Posts Tagged Estime
The border becomes a wall: 1936-1987
Posted by ONeil in History of the Borderlands on September 29th, 2009
This is part three of a four part series on the history of the Haitian-Dominican border (parts 1,2,3,4)
The border gate at the Dajabon-Ouanaminthe border crossing. Photo: Ciudades y Fronteras
Following the signature of the 1936 border treaty, the Dominican President, Rafael Truijillo, began tightening restrictions on Haitians in the Dominican Republic and stepped up deportations in an effort to reduce the number of Haitians. He visited the border region in August and September 1937, and concluded that his policy was not working. On October 2, 1937, he gave the order that resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians in the borderlands (Eric Paul Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 131). This massacre is brilliantly portrayed in Edwidge Danticat’s haunting fictional narrative, The Farming of Bones. Read the rest of this entry »
