Dominican History and heritage

[AmericanSentiment]

Is it true Dominicans burned & destroyed their history books and tried to rewrite where they came from? I read history that after Colombus arrived searching for gold Spain killed off all the Indians in the 16th century & begin bringing slave from Africa to DR Now a majority African-Dominican in the country.
Also I read in a history book most Dominicans judge themselves by skin color, a lighter shade they like to call themselves Indian.

I just want to know if any of this is true by Dominicans abroad & Dominicans on the island.

Also are Christopher Colombus bones still on the island?
Are Dominicans living abroad & at home ashame of their heritage as Afro-Dominicans?

[frank recktenwald]

Originally Posted by AmericanSentiment

Is it true Dominicans burned & destroyed their history books and tried to rewrite where they came from? I read history that after Colombus arrived searching for gold Spain killed off all the Indians in the 16th century & begin bringing slave from Africa to DR Now a majority African-Dominican in the country.
Also I read in a history book most Dominicans judge themselves by skin color, a lighter shade they like to call themselves Indian.

I just want to know if any of this is true by Dominicans abroad & Dominicans on the island.

Also are Christopher Colombus bones still on the island?
Are Dominicans living abroad & at home ashame of their heritage as Afro-Dominicans?

Had a conversation with one of my employees the other day. He's black with African features and he didn't believe me when I told him that he's from African decent. It took me awhile and with the help of someone I was finally able to convince him. Even my wife who's Dominican had a hard time believing me in the beginning when I told her that her ancestors were African.
They think of Africans being like the Haitians.

[Mujermaravilla]

1. I've never heard or read that the people of Dominican Republic burned books to rewrite history.

2. Europeans had to import slaves because Natives were dying left and right after only 50 years the native population was said to be eliminated. So yes most dominicans are a mix of white and black.

3. Yes, in DR there are about a dozen ways to describe "race" and a million shades of indio. I believe race identity is not as important as in the US.

4.When it comes to recognizing how much african is in our blood I think only ignorant and undecated people would deny being at leat in part of African decent. honestly the things I read make me wonder if I grew up in a different DR.

[Hillbilly]

By the mid to late 1600s there were so few people here that Spain had to import folks from the Canary Islands in order to maintain their possession of the eastern side of the island.

There was never a really sizable black population at any time until the Haitian Occupation (1822-1844) although before that there were several years of attempted takeovers by L'Ouverture with the accompanying black troops.

Of course there was intercourse between the whites, mulattoes, mestizos and blacks, its only normal.

Most Dominicans will admit to Haitian influence, but very few will find anything attractive about being African. That is just a fact of life here.

In fact recent studies seem to indicate that there is a good deal of Taino Indian blood still coursing through Dominican veins...the study is ongoing--currently stalled--

As for the bones--officially, yes they are there...

As for their self-descriptions, look up Nancy Gonzalez' work on the DR. She found hundreds of descriptive adjectives used to characterize people. Some of them still in use, others no longer used...

People think about themselves as they wish, I do not try and make them think like the "should" , why?

Even in the US black community there are important class distinctions based on color, as any black knows BTW.... If you think not, go visit Spelman in Atlanta....

HB

[bob saunders]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28730583@N02/2887808891/" title="Staff Coleigo 2008 by rsaunders2008, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2887808891_b0c5122b40_b.jpg" width="1024" height="687" alt="Staff Coleigo 2008" /></a>

[bob saunders]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/...c5122b40_b.jpg

All Dominicans except one- Many are dark but not too many look like African blacks.

[PICHARDO]

Originally Posted by AmericanSentiment

Is it true Dominicans burned & destroyed their history books and tried to rewrite where they came from?

During Trujillo's dictatorship, many history books were destroyed by dumping them in the landfills by the truck load. Those were the history books used in Public school's classrooms in the DR at the time. Trujillo ordered then secretary of Education "Balaguer" the need to correct many "errors" as he affirmed them to exist in those books.

Dominicans didn't burn history books, but the trujillista machinery did...

As a matter of fact most books were replaced with a newer edition prepare under the close scrutiny of the Dictator... Many books had his portrait pasted in the last or front initial page...

Trujillo didn't want Dominican heritage to be identified with that of the Haitian blood, therefore of African ancestry in its majority.

I read history that after Colombus arrived searching for gold Spain killed off all the Indians in the 16th century & begin bringing slave from Africa to DR Now a majority African-Dominican in the country.

When Colon arrived in Hispaniola the Taino population was about 2 to 3 million. Once the Aborigines were exposed to the pathogens brought over from Europe by the conquistadores, the immune system of the Tainos wasn't prepared for the killers. The local population, which was a very docile and of small frame, didn't provide the work the Europeans had experienced with Africans. The French and Spaniards introduced African slave to the island for this issue. The population of Tainos, greatly reduced by the pathogens and killing sprees of the conquistador es was moved to smaller chores;those that survived.

The Tainos serving chores closer to the homes of the colonists, did become more and more integrated with them via sexual relations and the such.

The slaves that were brought over to the eastern side of the island, left when the uprising from the slaves on the western side became successful and made their way to the easter side. Some remained in the eastern side but most left to the darker held side of the island for good.

Dominicans are more a result of the mix of Tainos and Whites than Whites with Africans. The characteristics of the African traits are easy to spot as well as the easy to spot Taino traits in Dominicans as well. In Haiti most whites intermixed with Tainos than Africans, as Tainos were seen as less "wild" than Africans. That's the biggest reason why in Haiti today, color of the skin and facial characteristics play a defining role in social/racial interaction of classes.

Dominicans are intensively mixed with races from all over the world, yet it's Taino and white the biggest and stronger of all when samplings are taken to trace racial heritage among them. It wasn't until after 1965 when large masses of Haitians made their way into border towns (then scantly populated by Dominicans, many of long Spaniard lineage) of the DR, where they did the logical thing and intermarriages with Dominicans became quite frequent...

Any person alive after 1940 can tell from an eyewitness account that towns and major cities like Santiago and satellite charming little "Campitos" where predominantly of white and very Indian like shades as the darkest of complexions. The campesinos from the farms where hard labor was the daily bread, many did become mixed with Haitians, which were the #1 laborers of the Fields there...

Still many campitos in the hard to reach places are seldom darker than Nicole Kidman. (Juancalito, Loma prieta, los Ranchos, etc...). Mainly b/c they were never open to Haitian migration for the fields.

Also I read in a history book most Dominicans judge themselves by skin color, a lighter shade they like to call themselves Indian.

Thats b/c most of the lightest shaded skin toned Dominicans of mixed heritage are indeed of Whites with Taino/Mestizo ancestry and NOT White/African.
The Mestizo population was much higher in post pure Taino concentration in the eastern side of the island.

I just want to know if any of this is true by Dominicans abroad & Dominicans on the island.

From a Dominican abroad and in the island as well...

Also are Christopher Colombus bones still on the island?

Colon's bone are positively in the DR, as the inscriptions on the box his bones were later discovered provided. Somebody made sure to send other bones to Spain....

Are Dominicans living abroad & at home ashame of their heritage as Afro-Dominicans?

I guess some are (to what extend of the ones ignorant to having at least some traits of African heritage in their blood, I don't know), but saying that Dominicans of any other shade than Nicole Kidman's pure white, is simply just as ignorant of the huge and much greater % of Dominicans of actual Taino/White/Mestizo heritage as well.

Just going around pointing toward non-whites of Dominican nationality and calling their posture on the African heritage "ignorant", serves the voice behind such affirmations as no lesser ignorant on the prevalence of Taino blood in Dominicans as well with little to NONE African ancestry/blood in their family's entire line...

[bachatony1]

Originally Posted by bob saunders

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/...c5122b40_b.jpg

All Dominicans except one- Many are dark but not too many look like African blacks.

What does that mean? All African blacks look alike too? It's a whole continent, you know.

Anyway, I taught english to a 15 yr old dominican girl in the states and she told my wife and I (both black) that her father told her she could date whoever she wanted as long as he wasn't black. When we explained to her that she had some african heritage, her automatic response was, "eeewww, their dirty"

I guess the problem with the african perception is in the U.S. in the black community also as one poster mentioned. I am of a darker complexion. When I lived in the south, my complexion was never an issue, but when I moved further north, I was dark-skinned and catch every joke about being "african" as if it's an insult or something.

[bachatony1]

I can't wait to move to DR and become "indio oscuro" lol!

[Robert]

Interesting and informative thread.

Let me remind everyone, if this moves towards race and insults it will be closed.