Purloined Partnerships: Haitian–Dominican Anti-Imperial Activism and Postcolonial Diplomacy, 1927–36

In the past two decades, scholars have identified powerful moments of subaltern Haitian-Dominican cooperation that left only small traces in textual archives. By de-linking Rafael Trujillo’s state-building and anti-Haitianism from the identities of Dominicans, this approach opened new opportunities for exploring alternative ideologies and transnational currents. This paper both depends on and challenges this approach by reconstructing a series of previously ignored, public protests that occurred in Dominican cities among prominent and lettered activists from both countries. Focusing on the post-1924 period when Haiti was still under military occupation and the Dominican Republic had regained independence, I trace the way presidents used international visits to shore up their legitimacy, while activists took advantage of Dominican independence to build transnational protest networks and skirt imperial censorship. In short, both presidents and protestors depended on counterparts on the other side of the border to achieve their goals—up until the eve of the 1937 massacre itself. The paper provides a transnational reading of late- and post-colonial diplomacy and protest while suggesting that Dominican alternatives to anti-Haitianism were longer lasting and more widespread than previously depicted. In the process, it warns against making ontological assumptions about Dominican state-building and anti-Haitian racism, even in the early post-occupation period.