Taicaraya Nals,
Thank you for your post and I also want to thank everyone on here for the enjoyable social intercourse.
To answer your question about my grandma:
Yeah, she used to tell us that she could remember when the Spansih first arrived on the island as I mentioned before. We would tease her and tell her she could not be that old! After she passed I realized that she was probably describing the influx of Spanish people coming from Cuba and Puerto Rico. She even mentioned how some of these people only went out at night for fear of being "discovered" (apparently running from something). In my research I came across the following regarding the census records:
Jose Alvarez de Peralta writes that, at the time of the treaty between Spain and France on June 3, 1777 at Aranjuez, the Dominican population was, not counting the Haitian side, 400,000. The break down was as follows:
blancos (white)........................................... ..................100,000
Mestizos de Raza India y Blanca........................................100, 000
Mulatos........................................... ..............................70,000
Mestizos de Raza India y Negro..........................................60, 000
Negros............................................ ..............................70, 000
Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi In, Relaciones geográficas de Santo Domingo Vol 1, P.162.
After reading the above I realized more than ever that my grandmother was very accurate regarding the demographics of the population around our home town and sorrounding areas.
Another curious statement my grandmother made ( and please dont anyone laugh!) was one time when my grandmother could not comprehend why my hair was not straight like hers or my mothers. I explained to her the the African strain is strong indeed. She responed with " I dont see how, in our hometown there were three kinds of people when I was growing up. There were Indians, whites and people con color Indio". This caught my attention and I asked her what was the difference between Indio and color Indio. She replied that Indio and color indio were two different things because color indio did not automatically mean that a person was Indio.
I have never heard this before or since. She seemed to really distinguish between the two, which of course is very different today were ALL dominicans are color Indio no matter how Blackbrown or tan they may be.
To Mirador:
Great pics, cant say from mere observation how Black/indio/sambo/mulato/blanco they may be, what I can say is that they are all very beautiful children indeed.....what happened to you? LOL
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