Dominican History: Virtual Insanity

In a journey within a journey, I decided to read some DR history during my trip, Frank Moya's The Dominican Republic. And I can say, without question, that for just being 2/3 of an island, their history is ridiculously huge and complex. I have heard places described as politically unstable, and maybe there are other countries with such intense turnover, but actually reading the blow by blow was stupefying. For instance, they had 52 different governments between 1865 and 1930 (versus 16 for us) and 80+ total. "Coup," "transitional government," "civil war," and, my favorite, "return from exile" were all too common phrases in this book.

So how do I sum this up to the Chuckdaddy riders? And do I bother? I guess this is an area where you sort of wonder about audience. Am I writing for the 5 people who visit here? For posterity? Or just for myself? I think in this case, I just do it for myself, and so I can hope to remember at least some of the monstrous book I slogged my way through. And if it is unreadably long, still better than a basketball one. Right? So here goes. I think I'll handle it by first giving a fairly brief history, and then address some questions I had before I left

Failed Attempt At a Fairly Brief History

So first there were the Ciboneys who were replaced by the Saladoids (great ceramicists btw) who were replaced by the Taino. The Taino probably would have been replaced by the Caribe, who were mean mother fuckers known for canibalism, but some meaner mother fuckers suddenly arrived (the Spanish). Hispanola (the name for the island that DR and Haiti share) was the third island Columbus landed on in his 1492 journey and where he and his men created the first colony.

The first colony did not go so well. Columbus left for Spain and by the time he got back his men had managed to get killed off for stealing Indian women. But it would be a momentary victory for the Taino, as the population would be enslaved and pretty much eliminated by 1519 (disease played a large role, but many Taino also committed suicide or committed abortions to avoid working for the Spanish). Although the DR was the first colony, it soon got passed up in importance by Cuba (around mid 1500's) and many Hispanolans not in the capital survived by, illegally, trading with other European powers. This eventually pissed Spain off so much that in 1603 they had 6 of the towns eliminated. Spanish officials literally made everyone move near Santo Domingo and burnt down their old towns. This is referred to as the Devastaciones.

Besides this being an inherently evil policy, it also ended up coming back to bite the Spanish in the ass. With much of the island now deserted, the French moved in. Numerous border excursions ensued, but neither side could destroy the other and the French eventually got comfortable on the Western 1/3 (today's Haiti). Although it was intermittently illegal, there was also a lot of trading, with the French side providing manufactured goods for the Spanish in return for livestock. Both sides profitted, but particularly the French side, which became a very successful colony based on sugar plantations.

In 1789, things got highly complex. The French side had whites, mullato land owners, and slaves. The mullatoes wanted equal rights (for themselves, not the slaves) and were arguing heavily with the whites. Both sides looked to the colonial powers to help and this conflict eventually devolved into a French/Mullato versus British/White alliance. To make matters crazier, the blacks revolted and got help from the Spanish side of the island, who had slaves, but saw this as a chance to take over the island. Confused yet? To make matters even more complicated, in the middle of this many fronted war, the French declared the slaves free and Spain lost a European war to France and as a concession give them the Spanish side of the island. After the dust settled, you had the (now) ex-slaves ruling the French side and the French ruling the Spanish side.

But I need to be careful here. It is easy to get sucked into just detailing who controlled what in DR's history, but this is a long and boring task. What's interesting though, is the slave side will fend off Napoleon's attempt to retake the island and eventually control the whole island for 20 years (1821-1843).

Upon independence from the Haitians, The Dominican Republic will come into being, and this is not necessarilly a good things. The political instability that'll ensue reminded me of political king of the hill, with the most recent victor celebrating by changing the Constitution and naming family members to important posts. An interesting rivalry was between the Central DR and the South/East. The Central part had a lot of tobacco farms which I guess actually creates a fairly diversified economy, and pushed for genuine democracry and civil rights. On the other hand, the South and East's economies were dominated by plantations and livestock, which meant a few strong men ruling numerous peons. Their leaders generally pushed for dictators. Much of the early turnover was these two sides switching control and then completely altering things. The worst example was when Santana retook over and changed the Constitution so that Congress was replaced with a 7-person advisory board.

Pretty much all of the leaders screwed up the economy. Besides pilferings of the state's money, a common practice was printing up money w/o backing, which I also used to think was a good idea(Why don't we just print up a 300 million dollar bill to pay of the debt?). Additionally, leaders also began to look to other countries and/or their merchants for loans. Santana will go as far as to annex the country back to Spain from 1860-1865.

They also made the mistake of getting involved with us, always a bad idea. Eventually, we will be pretty much dominating the country finances (controlling the customs) and demanding that their army is replaced with one we control. When their Pres refused, we actually took over (from 1916-1924). This will actually end up being a time of stability, but we will deny them basic rights like the freedom to criticize the US in the press, own a gun, or, of course, rule their own country.

After the US leaves, matters go from worse to worse when evil Trujillo takes over. His reign will last from 1931 until he is shot down in a car shase in 1960. Highlights of his rule were having 18,000 Haitians living in the border areas murdered (Trujillo was part Haitian, but would apply white make-up to look lighter), institute secret police to sniff out any criticism, and enrich himself by dominating the economy. His general economic policy was to create state monopolies with companies he owned. This will eventually result in him controlling 80% of the country's industrial production, and having 60% of the work force depending on him. Sort of like the worst possible combination of communism and capitalism.

After the Trujilloster things only got moderately better. A liberal government got couped and when they were in the process of fighting there way back to the top of the hill, the US Marines came and protected the bad guys. After which elections led to the blind ex-Trujillo puppet Balauger taking over. Balaugher will be President from 1966-1978 and then return to rule as an octogenarian from 1986-1996. His economic record was mixed, he presided over the 70's Dominican miracle and during 1989; when the economy got so bad that lucky people had power for 3 hours a day. But his political record was consistent, he would do anything and everything to be reelected. These took on various manifestations, a coup here, a jailing of opponents there... But I was astonished to see that he had some legitimate popularity as well, and actually was reelected fairly cleanly in 1990. A Dominican told me was incredibly charismatic and a great speech giver.

Moya's book only went up to 1991, and ended on a very pessimistic note, but things might be looking up. Since Balauger left (forced to), they've had 3 legitimate elections and peaceful transfers of power. There's also been high growth lately and the tourist industry is taking off. Still, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're in the clear. During the early 2000's, the peso dropped from 16 to $1US to 60 to $1US and a major bank collapsed b/c of a 3.5 billion peso fraud. Still, as judged from how the nation started, seeing the phrase "peaceful transfer of power" actually written in connection w/ the DR, is a huge improvement.

Questions

1.Is their any Taino blood left?

I guess not. I played amateur ethonographer a lot and made my own conclusions that I could see some Indian in the population, but everyone I spoke to and everything I read said otherwise. There must be some fraction, considering the early Spanish had mixed babies, but their virtual extinction since 1520 might mean they're out of the current gene pool. What I was seeing (if in fact I wasn't just making it up), was probably more likely Hindu, Chinese, or Arab genes that have moved to the DR in small numbers over the years. One Dominican's gave further evidence that the Taino tribe would most look like a tribe that lives today in Venezuala, and he claimed modern Dominicans held no likeness to them.

2. How did the island become split between Spain and France?

This had always interested me. It just seemed odd to me that two colonial powers would share such a, relatively, small piece of land. But it seems the Devastaciones, opened the door for the French to settle and a weakened Spanish couldn't get rid of them. Additionally, I will spare any faithful reader the details (b/c I forgot them), but numerous times one side or the other had the chance to completely take over, but wasn't quite able to. So various circumstances could have led to it being solely French or solely Spanish, but in the end they split it.

3. Why is Haiti so much blacker than the DR?

Easy one, the slaves lopped off the white's heads after they won.

4. Why is Haiti so much poorer?

I was sort of obsessed w/ this question and asked various people it while I was there. The Dominican is not a rich country, but is miles ahead economically than Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The answer I consistently got from people was that when the slaves beheaded the whites they, as 1 Dominican put it, "lopped off their brains". I think the implication here is not to be racist, but to be classist. The slaves, through no fault of their own, were uneducated and unprepared to run a country.

I'm not totally against this theory, and there does seem to be some logic to a slow transfer of power to be better for the infrastructure of a country than a drastic one, but I never fully bought it. And when I started reading about the DR's history, I began to seriously doubt it. The central tenet seems to be that with a more educated elite a country will be run better. Well maybe, but the Dominican Republic is certainly no example of this. I find it hard to imagine thata country could be run worse than the DR was, particularly at the beginning when they supposedly had those educated Spanish to help them.

What seems closer to the truth for me is an explanation I got from a history teacher there. After I questioned his "ruling better" theory, he added that you had to look at the economies. And even as fucked up as the DR's politics were, they had legitimate industries that did not change too much after independence. Haiti, on the otherhand, had to be transformed from a plantation economy based on slave labor. This meant the always tricky "land reform" and/or getting freed slaves to work on plantations for a wage (very few were interested in this). So my argument would be that it wasn't the smarter heads ruling the DR that has made it more successful, but the fact that its economy could continue as was.

5. Why was there government so much more unstable than ours

And perhaps the actual question should be, why has the US government been so remarkably stable. I'm not sure how we compare universally, but it seems like mass political instability might be the rule in the transition to democracy. But the US? No coups, all peacefuly transfers of power, one civil war (albeit a big one)... What gives?

I have 2 hypothesese (is that really how you spell it?). One, not to get all founding father teary eyed, but our first leader really didn't want to stay in power forever. Supposedly, Georgie Porgie had to be convinced for both terms and was happy to step down after. And the fact that he did leave, when he certainly would have been reeelected, supports this. GW did set a precedent of 2 terms and leaving. Much different then say the DR's Santana, who would be president 4 seperate times and set the precedent of hanging on any way possible.

My other hypothesis has to do with the economies. I found it very interesting that the Central DR's diversified economy pushed for a democracy very much like ours. If it hadn't been for the South/East's plantation economy pushing for a strongman, a Constitution ensuring basic rights and a Congress w/ more power would probably have been the case. I believe the US's entire economy fit the Central's diversified one. In the Northeast the merchants had the political power, whereas the South had not become huge plantations yet. Perhaps things would have been very different for our start if we had become a country when the cotton plantations were king in the South.

Oh yah, a third one. The DR was always perpetually scared of Haiti taking them over. Haiti already had and Haiti had more people. Many of the dictators claimed they needed more executive power to deal with this threat. Possibly that is true, but either way it is definitely the case that a populace scared of invasion will always give up more rights.

6. Did anyone read all of this?

I doubt it, but don't really care. Yahoo for me! I finished the book and summarized it!! Yahoo!!!