Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: Historical Setting
bia (consisting of what later became Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela,
and Panama) recently proclaimed established by Simon
,
Bolivar and his followers. While the request was in transit, however,
the president of Haiti, Jean-Pierre Boyer, decided to
invade Santo Domingo and to reunite the island under the
Haitian flag.
The twenty-two-year Haitian occupation that followed
(1822-44) is recalled by Dominicans as a period of brutal military
rule, although the reality is more complex. Haiti's policies
toward Santo Domingo were induced in part by international
financial pressures because Haiti had promised in an 1825
treaty to indemnify former French settlers in return for French
recognition of Haitian independence. Ultimately, it was a
period of economic decline and of growing resentment of
Haiti among Dominicans. The main activity was subsistence
agriculture, and exports consisted of small amounts of tobacco,
cattle hides, caoba wood (Dominican mahogany), molasses,
and rum; the population, in turn, had declined precipitously
by 1909 to some 75,000 people. Boyer attempted to enforce in
the new territory the Rural Code (Code Rural) he had decreed
in an effort to improve productivity among the Haitian yeomanry;
however, the Dominicans proved no more willing to
adhere to its provisions than were the Haitians (see Early Years
of Independence, 1804-43, ch. 6). Increasing numbers of
Dominican landowners chose to flee the island rather than live
under Haitian rule; in many cases, Haitian administrators
encouraged such emigration.
Dominicans also resented the fact that Boyer, the ruler of an
impoverished country, did not (or could not) provision his
army. The occupying Haitian forces lived off the land in Santo
Domingo, commandeering or confiscating what they needed.
Racial animosities also affected attitudes on both sides; black
Haitian troops reacted with resentment toward lighter-skinned
Dominicans, while Dominicans came to associate the Haitians'
dark skin with the oppression and abuses of occupation. Furthermore,
Haitians, who associated the Roman Catholic
Church with the French colonists who had so cruelly exploited
and abused them before independence, confiscated all church
property in the east, deported all foreign clergy, and severed
the ties of the remaining clergy to the Vatican. The occupation
reinforced Dominicans' perception of themselves as different
from Haitians with regard to culture, religion, race, and daily
practices.
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