( Published by Payson & Clarke Ltd. New York, 1928 )
( from pages 48 - 60 )
Upon the death of President Pétion in 1818, General Jean Pierre Boyer had been elected President of Haiti in his stead. Boyer appears to have adopted the policy as well as a considerable portion of the strategy of Toussaint, for no sooner had he been inaugurated than he sent secret envoys to the border provinces of the Spanish colony to foster propaganda among the negro inhabitants in order to induce them to rise in favour of a union with Haiti. When rumours of these attempts reached General Kendelán, the Governor of Santo Domingo, he somewhat naively addressed a letter to President Boyer, asking whether there was any truth in the reports that the President of Haiti was attempting to foment discord among the subjects of the King of Spain.
President Boyer blandly replied that since such a procedure would be undoubtedly contrary to the law of nations, he naturally could not countenance any such efforts on the part of any of his fellow-citizens, and further assured the Governor that the Government of Haiti held no ambitions for the conquest of additional territory. These assurances appear to have been accepted at their face value by General Kendelán, who published the exchange of correspondence for the benefit of the Spanish colonists; but when the reports continued, and more definite information was obtained that propaganda was being conducted by order of President Boyer himself, General Real, who had succeeded Kendelán as Governor, determined to send his nephew to Port-au-Prince to make a more careful investigation of the truth of the rumours. Before General Real could obtain any satisfactory information from his agent, however, he was involved in a new and, to him, more serious difficulty.
For some time past, Don José Nuñez de Cáceres, appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the colony by the Junta Central de Sevilla in 1801, had in a half-hearted manner been planning with other prominent men in the colony a conspiracy to free Santo Domingo from the control of Spain and link its destinies with those of the newly formed Republic of Gran Colombia. The time now appeared opportune to Cáceres to bring the movement to a head, and on November 30, 1821, the freedom of the colony from the sovereignty of Spain was proclaimed in the city of Santo Domingo. General Real gave in readily enough; he attempted no resistance, and was in short order packed off to Spain. The provincial deputies constituted themselves a Junta Provisional de Gobierno, naming Don José Nuñez de Cáceres as "Political Governor" and President of the Independent State of "Spanish Haiti". At the same time a new Constitution was drafted, declaring that the State of Spanish Haiti had become an integral portion of the Federation of Colombia, and an envoy was sent, in the person of Dr. Antonio Pineda, to the President of Colombia demanding the admittance if Spanish Haiti in the Colombian Federation, and urging that assistance be given the new state in maintaining its freedom. At the same time an envoy was sent to President Boyer to propose the conclusion of a treaty of amity, whereby the Haitian Government would accord formal recognition to the independence of "Spanish Haiti".
The opportunity was one which Boyer naturally did not lose. Before Pineda had time to reach Colombia, where the absence of Bolívar would have rendered his mission fruitless in any event, the Haitian President, on January 12, 1822, issued a proclamation declaring that the Dominican people had formally submitted to the laws and Constitution of the Haitian Republic, and in order to render these verbal assurances doubly sure, two days later Boyer mobilized the Haitian army for the purpose of occupying the Dominican territory once more.
The march of the Haitian armies in this new invasion was not delayed. As soon as word reached Santo Domingo of the turn of affairs, the ineffable Cáceres addressed a proclamation to his fellow-citizens counselling them to receive the invading hordes with courtesy, and "with pacific sentiments," and exhorting the Dominicans to show the world how skilled they were in adapting themselves to divers forms of government, since, as he stated, every form of government "is good, if it grants the inalienable rights of liberty, equality, personal security and social peace provided by nature, all of which it is promised you will abundantly enjoy under the Constitution and laws of Haiti." On February 6th, President Boyer reached Bani, where plans were drawn up in accord with Nuñez de Cáceres for the entrance of the Haitian President into Santo Domingo, and three days later Cáceres put into practise the advice he had given his fellow Dominicans by handing President Boyer, on a silver platter, the keys of the city of Santo Domingo.
That date marks the beginning of a period of eighteen years during which the Dominican colony slept a sleep which was almost that of death. No sooner had President Boyer returned to Port-au-Prince than he commenced the effort, which he consistently continued throughout those long years, of stifling every form of culture, and every feature of the Dominicans' proud inheritance, which from time to time glimmered feebly in the gloom of the Black Occupation. The administration everywhere was Haitianized. The families who still possessed some slight property emigrated. Agriculture came eventually to a standstill; commerce was non-existent. Public spirit seems to have sunk so low that only rarely were any sporadic efforts made to raise the standard of a new rebellion. All forms of intellectual progress, which had been encouraged in some slight degree during the years of "España boba," perished in the first year of the Haitian Occupation. The University closed its doors; the great majority of the churches were left without priests.
The following extract of a report submitted by the British Consul-General in Haiti, and presented by Canning to the British Parliament in 1826, provides a graphic description of the depths to which Santo Domingo had sunk:
"The whole island is divided into departments, arrondisements and communes. These are all under the command of military men subject only to the control of the President, and to them is entrusted exclusively the execution of all laws whether affecting police, agriculture or finance. There is not a single civilian charged with an extensive authority…….During the past two years trade has gradually fallen off and…..it is supposed that it has decreased nearly one half…… The most important code is the Code Rural, the chief character of which is the enforcing of labour. It is a modification of the old French regulations sanctioned by the Code Noire, with additional restrictions. The provisions are as despotic as those of any slave system that can be conceived. The labourer may almost be considered as "adscriptus glebe," he is deemed a vagrant and liable to punishment if he ventures to move from his dwellings or farm without license.
He is prohibited from keeping a shop. No person can build a house in the country not connected with a farm…… The Code affixes the penalty or fine in some cases, and there is indefinite imprisonment at the option of the justice of the peace. Cultivation would not go on beyond that which daily necessities might require, except for the Code. The decrease in population in thirty-three years has been very nearly one-third of the whole population in 1793….. The Government has appropriated all the church property to its own use. The clergy rely wholly on the fees, two-thirds of which they are obliged to pay into the Treasury….. It is not a subject of surprise that morality should be in as low a stage….. Marriage is scarcely thought of……"
submitted September 8, 1826,
by the Rt. Hon. George Canning to the Parliament.)
In 1838 Juan Pablo Duarte, a young Dominican returned from being educated in Europe, fired with the purpose of freeing his fellow-citizens and of restoring his country to a place in the family of nations. Forming a revolutionary society known as La Trinitaria, the original members of the society, numbering nine, met secretly on July 16, 1838, in the house of one of its members, Don Juan Isidro Pérez.
For five years Duarte, (who also designed the Dominican flag of red and blue quarterings bearing the white cross) and his fellows worked on unfalteringly, and at length the moment approached for the consummation of their hopes. The despotism of Boyer, absolute as it was in the eastern half of the island, had at length become intolerable even in Haiti proper. A revolution against him broke out in 1843, commencing in the Haitian town of Jérémie. At the instigation of Duarte, the Dominican revolutionaries secretly lent their moral support to those Haitians involved in the attempt to overthrow Boyer. The revolution consequently gained adherents throughout the island, and Boyer, at length giving in to the inevitable, fled from Haiti, where he was succeeded as despot by Charles Hérard.
The moment was now believed propitious by the members of the Trinitaria to proceed openly along the path they had set for themselves. On March 24, 1843, Duarte, accompanied by Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Ramón Mella and numerous leaders among the Dominicans, as well as by several Haitians of the liberal party, marched through the streets of the capital to demand from the Governor, General Carrié, reform of the Constitution and reform in the administration. The movement was at first suppressed and its chief leaders were constrained to flee for their lives, but eventually General Carrié was forced to give in, and the desired reforms were officially proclaimed. A step in advance had thus been taken by Duarte, but the Haitian liberals, who had until now supported him, broke away as the result of discord which developed between them and the Dominicans, and the arrival in Santo Domingo of General Hérard, determined to stamp out, at any cost, the Dominican cry for independence, caused an abrupt check to the plans of the conspirators.
As soon as Hérard arrived in the capital, orders were issued for the arrest of the chief conspirators, whose names by now had become generally known. Duarte, Piña and Juan Isidro Pérez succeeded in escaping from the country. Sánchez, too ill at the time to travel, was hidden by his family, and the Haitian general, advised of his sudden death, was fortunately credulous enough to believe the story, and abandoned further attempts to ascertain his whereabouts. The Santana brothers, Pedro and Rámon, sons of Ferrand's opponent, escaped to the Seybo, where they found concealment. For a time, which proved to be but brief, plans for the revolution were abandoned. Duarte reached Curaçao with the intention of proceeding to Venezuela, in the vain hope of obtaining foreign assistance in carrying out his plans. But before he was afforded the opportunity of returning to his country, the ideal for which he had so long laboured was at last realised.
On February 27, 1844, at 10 o'clock at night a band of some hundred members of the conspirators seized the fortress of the Puerta del Conde, whose commanding officer had been suborned by one of the conspirators. Here the cry of "Separation, God, Country and Liberty" was raised. Leaving a number sufficient to guard this outpost, the conspirators, dividing into smaller groups, succeeded by a ruse in obtaining control of the strongholds in the city, and on the following day the Haitian commander, General Desgrotte, was compelled to sign his capitulation. The declaration made by the revolutionary Junta in their negotiations with Desgrotte is significant of the inspiration which Duarte had bestowed upon his countrymen. "The denial" stated the Junta, "of their rights, and the evil administration of the Haitian Government, have created among the Dominicans the firm and imperishable determination to be free and independent, should it cost their lives and their property, and no menace will be capable of weakening this resolution."
Two days later, Desgrotte and his fellow Haitians retired from the soil of the new Republic, and the history of the independent Dominican Republic had commenced.
( I have left out the first 47 pages of this chapter, this section covers the early colonial period and the invasions of Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessalines an interesting read, while the remainder of the 2 Vols. is a good in-depth, 1,028 pages, history of the Dominican Republic up to 1924, check with your library if its available. T.D.H. )
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