Three Events in Dominican History

[NALs]

Originally Posted by Lovelylocs

3) They kept the number of slaves down so that the country remained predominately white.

j/k... LOL

Where is the change in that one?

The number of slaves was very low, even as a percentage of the population. The reason why there is so much African blood mixed into the Dominican population is due to migration of descendants of slaves from other countries to the DR, not of slaves that were brought to the DR or the colony of Spain it once was.

Most Dominican blacks/mulattoes have their African origins in either:

1. Haiti (migration that has become relatively intense post-1970s)

2. US (the libertos who were settled from Puerto Plata to Samaná, this was mostly of Haitian political design since it occured under Haitian occupation because the Haitian government found it difficult to get Haitians to move to the then much more impoverished eastern part of the island).

3. British West Indies (the cocolos who inhabit the southeastern part of the country, most came in the late 19th, early 20th century in search for sugarcane cutting jobs).

Very very few Dominicans are actual descendants of slaves that were brought to what eventually became the DR.

So, what you are suggesting is what happened, although the reason was not to keep the country white but because for most of the country's history (this is including the pre-independence period) the only valuable economic activity of any size was tied to cattle and ranching and not much slaves were needed for that, at least not compared to what happened in Haiti with the sugar industry.

Funny enough, the surge in blacks post-independence in the DR was tied to the development of sugar plantations in the eastern part of the country and with this I come full circle with this post.

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What the heck, let me make this an on-topic post.

If I was some sort of God and had the power to change any 3 events in Dominican history, they would've been:

1. The invasion by Boyer that lasted 22 years would had never occurred. That would've eliminated the bulk of time and energy wasted in all the invasion attempts and the economic ruin that was subsequent in many of them.

2. Would had honored the debt owed to the Europeans in the early 1900s, especially to the Germans. That would had avoided the first invasion of the DR by US troops, which led to the complete reorganization of the Dominican economy to suit American interests. Also, this could've had an impact on US regional power since the DR was a BIG reason for the US declaring the Monroe Doctrine.

3. A focus on industrialization and economic growth from the moment the country achieved its independence from Spain in 1821.

I think most of the problems that affected the country could had been avoided had those 3 (among a few other) things been in place.

-NALs

[Ricardo900]

Originally Posted by NALs

What the heck, let me make this an on-topic post.

-NALs

Some historians state that by 1790 the population of 125,000, residents broke down into 40,000 white landowners, 25,000 black freemen, and 60,000 slaves, whereas in St. Domingue half a million enslaved Africans constituted 80% of the total population.

So published history says one thing and you Nals say another, but who cares?? It's His-Story

Lovelylocs comments were dumb and didn't need a response, which usually brings the race-baiters and the DR vs. Haiti idiots out of the closets.

Nothing against you Nals or your beliefs in history, but many times its the off-topic statements and rants that flares-up.

[Chip]

Originally Posted by Ricardo900

Some historians state that by 1790 the population of 125,000, residents broke down into 40,000 white landowners, 25,000 black freemen, and 60,000 slaves, whereas in St. Domingue half a million enslaved Africans constituted 80% of the total population.

So published history says one thing and you Nals say another, but who cares??

I would question the above numbers, mainly because it does not mention mulatos nor mestizos. I would recommend reading the following post by our resident historian, Baracutay, who has dedicated his life to the study of the Dominican peoples, and especially their Domincan roots.

http://www.dr1.com/forums/511031-post112.html

As far as what Nals says, I agree wholeheartedly, the way he stands by his arguments, in spite of apparent facts, calls into question his judgement and authority on the matter. For my part, he is evolving into the next Mirador, who somehow felt that by mere repetition, heresay and conjecture could be transformed into facts.

[Chip]

As far as what the OP stated. My three recommendations are:

1. Should have passed an anti-monopoly law.

2. Whoever established the kickback system of paying politicians(Balaguer?) should have been hanged(figuritively speaking).

3. Whoever organized the Caribbean World Series this year in Santiago should be relegated to his previous job(driving a carro publico).

[A.Hidalgo]

Originally Posted by Ricardo900

Some historians state that by 1790 the population of 125,000, residents broke down into 40,000 white landowners, 25,000 black freemen, and 60,000 slaves, whereas in St. Domingue half a million enslaved Africans constituted 80% of the total population.

Ricardo900 just to back up what you wrote.....

As a result of the stimulus provided by the trade reforms, the population of the colony of Santo Domingo increased from about 6,000 in 1737 to approximately 125,000 in 1790. Of this number, about 40,000 were white landowners, about 25,000 were black or mulatto freedmen, and some 60,000 were slaves.

Dominican Republic : Country Studies - Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

Look under The First Colony. Last paragraph.
source: Library of Congress.

[NALs]

Originally Posted by Ricardo900

Some historians state that by 1790 the population of 125,000, residents broke down into 40,000 white landowners, 25,000 black freemen, and 60,000 slaves, whereas in St. Domingue half a million enslaved Africans constituted 80% of the total population.

So published history says one thing and you Nals say another, but who cares?? It's His-Story

Lovelylocs comments were dumb and didn't need a response, which usually brings the race-baiters and the DR vs. Haiti idiots out of the closets.

Nothing against you Nals or your beliefs in history, but many times its the off-topic statements and rants that flares-up.

According to Frank Moya Pons, by 1790 there was a population of 180,000, albeit he doesn't break the numbers by race or by freemen vs. slaves. I do wonder where the mulattoes are in your estimates, though.

In any case, the massive emigrations that took place from the DR to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela since then lead to a depopulation of the country, to such a degree that by 1812 the population of the DR was barely 63,000!

Hm, that was in 1812 and the country got its independence in 1844.

I doubt all, even most, of them were former slaves and its obvious that a huge chunk of the population that existed in the country in the 1790s had disappeared by the early 1800s.

Frank Moya Pons, being the most respected Dominican historian, I accept as more reliable when it comes to Dominican history.

-NALs

[Chip]

Originally Posted by A.Hidalgo

Ricardo900 just to back up what you wrote.....


Dominican Republic : Country Studies - Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

Look under The First Colony. Last paragraph.
source: Library of Congress.

Primo, it certainaly looks better, what with the mulattoes mentioned, however, how does one account for the gross discrepancies in the amounts of each group? Also, how authoritarian could the Library of Congress be on this matter? From the acknowledgements, it appears that they used a variety of sources to compile therir info about the DR, in other words, who knows their real credentials or expertise when the real goal of the reports is to have some sort of standardized info about each country? My two chelitos.

[A.Hidalgo]

Originally Posted by Chip

Primo, it certainaly looks better, what with the mulattoes mentioned, however, how does one account for the gross discrepancies in the amounts of each group? Also, how authoritarian could the Library of Congress be on this matter? From the acknowledgements, it appears that they used a variety of sources to compile therir info about the DR, in other words, who knows their real credentials or expertise when the real goal of the reports is to have some sort of standardized info about each country? My two chelitos.

We are going off topic here but still a worthwhile endeavor as long as its not "what I or we think things are".
The following is the bibliography for the Dominican Republic that was used for the Library of Congress country study. I do think there is some authority there....just a partial list and look who is also there, Frank Moya Pons

Atkins, G. Pope, and Larman C. Wilson. The United States and
the Trujillo Regime. New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1972.

Black, Jan Knippers. The Dominican Republic: Politics and
Development in an Unsovereign State. Boston: Allen and
Unwin, 1986.

Calder, Bruce J. The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican
Republic During the U.S. Occupation of 1916-1924. (The
Texas Pan American Series.) Austin: University of Texas Press,
1984.

Campillo Pérez, Julio G. Historia Electoral Dominicana, 1848-
1986: El Grillo y El Ruiseñor. Santo Domingo: Editora
Corripio, 1986.

Crassweller, Robert D. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a
Caribbean Dictator. New York: Macmillan, 1966.

Diederich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Goat.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.

Fagg, John Edwin. Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
(Modern Nations in Historical Perspective Series.) Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965.

Knight, Melvin M. The Americans in Santo Domingo. (Studies
in American Imperialism.) New York: Vanguard Press, 1928.

Logan, Rayford W. Haiti and the Dominican Republic. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Mejía Ricart, Gustavo Adolfo. Biografía del Caudillo Pedro
Santana. (Colección "Temas Históricos," 1.) Santo
Domingo: Fundación Mejía Ricart--Guzmán Boom, 1980.

Moya Pons, Frank. La Dominación Haitiana, 1822-1844.
(Colección `Estudios.') Santiago, República Dominicana:
Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, 1972.

Dominican Republic - Bibliography

[NALs]

I'm with Chip with his last comment.

They should've included Frank Moya Pons essay titled "Historia y Medio Ambiente en la Isla de Santo Domingo" where he clearly states the population numbers of the years I presented in my last post.

-NALs

[NALs]

One does need to wonder why there is a discrepancy between the Library of Congress (claiming a pop of 125,000 in 1790) vs. the most respected Dominican historian, Frank Moya Pons claiming a pop. of 180,000 for the same year. To that, one must take into account the depopulation that lead to a pop. of 63,000 in 1812. That was a good 10 years prior to the Haitian invasion by Boyer and the subsequent introduction of thousands of former black American slaves to the primarily Puerto Plata - Samaná areas of the country and everywhere in between.

By 1844 the country gained its independence without expelling the thousands of black Americans (known as libertos) that were settled by the Haitians during the occupation. Following that, the sugar industry began to take shape at the end of the 1800s and that created an infusion of blacks from the British West Indies (cocolos). By the 1900s, their labor was supplanted by massive numbers of Haitian migrants and, in a nutshell, that leads us to today.

Its not too hard to imagine that most of the African blood in the typical Dominican is NOT from slaves that were brought to the country, as I previously mentioned.

-NALs