A world destroyed, a nation imposed: The 1937 Haitian massacre in the Dominican Republic

HAHR - Hispanic American Historical Review

Volumn 82, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 589-635

  Turits, Richard Lee ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35848953920     PISSN: 00182168     EISSN: 15271900     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00182168-82-3-589     Document Type: Article

References (243)

1. The conventional figure of Haitian deaths given in the Dominican Republic is 17,000. See Joaquín Balaguer, La palabra encadenada (Santo Domingo: Ed. Taller, 1985), 300. A higher estimate of 20,000 is reached by subtracting the 10,000 ethnic Haitians who reportedly crossed over into Haiti during and after the massacre from the 30,000 ethnic Haitians whom a Catholic missionary estimated in 1936 were resident in the parish of Dajabón alone (only part of the northern frontier area, what was then the province of Monte Cristi). There were almost no ethnic Haitians left in this parish after the massacre, suggesting that 20,000 were killed just in this region
2. See José Luis Sáez, S. J., Los Jesuitas en la República Dominicana, 2 vols. (Santo Domingo: Museo Nacional de Historia y Geografía: Archivo Histórico de las Antillas, 1988-90), 1:60, 71
3. In the month after the massacre, Father Émile Robert in Ouanaminthe, Haiti (across the river from Dajabón) and another priest collected from refugees the names of 2,130 persons killed. However, they were able to interview only a small portion of those who escaped. See Jean M. Jan, Collecta IV: Diocese du Cap-Haitien documents, 1929-1960 (Rennes: Simon, 1967), 82
4. and Melville Monk to Rex Pixley, 3 Nov. 1937, U.S. National Archives, Record Group 84, 800-D (U.S. National Archives record groups will hereafter be cited as RG). When Lauren Derby and I spoke with Father Robert in Guadeloupe in 1988, he estimated that at least 15,000 persons must have been killed
5. Lauren Derby and I conducted numerous interviews with elderly Dominican and Haitian peasants who had lived in the Dominican frontier during the 1930s. These interviews were carried out in the Dominican and Haitian frontiers and around agricultural settlements in Terrier Rouge, Grand Bassin, Savane Zonbi, Thiote, and Dosmond that were established in Haiti for massacre refugees. The interviewees described substantial Haitian settlement in the Dominican frontier dating back to the 1870s. Most of the Haitians we interviewed had lived in the Dominican Republic for at least 15 years prior to the massacre and a large portion of those had been born there. Note that in 1934, a government official confirmed the Dominican birth and citizenship of much of the ethnic Haitian population in the frontier. See Julián Díaz Valdepares, "Alrededor de la cuestión haitiana," Listín Diario, 10 Dec. 1937
6. The river was rechristened Río Massacre in the eighteenth century, purportedly after a battle between Spanish soldiers and French buccaneers
7. Interviews, 1987-1988. See also R. Henry Norweb to Secretary of State, 11 Oct. 1937, no. 16, RG 84, 800-D
8. and Bernardo Vega, Trujillo y Haití, 2 vols. (Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1988-95), 1:348, 555
9. "Roosevelt Praises Dominican Stand," New York Times, 21 Dec. 1937
10. See also José Israel Cuello, ed., Documentos del conflicto domínico-haitiano de 1937 (Santo Domingo: Ed. Taller, 1985), 512
11. Some of these affidavits are available in U.S. Legation records. See Ferdinand Mayer to Secretary of State, 17 Dec. 1937, no. 19, RG 84, 800-D
12. On the history of the Haitian massacre, see Juan Manuel García, La matanza de los haitianos: Genocidio de Trujillo, 1937 (Santo Domingo: Ed. Alfa & Omega, 1983), esp. 59, 69-71
13. Cuello, Documentos, 60-85
14. Vega, Trujillo y Haití, 1:525-412, vol. 2
15. Eric Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1945 (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1998), chap. 5
16. Thomas Fiehrer, "Political Violence in the Periphery: The Haitian Massacre of 1937," Race and Class 32, no. 2 (1990)
17. and Edward Paulino Díaz, "Birth of a Boundary: Blood, Cement, and Prejudice and the Making of the Dominican-Haitian Border, 1937-1961" (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State Univ., 2001)
18. See also the testimonial novel by Freddy Prestol Castillo, El Masacre se pasa a pie (Santo Domingo: Ed. Taller, 1973), 49
19. Miguel Otilio Savé (Guelo), interview by author and Lauren Derby, Monte Cristi, 1988
20. Testimony of Cime Jean, Ouanaminthe, 3 Oct. 1937, RG 84, 800-D
21. García, La matanza de los haitianos, 59, 67-71
22. and Prestol Castillo, El Masacre se pasa a pie, 49
23. A full history of Dominican racial identities, modes of racism, and their transformations over time has yet to be written. Both official statistics and outside observers have for centuries identified the majority of Dominicans as being of mixed African and European descent (using the terms mestizo, mulato, or indio). In a 1935 census, conducted during the Trujillo era, 13 percent of the population was recorded as "white," 19 percent "black," and 68 percent "mestizo." See Jean Price-Mars, La República de Haití y la República Dominicana: Diversos aspectos de un problema histórico, geográfico y etnológico (Madrid: Industrias Gráficas España, 1958), 181
24. C. Lyonnet, "Estadística de la parte española de Santo Domingo, 1800," in La era de Francia en Santo Domingo: Contribución a su estudio, ed. Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi (Ciudad Trujillo: Ed. del Caribe, 1955), 191
25. and Carlos Larrazábal Blanco, Los negros y la esclavitud en Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Julio D. Postigo, 1975), 184. It is unclear, however, how such statistics corresponded to popular racial meanings. In fact, it seems that at least since the late nineteenth century a two- or three-tier racial schema has been far less significant for most Dominicans than has a racist color continuum of physical appearances and "beauty." Physical differences have marked individuals within this colorist mode of racism, but have generally not constituted social groups or communities. Thus, despite the prevalence of this colorist mode of racism, those considered Dominican have generally not been divided by "race" in the sense of collective ascriptions of otherness. The seeming absence of a black identity and indeed of any collective identities or notions of community based on color in the Dominican Republic requires further investigation across time, space, and class. This particular mode of race and racism doubtless evolved in light of the intense but short-lived character of plantation slavery; the early, preemancipation development of a mostly Afro-Dominican peasantry comprising most of the country's population (with only relatively small portions of whites and slaves); the multiple independence wars and caudillo rebellions that required mass mobilization across color lines; and the country's relatively limited history of both de jure and de facto racial segregation, including in marriage
26. See Silvio Torres-Saillant, "Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity," Latin American Perspectives 25, no. 3 (1998)
27. Frank Moya Pons, "Dominican National Identity: A Historical Perspective," Punto 7 Review 3, no. 1 (1996)
28. and H. Hoetink, "'Race' and Color in the Caribbean," in Caribbean Contours, ed. Sidney W. Mintz and Sally Price (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1985)
29. On these images in the postmassacre historiography of the Trujillo regime, see Lauren Derby, "Histories of Power and the Power of History in the ican Republic" (manuscript, 1989)
30. Report of the U.S. Military Government, 23 Feb. 1923, RG 38, Misc. Recs., box 6
31. Anonymous, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Ouanaminth 1988
32. See Dominican Republic, Secretaría de Estado de lo Interior, Policía, Guerra y Marina, Memoria, 1935 (Ciudad Trujillo, 1936)
33. Amado Gómez to Trujillo, 26 June 1935
34. and Gómez to Secretary of Agriculture, 4 Sept. 1935, no. 1640, Archivo General de la Nación, Santo Domingo (hereafter cited as AGN), Secretaría de Agricultura (SA), leg. 207, 1935
35. Michiel Baud, "Una frontera-refugio: Dominicanos y haitianos contra el estado," Estudios Sociales 26, no. 92 (1993)
36. and idem, "Una frontera para cruzar: La sociedad rural a través de la frontera domínico-haitiana (1870-1930)," Estudios Sociales 26, no. 94 (1993)
37. Dominican Republic, Comisión para el Establecimiento de Colonias de Inmigrantes, Informe que presenta al poder ejecutivo la Comisión creada per la Ley núm. 77 para estudiar las tierras de la frontera y señalar los sitios en que se han de establecer las colonias de inmigrantes (Santo Domingo: Imp. de J. R. Vda. García, 1925), 19
38. and Dominican Republic, Secretaría del Estado de lo Interior, Policía, Guerra y Marina, Memoria, 1933, xviii
39. Harold Utley, Major, Gendarmerie d'Haiti and Glenn Miller, Major, Guardia Nacional Dominicana, "Agreement Respecting Border Troubles," 12 May 1920, RG 38, Misc. Recs., box 6
40. Bilín, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Monte Grande, 1988
41. Percivio Díaz, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Santiago de la Cruz, 1988. In other areas of the frontier, however, Haitians and Dominicans were said to have engaged more in concubinage than marriage in the sense that Haitian women were treated as mistresses or second wives by Dominican men
42. Héctor Incháustegui Cabral, "La poesía de tema negro en Santo Domingo," Eme Eme: Estudios Dominicanos 1, no. 5 (1973)
43. See Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003) chap. 2
44. Gobierno Provisional de la República Dominicana, Primer censo nacional de la República Dominicana, 1920 (Santo Domingo: Univ. Autónoma de Santo Domingo, 1975), 149
45. Interviews conducted by author and Lauren Derby in the Dominican frontier. See also Freddy Prestol Castillo, Paisajes y meditaciones de una frontera (Ciudad Trujillo: Cosmopolita, 1943), 33-40
46. and Baud, "Una frontera-refugio," 42
47. On the southern frontier, see Jesús María Ramírez, Mis 43 años en La Descubierta, ed. Gisela Ramírez de Perdomo (Santo Domingo: Ed. Centenario, 2000), 13-75, 77-80
48. For population estimates, see Sáez, Los Jesuitas, 60, 71
49. Franklin Atwood to Secretary of State, 25 Oct. 1937, no. 39, RG 84, 800-D
50. Manuel Emilio Castillo to Trujillo, 18 Oct. 1937, AGN, cited in Vega, Trujillo y Haití, 2:77
51. See also Julián Díaz Valdepares, "Alrededor de la cuestión haitiana," Listín Diario, 10 Dec. 1937. Census data do not provide information on the number of ethnic Haitians in the Dominican Republic, but only of documented foreign residents
52. For an analysis of these notions of difference, see Lauren Derby, "Haitians, Magic, and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands, 1900-1937," Comparative Studies in Society and History 36, no. 3 (1994)
53. Ercilia Guerrier, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Mont Organizé, Haiti, 1988
54. Doña María, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Dajabón, 1988
55. See Joaquín Balaguer, "El imperialismo haitiano," El Imparcial, 13 Dec. 1927
56. Rafael Abreu Licairac, "Dominicanos y Haitianos," El Eco de la Opinión, 12 Nov. 1892
57. See also Raymundo González, "Notas sobre el pensamiento socio-político dominicano," Estudios Sociales 20, no. 76 (1987)
58. and Américo Lugo, A punto largo (Santo Domingo: La Cuna de América, 1901), 211
59. Carlos Andújar Persinal, La presencia negra en Santo Domingo: Un enfoque etnohistórico (Santo Domingo: Imp. Búho, 1997)
60. Carlos Esteban Deive, "La herencia africana en la cultura dominicana actual," in Ensayos sobre cultura dominicana, ed. Bernardo Vega et al. (Santo Domingo: Museo del Hombre Dominicano, 1988)
61. See also Martha Ellen Davis, La otra ciencia: El vodú dominicano como religión y medicina populares (Santo Domingo: Ed. Universitaria, 1987)
62. and Carlos Esteban Deive, Vodú y magia en Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Ed. Taller, 1996), esp. 170-78
63. "Contábamos la réplica," ibid., 27 Aug. 1892
64. "Contestación al periódico 'Le Droit'," El Teléfono, 28 Aug. 1892
65. Lil Despradel, "Las etapas del antihaitianismo en la República Dominicana: El papel de los historiadores," in Política y sociología en Haití y la República Dominicana: Coloquio domínico-haitiano de ciencias sociales, ed. Suzy Castor et al. (Mexico City: Univ. Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1974), esp. 102
66. On the importance of firm borders to Dominican constructs of sovereignty, see Boletín del Congreso 2, no. 17 (1911): 2
67. For comparative perspective, see Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1989), esp. 3-7
68. and José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social (siglos XV a XVII), 2 vols. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1972), 1:88-149
69. See Ramírez, Mis 43 años en La Descubierta , 8, 23, 25
70. Law 3733, 26 June 1897, and Law 3788, 10 Feb. 1898, in Colección de leyes, decretos y resoluciones emanadas de los poderes legislativo y ejecutivo de la República Dominicana, 23 vols. (Santo Domingo: Imp. de J. R. Vda. García, 1924), vols. 14, 15
71. Boletín del Congreso 2, no. 17 (1911), 2-3
72. "Editorial," El Teléfono, 1 Nov. 1891
73. Baud, "Una frontera-refugio," 48-49
74. idem, "Una frontera para cruzar," 16-17
75. Law 3753, in Colección de leyes, vol. 14
76. Derby, "Haitians, Magic, and Money," 502
77. "Los haitianos siguen invadie e;ndonos," El Diario, 21 Feb. 1907
78. Dominican Republic, Comisión para el Establecimiento de Colonias de Immigrantes, Informe que presenta al Poder Ejecutivo, 5-9
79. See Andrés L. Mateo, Mito y cultura en la era de Trujillo (Santo Domingo: Ed. de Colores, 1993), 58 n. 78
80. Arístides Incháustegui "El ideario de Rodó en el trujillismo," Estudios Sociales 18, no. 60 (1985)
81. Diógenes Céspedes, "El efecto Rodó, nationalismo idealista vs. nacionalismo práctico: Los intelectuales antes de y bajo Trujillo," Cuadernos de poética 6, no. 17 (1989)
82. and Pedro L. San Miguel, "La ciudadanía de Calibán: Poder y discursiva campesinista en la era de Trujillo," in Política, identidad y pensamiento social en la República Dominicana (Siglos XIX y XX), ed. Raymundo González et al. (Madrid: Doce Calles, 1999), 271-72, 277
83. González, "Notas sobre el pensamiento socio-político dominicano," 6-7
84. Report of Gov. of San Pedro de Macorís, Documentos anexos a la memoria que presenta el Secretario de Estado de Agricultura e Inmigración, 1908 (Santo Domingo, 1909)
85. See L. E. Henríquez Castillo, "El caso domínico- haitiano," La Opinión, 19 Jan. 1929
86. In 1935 the "Haitian" population in the northern border colonies was reportedly four times that of Dominicans. See Rafael Carretero and Francisco Read to Secretary of Labor, Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, 3 May 1935, no. 721, AGN, SA, leg. 209, 1935
87. Roorda, The Dictator Next Door, 27-62
88. The classic biography of Trujillo - a rich but undocumented account - is Robert D. Crassweller, Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator (New York: Macmillan, 1966)
89. On the role of intellectuals in the early Trujillo regime, see Mateo, Mito y cultura, 21-63
90. Incháustegui, "El ideario de Rodó, 51-63
91. Céspedes, "El efecto Rodé," 7-56
92. Francisco Antonio Avelino, Las ideas políticas en Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo: Ed. Arte y Cine, 1966)
93. and González, "Notas sobre el pensamiento," 14-15
94. On the relationship in general between modernization, "sedentarization," and state formation, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1998)
95. This discussion of the Trujillo regime is elaborated in Turits, Foundations of Despotism. On peasant-state relations in Dominican history, see also Pedro L. San Miguel, Los campesinos del Cibao: Economía de mercado y transformación agraria en la República Dominicana, 1880-1960 (San Juan: Univ. de Puerto Rico, 1997)
96. idem, El pasado relegado: Estudios sobre la historia agraria dominicana (Santo Domingo: Lib. La Trinitaria, 1999), esp. 142-46, 211-13
97. idem, "La ciudadanía de Calibán"; and Orlando Inoa, Estado y campesinos al inicio de la era de Trujillo (Santo Domingo: Lib. La Trinitaria, 1994)
98. On the ideological foundations of the Trujillo regime, see also Rosario Espinal, Autoritarismo y democracia en la política dominicana (San José, Costa Rica: CAPEL, 1987)
99. and idem, "Indagaciones sobre el discurso trujillista y su incidencia en la política dominicana," Ciencia y Sociedad 12, no. 4 (1987)
100. and Jonathan Hartlyn, The Struggle for Democratic Politics in the Dominican Republic (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1998), 45-52
101. Dana G. Munro to Secretary of State, 15 Mar. 1932, no. 346, RG 59, M 1272, roll 32
102. César Tolentino, Secretary of Agriculture, 18 Dec. 1930, no 4, AGN, SA, leg. 111, 1935
103. E. M. H., "Memorandum," 9 Sept. 1938, RG 84, 710-800.2, Official Correspondence, vol. 5
104. and Law 391, 2 Nov. 1952, in Colección de leyes
105. See also Roberto Cassá, Capitalismo y dictadura (Santo Domingo: Univ. Autónoma de Santo Domingo, 1982)
106. The history of colonization under Trujillo has generally been misrepresented as a project essentially to promote white immigration. Exceptions are Inoa, Estado y campesinos, 157-80
107. and San Miguel, Los campesinos del Cibao, 307-12
108. See also Turits, Foundations of Despotism, esp. chap. 6
109. Reynaldo Valdez to Secretary of the Interior, 4 June 1937, no. 1221, AGN, SA, leg. 40, 1937
110. Moisés García Mella, Alrededor de los tratados de 1929 y 1935 con la República de Haití (Ciudad Trujillo: Imp. Listín Diario, 1938), 6
111. and Félix M. Nolasco, Listín Diario, 11 Feb. 1932
112. "Editorial: Sobre las colonias agrícolas," Listín Diario, 30 Dec. 1935
113. See also "La frontera dominicana comienza a ser lo que debe ser: Dominicanizante," La Opinión, 9 Mar. 1932
114. In general, the drive to "protect" strong borders may lead modern states to oppose cultural mixture in frontier regions, even when they accept it elsewhere. See Timothy Snyder, "'To Resolve the Ukrainian Problem Once and For All': The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943 -1947," Journal of Cold War Studies 1, no. 2 (1999)
115. Mensaje que el presidente de la República presenta al Congreso Nacional (Santo Domingo: Imp. La Cuna de América, 1912), 7, 124-8
116. and Luis Ortiz Matos to Secretary of Agriculture, 25 Oct. 1962, AGN, SA, leg. 1820, 1963
117. Pierre Larroche us to Trujillo, 9 Sept. 1934, AGN, SA, leg. 182, n.d
118. and Damus to Secretary of Agriculture, 25 Sept. 1934, AGN, SA, leg. 182, n.d
119. Francisco Read to Secretary of Agriculture, 5 Oct. 1934, no. 753, AGN, SA, leg. 181, 1934
120. Alcibíades Ogando R. to Supervisor of Agricultural Boards, 17 Apr. 1936, no. 25, AGN, SA, leg. 2, 1936
121. See Nancy Leys Stepan, "The Hour of Eugenics"': Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991)
122. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000)
123. and Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1999), chap. 3
124. On twentieth-century anti-Haitian Dominican intellectuals, see Pedro L. San Miguel, La isla imaginada: Historia, identidad y utopía en La Española (San Juan: Isla Negra, 1997), 61-100
125. Michiel Baud, "'Constitutionally White': The Forging of a National Identity in the Dominican Republic," in Ethnicity in the Caribbean: Essays in Honor of Harry Hoetink, ed. Gert Oostindie (London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1996)
126. Raymundo González, "Peña Batlle y su concepto histórico de la nación dominicana," Anuario de Estudios Americanos 48 (1991)
127. "Los nombres de poblaciones y ríos o arroyos fronterizos son cambiados por dominicanos," La Opinión, 3 Sept. 1931
128. and "Nombres de ciudades y aldeas que han sido substituidos por otros nombres," Revista de Educación 7, no. 25 (1935): 68-69
129. Sáez, Los Jesuitas, 53-55
130. "La política escolar del honorable presidente Trujillo," Revista de Educación 7, no. 28 (1935): 21
131. "Editorial: Plan de estudios para las escuelas fronterizas," ibid., 31 Jan. 1935
132. Isil Nicolas, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Ouanaminthe, 1988
133. Jean Ghasmann Bissainthe, Perfil de dos naciones en la Española (Santo Domingo: n.p., 1998)
134. Editorial, La Opinión, 14 Apr. 1937
135. "Chronique," Le Temps (Port-au-Prince), 14 Mar. 1936
136. and Crassweller, Trujillo, 153-63
137. La Croisade, 14 Mar. 1936
138. reprinted in "Los Presidentes Vincent y Trujillo: Dos soldados de la Paz Americana," Listín Diario, 28 Mar. 1936
139. See cartoon in La Tribuna, 26 May 1937
140. On smuggling often covered up as "theft," see Utley and Miller, "Agreement Respecting Border Troubles."
141. Rafael Merens Montes to Secretary of Agriculture, 16 Jan. 1934, SA, leg. 181, 1934
142. Paulino Vásquez to Secretary of Agriculture, 6 May 1935, no. 84
143. Emilio Ramírez to Trujillo, 14 May 1935, AGN, SA, leg. 207
144. Miguel Lama to Secretary of Agriculture, 17 May 1935, AGN, SA, leg. 207
145. Vicente Tolentino to Secretary of Presidency, 18 May 1935, no. 2478, AGN, SA, leg. 207
146. and Amado Gómez to Trujillo, 26 June 1935, AGN, SA, leg. 207, 1935
147. See also Utley and Miller, "Agreement Respecting Border Troubles"
148. Baud, "Una frontera para cruzar," 17
149. and Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, "Nuestras fronteras," La Voz del Sur, 1 Oct. 1910
150. Franklin Atwood to Secretary of State, 15 Sept. 1937, no. 4021, RG 84, 800-801.2
151. Guerrier, interview
152. Díaz, interview
153. Jan, Collecta IV, 82-83
154. and Testimony by Parchide Pierre and Cime Jean, Ouanaminthe, 3 Oct. 1937, RG 84, 800-D
155. Isidro Medina to Thomas Norris, 5 Oct. 1937, RG 84, 800-D
156. Irelia Pierre, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Dosmond, 1988
157. Howard Eager, Lieut. Colonel, Bureau of Insular Affairs, "Memorandum for the Chief Military Intelligence Division, G-2
158. Subject: Haitian-Dominican Incident," n.d., RG 165, Reg. Files
159. M. J. Perry to Deputy Fiscal Rep., "Frontier Inspection, 5 to 7 Nov. 1937," RG 84, 800-D
160. U.S. Military Intelligence Report, 1 Nov. 1938, RG 165, Reg. File
161. Lolo, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Restauración, 1988
162. Sus Jonapas, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Dosmond, 1988
163. Emanuel Cour, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Ouanaminthe, 1988
164. This is also suggested in Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones: A Novel (New York: Soho Press 8), 193, 265
165. The Spanish "r," moreover, has tended to be barely rolled even by ethnic Dominicans in the frontier and much of the Republic, when placed at the end or in the middle of words. See Max A. Jiménez Sabater, Más datos sobre el español de la República Dominicana (Santo Domingo: Ediciones INTEC, 1975)
166. Anonymous, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Mont Organizé, 1988
167. The idea that pronunciation of perejil did indeed serve to distinguish Haitians and Dominicans would become one of the most common features of even brief treatments of the massacre. See Alan Cambeira, Quisqueya La Bella: The Dominican Republic in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 182-83
168. See also Rita Dove's poem on the massacre in Dove, Selected Poems (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 133-35
169. Testimony of Cime Jean, 30 Oct. 1937
170. and García, La matanza de los haitianos, 69-71
171. Eager, "Memorandum," RG 165, Reg. Files
172. Eager, "Memorandum."
173. For comparative purposes, see Eagle Glassheim, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945," Central European History 33, no. 4 (2000)
174. Atwood to Secretary of State, 25 Oct. 1937, no. 39, RG 84, 800-D
175. On soldiers' resistance, see also "Slaughter of Haitians Described by Observers," Washington Post, 10 Nov. 1937
176. and Albert C. Hicks, Blood in the Streets: The Life and Rule of Trujillo (New York: Creative Age Press, 1946), 107
177. Díaz, interview
178. Norweb to Secretary of State, 11 Oct. 1937
179. Logbook, Oct. 1937, L'École des Frères, Ouanaminthe
180. "Le massacre continue," Le Mouvement, 29 Nov. 1937 and 6 Dec. 1937
181. Vega, Trujillo y Haití, 2:344
182. and Norweb to Secretary of State, n.d., no. 107, RG 84, 800-D
183. Orlando Inoa, "Cacería de haitianos: La matanza después de la Matanza," El Siglo, 25 June 1993
184. "Memoire confidentiel sur les difficultés entre Haiti et la Republique Dominicaine remis a la Legation des États Unis D'Amerique, par le Président d'Haiti," RG 84, 800-D
185. and Mayer to Secretary of State, 22 Nov. 1937, no. 120, RG 84, 800-D
186. Harold Finley to U.S. Legation, 8 Oct. 1937, RG 84, 800-D
187. Finley to Sec. of State, 23 Oct. 1937, no. 584, RG 84, 800-D
188. Father Émile Robert, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Guadeloupe, 1988
189. Cuello, Documentos, 456, 466
190. Mayer to Secretary of State, 12 Mar. 1938, no. 95
191. and Eugene Hinkle to Secretary of State, 10 Sept. 1938, no. 441, both in RG 84, 800-D
192. Merisier, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Savane Zonbi, 1988
193. Anonymous, interview by author and Lauren Derby Aguas Negras, June, 1988
194. Ramírez, Mis 43 años en la Descubierta, 63 n, 66-75
195. Vega, Trujillo y Haití, 1:392, 304-9
196. Michele Wucker, Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola (New York: Hi mp; Wang, 1999), 51-58
197. and Cambeira, Quisqueya La Bella, 183-85
198. Law 279, 29 Jan. 1932, in Colección de leyes
199. and Law 250, 19 Oct. 1925, in Gaceta Oficial, no. 3693, 24 Oct. 1925
200. Law 95; 11 April 1939, in Gaceta Oficial, no. 5299, 17 Apr. 1939
201. Edward Anderson, U.S. Consul, Ciudad Trujillo, "An Analysis of the Dominican Immigration Laws and Regulations," 26 June 1939, RG 59, 839.55/108
202. Marc C. McLeod, "Undesirable Aliens: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in the Comparison of Haitian and British West Indian Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1912-1939," Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998)
203. Melville Monk, Cap-Haitien Customs, to Rex Pixley, 21 Oct. 1937, RG 84, 800-D
204. Joaquín Balaguer to Quentin Reynolds, 9 Dec. 1937, no. 27826, RG 84, 800-D
205. Suzy Castor, Migración y relaciones internacionales (el caso haitiano-dominicano) (Santo Domingo: Ed. Unversitaria, 1987)
206. José Israel Cuello, Contración de mano de obra haitiana destinada a la industria azucarera dominicana, 1952-1986 (Santo Domingo: Taller, 1987), esp. 36-42
207. Andrew Wardlaw, "End of Year Report: 1945," 14 Mar. 1946, RG 59, 839.00
208. Phelps Phelps to Secretary of State, no. 636, 13 Feb. 1953, 739.00 (w)
209. Enc. to Ferdinand Mayer to Secretary of State, 9 Dec. 1937, no. 13, RG 84, 800-D
210. and Enc. to Mayer to Secretary of State, 9 Dec. 1937
211. See also Balaguer, La palabra encadenada, 300
212. Thomas Holt, "An 'Empire over the Mind': Emancipation, Race, and Ideology in the British West Indies and the American South," and Barbara Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History," in Region, Rate, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1982)
213. See V. Díaz Ordóñez, El más antiguo y grave problema antillano (Ciudad Trujillo: La Opinión, 1938)
214. Ana Richardson Batista, "Dominicanización fronteriza," La Nación, 24 May 1943
215. J. R. Johnson Mejía, "Contenido racional de la política de dominicanización fronteriza," Boletín del Partido Dominicano, 30 July 1943
216. and Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle, El sentido de una política (Ciudad Trujillo: La Nación, 1943)
217. See San Miguel, La isla imaginada, 82-95
218. Baud, "'Constitutionally White,'" 132-39
219. and Derby, "Histories of Power."
220. Frank Moya Pons, "La frontera política," Rumbo 5, no. 271 (1999)
221. Bernardo Vega, "Variaciones en el uso del anti-haitianismo en la era de Trujillo" (paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., Sept. 1995)
222. See also Lauren Derby and Richard Lee Turits, "Historias de terror y terrores de la historia: La masacre haitiana de 1937 en la República Dominicana," Estudios Sociales 26, no. 92 (1993): 65, 75
223. Atwood to Secretary of State, 15 Oct. 1937, no. 25, RG 84, 800-D
224. Eugene Hinkle to Secretary of State, 7 July 1938, no. 373, RG 84, 710-Haiti
225. Ellis Briggs to Secretary of State, 19 Aug. 1944, no. 232, ibid, 710-30
226. Julio Ibarra to Secretary de Estado de lo Interior, 15 May 1957, no. 480, and related documents in AGN, SA, leg. 903, 1957
227. and Francis Spalding to Secretary of State, 29 July 1957, no. 44, RG 59, 739.00
228. Ernest Charles Palmer, "Land Use and Landscape Change along the Dominican-Haitian Borderlands" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Florida, 1976), 103
229. For an interpretation that emphasizes this continuity, see Paulino Díaz, "Birth of a Boundary," chaps. 4-6
230. See F. Ducoudray, "Los secretos del vodú," ¡Ahora!, 7 Apr. 1980
231. and "Los conucos de Yesí Elá" ¡Ahora! 14 Apr. 1980
232. Atwood to Secretary of State, 5 Nov. 1937, no. 54, RG 84, 800-D
233. and H. C. R., "Memorandum: Conversation with Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi," 26 May 1943, RG 84, 702-711
234. Cruz, interview
235. Díaz, interview
236. Evelina Sánchez, interview by author and Lauren Derby, Monte Cristi, 1988
237. See Turits, Foundations of Despotism
238. See note 137
239. These interviews with 130 elderly peasants from throughout the Dominican Republic were conducted as part of my research for Foundations of Despotism
240. Anti-Haitianism today, as in the early twentieth century, is clearest among elite Dominicans. See, for example, José Gautier's piece in El Nacional, 19 Nov. 1987
241. Luis Lajara Burgos, "Dimensión," Hoy, 23 July 1991
242. and Luis Julián Pérez, Santo Domingo frente al destino (Santo Domingo: Ed. Taller, 1990)
243. The pronoun "they" is ambiguous. It may refer to Haitian leaders, Dominican critics, or frontier denizens. Robert Crassweller, letter to author, 19 Jan. 1988