1911, for which Morales and Arías were at least indirectly responsible, once again plunged the republic into chaos. For two months, executive power was held by a Council of Secretaries of State, dominated by General Alfredo Victoria, who was forced to spend the surplus of more than 4 million pesos left by Cáceres to suppress a series of insurections. ^[16] His uncle, Eladio Victoria, became provisional president, but soon stepped aside and Congress elected the neutral Archbishop Adolfo Nouel. After four months, he resigned, and was succeeded by Horacista Congressman José Bordas Valdez, who aligned with Arías and the Jimenistas to maintain power. In 1913, Vásquez returned from exile in Puerto Rico to lead a new rebellion. In June 1914 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued an ultimatium for the two sides to end hostilities and agree on a new president, or have the U.S. impose one. Jimenez was elected in October, and soon faced new demands: appointment of an American director of public works and financial advisor; expansion of the authority of the Customs Receivership to the collection of internal revenue, and the creation of a new military force commanded by U.S. officers. The Dominican Congress rejected the U.S. demands, beginning impeachment proceedings against Jimenez. The U.S. occupied Haiti in July 1915, with the implicit threat that the Dominican Republic might be next. Jimenez's Minister of War Desiderio Arías staged a coup d'etat in April 1916, providing a pretext for the U.S. to occupy the Dominican Republic.

U.S. occupation

United States Marines landed in Santo Domingo on May 15, 1916. Refusing the exercise an office 'regained with foreign bullets,' Jimenes resigned. ^[17] On the first day of June, Marines occupied Monte Cristi and Puerto Plata, and, after a brief campaign, took Arias's stronghold Santiago by the beginning of July. The Dominican Congress elected Dr. Francisco Henríquez Carvajal as President, but in November, after he refused to meet the American demands, Woodrow Wilson announced the imposition of a U.S. military government, with Rear Admiral Harry Shepard Knapp as Military Governor. The American military government implemented many of the institutional reforms carried out in the U.S. during the Progressive Era, including reorganization of the tax system, accounting and administration, expansion of primary education, and the construction of a national system of highways.

U.S. military authorities imposed strict censorship laws, imprisoned opponents of the occupation and enacted a number of deeply unpopular measures, including bans on firearms and cockfighting. In 1920, U.S. authorities enacted a Land Registration Act, which, by enforcing laws requiring legal titles to land, dispossessed thousands of peasants lacking formal deeds to the lands they occupied, while legalizing false titles held by the sugar companies. In the southeast, the American occupation was opposed by a number of highly organized bands of Gavilleros (the Dominican term for rural bandit), who harassed the invaders during the duration of the occupation. The Marines faced eight to twelve guerilla leaders in the region, each of whom commanded several hundred followers, mostly peasants who had been fotcibly evicted by the expansion of sugar estates. The guerrillas benefited from a superior knowledge of the terrain, and enjoyed considerable support among the population, forcing the Marines to rely on increasingly brutal counterinsurgency methods. However, rivalries between various guerilla caudillos occasionally led them to fight against one another, and even cooperate with occupation authorities. In addition, cultural schisms between the campesions and city dwellers prevented the Gavilleros from cooperating with the urban, middle-class nationalist movement. The principle legacy of the occupation was the creation of a National Police Force, used by the Marines to help fight against the various guerillas, and later the principle vehicle for the rise of Trujillo.

In what was referred to as la danza de los milliones, with the destruction of European sugar-beet farms during World War I sugar prices rose to their highest level in history, from $5.50 in 1914 to $22.50 per pound in 1920. Dominican sugar exports increased from 122,642 tons in 1916 to 158,803 tons in 1920, earning a record $45.3 million. ^[18] However, European beet sugar production quickly recovered, which, coupled with the growth of global sugar cane production, glutted the world market and caused prices to plummet to only $2.00 by the end of 1921. This crisis drove many of the local sugar bourgeosie into bankruptcy, allowing large American conglomerates to dominate the sugar industry. By 1925, just twenty-one major estates remained, occupying at least 438,000 acres; by 1926, they occupied an estimated 520,000 acres. Of the twenty-one, twelve U.S.-owned companies owned more than 81 percent of total acreage. ^[19] While the foreigners who created the sugar industry integrated into Dominican society and reinvested in the local economy, the foreign corporations expatriated their profits to the United States, undermining the development of a nationa bourgeoisie. As prices declined, sugar estates increasingly relied on Haitian laborers. This was facilitated by the military government's introduction of regulated contract labor, the U.S. occupation of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the expansion of sugar production in the southwest, near the Haitian border, and a series of strikes by cocolo cane cutters organized by the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

In the 1920 Presidential election Republican candidate Warren Harding criticized the occupation and promised eventual U.S. withdrawal. While Jimenez and Vásquez had sought to negotiate with the U.S., the recession discredited the military government and gave rise to a new nationalist political organization, the Dominican National Union, led by Dr. Henríquez from exile in Santiago de Cuba, which demanded unconditional withdrawal pura y simple. They formed alliances with frustrated nationalists in Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as critics of the occupation in the U.S. itself, most notably The Nation and the Haiti-San Domingo Independence Society. In May 1922, a Dominican lawyer, Francisco Peynado, went to Washington and negotiated what became known as the Hughes-Peynado Plan. It stipulated immediate establishment of a provisional government pending elections, approval of all acts of the U.S. military government, and the continuation of the 1907 treaty until all the Dominican Republic's foreign debts had been settled. On October 1, Italian-born sugar planter and merchant Juan Bautista Vicini was named provisional president, and the process of U.S. withdrawal began.

1930 to 1980

The occupation ended in 1924, with a democratically elected Dominican government under president Horacio Vasquez (1924 - 1930). In an effort to preserve power for his supporters, in 1927 Vásquez extended his term from four to six years. There was some debatable legal basis for the move, which was approved by the Congress, but its enactment effectively invalidated the constitution of 1924 that Vásquez had previously sworn to uphold. The Great Depression decimated the countries economy, causing sugar prices to drop to less than $1 per pound; although elections were scheduled for May 1930, Vásquez's extension of power cast doubts about their fairness. In February, a revolution was proclaimed in Santiago by a lawyer named Rafael Estrella Ureña. When the commander of the Guardia Nacional Dominicana (the new designation of the armed force created under the occupation), Rafael Trujillo, ordered his troops to remain in their barracks, the aging Vásquez was forced into exile and Estrella proclaimed provisional president. In May, Trujillo was elected with 95% of the vote, using the army to harass and intimidate electoral personnel and potential opponents. After his innauguration in August, at his request, the Dominican Congress proclaimed the beginning of the 'Era of Trujillo.'

File:Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.jpg

Rafael Leónidas Trujillo

The Era of Trujillo

Rafael Trujillo established absolute political control, while promoting economic development--from which mainly he and his supporters benefitted--and severe repression of domestic human rights.^[20] By the late 1950's, Trujillo had at least seven categories of intelligence agenies, spying on each other as well as the public. At the same time, the Trujillo government spent half of its budget on a military that was one of the largest in Latin America. All citizens were obliged to carry identification cards and good-conduct passes from the secret police. The only legal political party, the Partido Dominicana, served as the arm of the regime, but was largely treated by Trujillo as a rubber-stamp for his decisions.

Obsessed with adulation, Trujillo promoted a cult of personality that elevated him to demigod status. When a hurricane destroyed much of Santo Domingo in 1935, he rebuilt and modernized the city, renaming it Ciudad Trujillo; he also renamed the countries highest mountain, Pico Duarte, as Pico Trujillo. The system of associating Trujillo with the countries material progress was institutionalized by a law requiring all public works projects to bear the inscription 'Era of Trujillo, Benefactor of the Fatherland,' in January 1939.^[21]

As sugar estates turned to Haiti for seasonal migrant labor, the Haitian population of the Dominican Republic grew rapidly. The census of 1920, conducted by the military government, gave a total of 28,258 Haitians, by 1935 there were 52,657.^[22] In 1937, Trujillo ordered the massacre of 20,000-25,000 Haitians, citing Haiti's support for Dominican exiles plotting to overthrow his regime. ^[23] This was the result of a new policy which Trujillo called the 'Dominicanisation of the frontier.' Place names along the border were changed from Kreyol and French to Spanish, the practice of Vodou was outlawed, quotas were imposed on the percentage of foreign workers companies could hire, and a law was passed preventing Haitian workers from remaining after the sugar harvest.

Althrough Trujillo sought to emulate Generalissimo Francisco Franco, he welcomed Republican refugees following the Spanish Civil War. During the European Holocaust in the Second World War, the Dominican Republic took in many Jews fleeing Hitler who had been refused entry by other countries. These decision arose from a policy of blanquismo, closely connected with anti-Haitian xenophobia, which sought to whiten the Dominican population by promoting immigration from Europe. As part of the Good Neighbor Policy, in 1940, the State Department signed a treaty with Trujillo relinquishing control over the nations customs. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Trujillo followed the U.S. in declaring war on the Axis powers, even though he had openly professed admiration for Hitler and Mussolini. During the Cold War, he maintained close ties to the U.S. by declaring himself the preeminent anti-communist in the Western Hemisphere, providing sanctuary for Fulgencio Batista after the Cuban revolution.

Trujillo and his family established a near-monoply over the national economy. By the time of his death, he had accumulated a fortune of around $800 million; he and his family owned 50-60 percent of the arable land (some 700,000 acres), and Trujillo-owned businesses accounted for 80% commercial activity in the capital.^[24] He operated monopolies on sugar, salt, rice, milk, cement, insurance, tobacco, coffee, and insurance; owned two large banks, hotels, sugar refineries, port facilities, an airline and shipping line; deducted 10% of all public employees' salaries (ostensibly for his party); and received a portion of prostitution revenues. ^[25] World War II brought increased demand for Dominican exports, and the 1940's and early 1950's witnessed economic growth and considerable expansion of the nations infrastructure, although 'it was hardly coincidental that new roads often led to Trujillo's plantations and factories, and new harbors benefited Trujillo's shipping and export enterprises.'^[26] Trujillo transformed Santo Domingo from merely an administrative center to the national center of shipping and industry. Mismanagement and corruption resulted in major economic problems. By the beginning of the 1960's, the economy had begun to deteriorate due to a combination of overspending on a festival to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the regime, overspending to buy privately owned sugar mills and electricity plants, and a decision to make a major investment in state sugar production that proved economically unsuccessful.

In August 1960, the Organization of American States (OAS) imposed diplomatic sanctions against the Dominican Republic as a result of Trujillo's complicity in an attempt to assassinate President Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela. These sanctions remained in force after Trujillo's assassination in May 1961. In November 1961, the Trujillo family was forced into exile, fleeing to France.

The Post-Trujillo Era

In January 1962, a council of state with legislative and executive powers was formed; it included moderate members of the opposition. OAS sanctions were lifted January 4, and, after the resignation of President Joaquín Balaguer on January 16, the council under President Rafael Filiberto Bonnelly headed the Dominican government. In 1963, Juan Bosch of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (Dominican Revolutionary Party, or PRD) was inaugurated President, only to be overthrown by a right-wing military coup in September 1963.^[27]

After Bosch's overthrow a supposedly civilian triumvirate established a de facto dictatorship until April 24 1965, when another military coup led to violence between military elements favoring the return to government by Bosch and those who proposed a military junta committed to early general elections. On April 28, after being requested by the anti-Bosch army elements, U.S. military forces landed, officially to protect U.S. citizens and to evacuate U.S. and other foreign nationals in what was known as Operation Power Pack. Additional U.S. forces subsequently imposed political stability on the country.

In June 1966, President Balaguer, leader of the Reformist Party (now called the Social Christian Reformist Party--PRSC), was elected and then re-elected to office in May 1970 and May 1974, both times after the major opposition parties withdrew late in the campaign because of the high degree of violence by pro-government groups. Balaguer led the Domincan Republic through a thorough economic restructuring, based on opening the country to foreign investment while protecting state-owned industries and certain private interests. This distorted, dependent development model produced uneven results. For most of Balaguer's nine years in office the country experienced high growth rates (e.g., an average GDP growth rate of 9.4 percent between 1970 - 1975), to the extent that people talked about the "Dominican miracle." Foreign--mostly U.S.--investment, as well as foreign aid, flowed into the country and sugar (then the country's main export product) also enjoyed good prices in the international market. However, this excellent macroeconomic performance was not accompanied by an equitable distribution of wealth. While a group of new millionaires flourished during Balaguer's administrations, the poor simply became poorer. Morever, the poor were commonly the target of state repression, and their socioeconomic claims were labeled "communist" and dealt with appropriately by the state security apparatus.^[28] In the May 1978 election, Balaguer was defeated in his bid for a fourth successive term by Antonio Guzmán Fernández of the PRD. Guzmán's inauguration on August 16 marked the country's first peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected president to another. The late 1970's and early 1980's saw the beginning of a wave of mass emigration from the Dominican Republic to New York, coming on the heels of the similar migration of Puerto Ricans in the preceding decades.

1980—present

The PRD's presidential candidate, Salvador Jorge Blanco, won the 1982 elections, and the PRD gained a majority in both houses of Congress. In an attempt to cure the ailing economy, the Jorge administration began to implement economic adjustment and recovery policies, including an austerity program in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In April 1984, rising prices of basic foodstuffs and uncertainty about austerity measures led to riots in which an estimated one hundred people were killed by the government's troops.

Balaguer was returned to the presidency with electoral victories in 1986 and 1990. Upon taking office in 1986, Balaguer tried to reactivate the economy through a public works construction program. Nonetheless, by 1988, the country slid into a 2-year economic depression, characterized by high inflation (59.5 percent in 1989) and currency devaluation.^[29] Economic difficulties, coupled with problems in the delivery of basic services--including electricity, water, and transportation--generated popular discontent that resulted in frequent protests, occasionally violent, including a paralyzing nationwide strike in June 1989.

In 1990, Balaguer instituted a second set of economic reforms. After concluding an IMF agreement, balancing the budget, and curtailing inflation, the Dominican Republic is experiencing a period of economic growth marked by moderate inflation, a balance in external accounts, and a steadily increasing GDP.

 

Leonel Fernández Reyna

The voting process in 1986 and 1990 was generally seen as fair, but allegations of electoral board fraud tainted both victories. The elections of 1994 were again marred by charges of fraud, this time amid documented charges from the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana (Dominican Liberation Party, or PLD) that as many as 200,000 of its sympathizers had been disfranchised and prevented from voting. Following a compromise calling for constitutional and electoral reform, President Balaguer assumed office for an abbreviated term. With Balaguer prevented from running, the June 1996 presidential election was won by Leonel Fernández Reyna of the PLD. In May 2000 the PRD's Hipólito Mejía was elected to a 4-year term as president. His presidency saw major inflation and instability of the peso. During his time as president, the relatively stable unit of currency fell from ~ 16 DOP (Dominican Pesos) to 1 USD (United States Dollar) to ~ 60 DOP to 1 USD, and was in the 50s to a dollar when he left office. In May 2004, Leonel Fernández Reyna was again elected to a 4-year term as president and inaugurated on August 16, 2004. Reyna's administration has since then managed to deflate the peso and has increased its stability since the administration of Mejía. The peso is currently at the exchange rate of ~31 DOP to 1 USD.

Over the last three decades, remittances (remesas) from Dominicans living abroad, mainly in the United States, have become increasingly important to the economy. From 1990 to 2000, the Dominican population of the U.S. doubled in size, from 520,121 in 1990 to 1,041,910, two-thirds of whom were born in the Dominican Republic itself.^[30] More than half of all Dominican Americans live in New York City, with the largest concentration in the neighborhood of Washington Heights in northern Manhattan. Over the past decade, the Dominican Republic has become the largest source of immigration to New York City, and today the metropolitan area of New York has a larger Dominican population than any city except Santo Domingo.^[31] Dominican communities have also developed in New Jersey (particularly Paterson), Miami, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Rhode Island and Lawrence, Massachusetts. In addition, thousands of Dominicans illegally cross the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, many traveling on to the mainland U.S.. (See Dominican immigration to Puerto Rico) Remittances from Dominicans living abroad are estimated to be about $3 billion per year. The Dominican immigrant community suffers from many problems; the poverty rate of 32% among Dominican New Yorkers is the highest of any major ethnic group in the city. However, the second generation of Dominican immigrants shows many signs of an impressive accumulation of human capital. Most notably, close to 60 percent of all U.S.-born Dominicans have received some college education. ^[32] In 1997, a new law took effect, allowing Dominicans living abroad to retain their citizenship and vote in Presidential elections. Leonel Fernández Reyna grew up in New York, and his political success has been connected with his support from Dominican Americans. The Dominican Republic was involved in the US led coalition in Iraq, as part of the Spain-led Latin-American Plus Ultra Brigade, but in 2004, the nation pulled its 300 or so troops out of Iraq.

See also

• Occupation of the Dominican Republic

Notes

Template:Explain-inote Template:Inote

1. Jonathan Hartlyn, The Struggle for Democratic Politics in the Dominican Republic, p.24, The University of North Carolina Press, 1998
2. Sugar Cane: Past and Present, Peter Sharpe http://www.siu.edu/~ebl/leaflets/sugar.htm
3. Knight, Franklin, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism, 3rd ed. p.54 New York, Oxford University Press 1990
4. Rough Guide to the Dominican Republic, Pg. 352
5. http://countrystudies.us/dominican-republic/3.htm
6. Moya Pons, Frank Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-speaking Caribbean in the 19th Century. Baltimore; John Hopkins University Press 1985
7. Eugenio Matibag, Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint: Nation, State and Race in Hispaniola (Pallgrave Macmillan: New York, 2001) Pg. 117
8. Frank Moyna-Pons, Dominican Republic: A National History Pg. 222 (Hispaniola Books: New Rochelle, N.Y., 1995)
9. Ian Bell,The Dominican Republic Pg. 59 (Westview Pres: Boulder, Co., 1981)
10. cocolo is a corruption of one of the name of one of the principle islands of origin, Tortola Teresita Martinez-Vergne, Nation and Citizenship in the Dominican Republic Pg. 86 (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, N.C., 2005)
11. Teresita Martínez-Vergne, Nation & Citizen in the Dominican Republic, Pg. 135
12. Ian Bell, The Dominican Republic Pg. 86 (Westview Press: Boulder, Co., 1981)
13. Howard Wirada, Dominican Republic: A Nation in Transition Pg. 30 (Pall Mall Press: London, 1966)
14. Capt. Stephen M. Fuller, Marines in the Dominican Republic, Pg. 5 (University Press of the Pacific, 2005)
15. Bruce Calder, The Impact of Intervention in the Dominican Reublic, 1916-1924 Pg. 24 (University of Texas Press: Austin, Texas, 1984)
16. Frank Moya-Pons, Dominican Republic: A National History Pg. 306
17. Bruce Calder, The Impact of Intervention In The Dominican Republic, 1916-1924 (University of Texas Press: Austin, TX 1984) Pg. 8
18. Bruce Calder, The Impact of Intervention, Pg. 93
19. Ibid
20. Johathan Hartlyn. The Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic. In Sultanistic Regimes, Johns Hopkins University Press
21. Eric Paul Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighboor Policy and the Truillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1945 Pg. 98
22. Needed but unwanted: Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic, Pg. 24
23. Jan Kippers Black, Politics and development in an unsovereign state Pg. 27
24. Howard Wirada The Dominican Republic: A Nation in Transition, Pg. 40-41
25. Jared Diamond, Collapse, 'One Island, Two Peoples, Two Histories' (Penguin Books: New York and London, 2005) Pg. 337
26. Jan Kippers Black, The Dominican Republic: politics and development in an unsovereign state Pg. 27
27. Ernesto Sagas & Sintia Molina, Dominican Migration: Transnational Perpectives, University Press Florida 2004
28. Roberto Cassa, Los doce años: Contrarevolución y desarrollismo, 2nd ed. Santo Domingo: Editora Buho 1991
29. International Monetary Fund. Dominican Republic: Selected Issues, IMF Staff report No. 99/117, Washington DC 1999
30. http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/cgsd/advising/documents/rivera_batiz.pdf#search=%22largest%20dominican%20population%20new%20jersey%20cities%22
31. The Newest New Yorkers: Immigrant New York in the New Millenium (New York City Department of City Planning, Population Division, 2004) Pg. 9
32. http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/cgsd/advising/documents/rivera_batiz.pdf#search=%22largest%20dominican%20population%20new%20jersey%20cities%22

References and external links

• Dominican Republic Guide - History
• Dr. Lynne Guitar, Documenting the Myth of Taíno Extinction
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