To Overthrow Languages, Uses, and Customs: Rejection of Haiti as a Tool of Dominican Identity Formation on Hispaniola, 1822–44

On April 30, 1843, a speech entitled “The Grace of Action of the All Powerful” was published among the inhabitants of Santo Domingo. Gaspar Hernandez, the author, was a Peruvian priest and staunch Spanish royalist who served his time ministering to Catholics in the region. Santo Domingo, a former Spanish colony was in the midst of integration with its neighbor Haiti, which hit a snag when an island wide insurrection forced Haitian president Jean Pierre Boyer from office. Looking back at the previous two decades, Hernandez expressed that Boyer had “the character of a conqueror” whose principles were “to overthrow language, uses, and customs and to persecute reputed as discontented.” Missing from the priest’s fiery condemnation of Haiti and Boyer was the reality that the inhabitants of Santo Domingo requested to be a part of Haiti, willing to throw in their lot with the first nation established by former slaves and the benefits they received from the Haitian state. This conference paper draws on petitions, pamphlets, correspondences, and declarations to explore the ways in which Dominican elites drew on interpretations of the past to justify their denunciation of Haitian rule. This conference paper argues that some elites in the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo used their understanding of Dominican identity to justify separation from Haiti because it was incompatible with their notions of belonging. Catholicism, Spanish language, and property rights were some examples that Dominican elites used to distinguish themselves and call for separation from the Haitian state.