One of the concrete "bornes" that mark the Haitian-Dominican border
In last week’s post, we looked at how Gold, Cows, and Pirates led to the division of Hispaniola between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We left off in the story with France building up the economy of its sides of the island through the development of large sugar plantations while the Spanish continued to neglect the eastern side of the island.
The French success came from their participation in the infamous, but very profitable, triangular trade: manufactured goods from Europe were sent to Africa in exchange for slaves, slaves were sent to the Caribbean, and the sugar and rum produced with their labor was sold back to Europe. In 1789, just before the outbreak of the wars on Hispaniola, the French colony of Saint Dominque was the richest colony in the world. It produced 40% of the world’s sugar—more than all of the British colonies combined. The population of the colony had swelled to include 430,000 black slaves, 30,000 Europeans and 25,000 of mixed descent (mulattos). In the Spanish colony, the population was only around 125,000, mainly of European decent but including some slaves. Ships were sailing on a regular basis between five ports in the French colony and Europe while only one ship a month sailing between Europe and Santo Domingo.
The revolutionary war in the French colony began as a power struggle between the ruling classes in 1788 and later flared into a slave revolt. The 16 year war destroyed Haiti’s economy and the brutal fighting left deep scars. Haiti’s first ruler, General Dessaline had been a field slave and hated his former masters. Through his constitution of 1806, he declared that no white could own land (Article 27) and declared the entire island to be part of the Republic of Haiti. His sudden death and the infighting between his successors led to a two decade-long power struggle and delayed any attempt to control the rest of the island.
In 1821, as Haiti was emerging from its internal power struggle, the Dominican Republic simply declared its independence and no one objected. The leader of the movement, Nuñez de Cacerez wanted to have the newly independent country join the Gran Colombia that was being established in South America by General Simon Bolivar. However, other leaders preferred to align the new country with Haiti. Within a year of the Dominican independence and on the pretext of an invitation from the Govenor of Santiago, Haitian troops were sent to occupy the former Spanish colony.
The Haitian domination of the island lasted for 22 years. The Haitian government conscripted the Dominican youth into the army and used this army to control the country. They abolished slavery and redistributed State and church land. President Boyer also negotiated recognition of Haiti’s independence by France. This involved a substantial payment that was not fully paid off until 1947. To begin payment of this debt, he encouraged heavy logging of the forests and imposed stiff taxes on the entire island. Beginning in the 1830’s, Juan Pablo Duarte began organizing a clandestine opposition to the Haitian presence that ultimately resulted in the independence of the Dominican Republic on February 27, 1844 (February 27th is celebrated as the Dominican Independence Day).
Between 1844 and 1861, Haitian armies invaded the Dominican Republic several times. Finally in 1861, the Dominican President, Pedro Santana, negotiated the return of the Dominican Republic to the status of a colony of Spain—the only time in history that a free country voluntarily gave up its freedom. Shortly after losing their independence, the Dominicans began pushing to restore it. With help from the Haitian government, the Dominican Republic won its independence on August 16, 1865 (August 16 is celebrated as Dominican Restoration Day).
In 1874, thirty years after the Dominican Republic won its independence from Haiti, the two countries finally signed and ratified a formal peace treaty. The treaty also provided for free access to each other’s ports (Article 5) and free trade for national production that is exported across the border (Article 10). The free trade provisions had a sunset provision of 25 years (Article 39), but remained in force until the United States took over customs collection in both countries in the early 1900’s and required the countries to collect customs equally at all of their ports.
Although the 1874 treaty formalized the relations between the two countries, it did not define the border. Up until the early 1900’s the border was only fixed in the far north (Massacre River) and the far south (Pedernales or Anse-a-Pitre River). The 1777 Treaty of Aranjuez , signed by the French and Spanish, had defined the border to begin and end at these points, but it bowed significantly to the west in the middle, keeping most of the middle of the island in Spanish hands. After the Haitian occupation of the island, Haitians had settled in this area and the Haitian government continued to administer it. The first treaty that sought to define a new border was not signed until 1929, during occupation of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic by the United States, and then only after the Dominican Republic had changed its constitution to renounce its claims on the border that had been defined in the 1777 treaty and Haiti changed its constitution to drop claims on the entire island. The 1929 treaty and the clarifications in the 1936 revision were based partially on the idea that the county, whose citizens constituted the majority in an area, should be given jurisdiction for that area. The end result of these negotiations was that the Dominican government gave up rights to a significant amount of territory.
The current border is shown as a black, solid line while the border established by the 1777 treaty is approximated by the dotted line.
In the next installment, we’ll look at the Dominican government’s policy of strengthening its border lands and the Haitian government’s historic neglect of the region.
slaves; slaves were sent to Haiti; and the sugar and rum produced with their labor was sold back to Europe.
