Parsley Massacre

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In October of 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina ordered the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands with Haiti. The violence resulted in the killing of 17,000 to 35,000 Haitian civilians over a span of approximately five days.[1] This would later become known as the Parsley Massacre[1] due to the test Trujillo had his soldiers apply to determine if those living on the border were native Dominicans who spoke Spanish fluently. The soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley and ask "What is this?" Those that could not properly pronounce the word "perejil" were assumed to be Haitian.[2] Within the Dominican Republic itself however it is known as El Corte ("the cutting"). [3]

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[edit] Events

Trujillo, a proponent of antihaitianismo, had made his intentions for the Haitian community clear in a short speech given at a dance held in his honor on October 2, 1937 in Dajabón, stating:

“ For some months, I have traveled and traversed the frontier in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated, and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, ‘I will fix this.’ And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now dead in Bánica. This remedy will continue.[4] ”

Trujillo’s actions were reportedly in response to information regarding Haitians stealing cattle and crops from Dominican residents of the borderlands; therefore, the annihilation of an estimated 17,000 to 35,000 [1] living within the Dominican border was clearly a direct order of Trujillo. For approximately five days, from October 2, 1937 through October 8, 1937, Haitians were cut down with machetes, clubs and knives by Dominican troops, civilians and local political authorities or “alcaldes pedáneos”, some while trying to flee to Haiti by crossing the Rio Artibonito, which has often been the site of bloody conflict between the two nations.[5] Dominican military personnel directly misled fleeing Haitians by telling them they were being deported, however, after being taken to a secluded location the Haitians were murdered.[6] To further bolster the death toll, the main bridge between the Dominican Republic and Haiti was closed, preventing Haitians from fleeing the country. The Parsley Massacre, however, was motivated by Trujillo’s desire to firmly establish a clear border separating the two nations. He also wanted to exercise more political and economic control of the farthest regions of the country, from the rural border lands, to the center of the nation. In the eyes of Trujillo the presence of Haitian immigrants in Dominican borderlands, which were largely disconnected from Dominican urban life, prohibited the formation of clear political, cultural and social boundaries. It ultimately weakened his attempts to establish an authoritarian regime.[citation needed]

[edit] Contributing factors

In order to understand the factors that led to the Parsley Massacre, one must understand the ethnic, cultural and economic differences between the two nations which have their roots in the 17th and 18th century and have continued into the period under investigation. The Dominican Republic, the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, resides on the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola and occupies two-thirds of the islands land while having just five-million inhabitants.[7] In contrast Haiti, the former French colony of Saint Domingue, residing on the western portion of the island occupies the remaining one-third of the land mass, is very heavily settled with an estimated “500 persons per square mile.”[8] This has resulted in many Haitians being forced to settle lands that were “too mountainous, too eroded or too dry for rewarding farm production.” However, instead of staying on lands that were doomed to fail in their crop yield many Haitians began to migrate onto Dominican soil where land hunger was low and where there was enough land to allow for individuals to avoid farming unproductive land. While Haitians benefited by gaining farm land, Dominicans in the borderlands subsisted mostly on agriculture and benefited from the ease of exchange of goods with Haitian markets. Due to inadequate roadways connecting the borderlands to major cities, “communication with Dominican markets was so limited that the small commercial surplus of the frontier slowly moved toward Haiti.”[9]

This posed a possible threat to Trujillo’s regime because of long standing border disputes between the two nations; if large numbers of Haitian immigrants began to occupy the less densely populated Dominican borderlands, the Haitian government may make a case to claim part of the land of the Dominican Republic. Additionally, loose borders allowed for contraband to pass freely and without taxes between nations thus depriving the Dominican Republic of viable revenue. Further, the Dominican government saw the loose borderlands as a liability in terms of the formation of revolutionary groups that could flee across the border with ease while at the same time amassing both weapons and followers.[10]

[edit] Repercussions

Despite attempts to place blame on Dominican citizens, it has been confirmed by U.S. sources that "bullets from Krag rifles were found in Haitian bodies," and only Dominican soldiers had access to this type of rifle.”[11] Therefore, the Haitian Massacre which is still referred to as “el corte (the cutting) by Dominicans and as kouto-a (the stabbing) by Haitians,” was a calculated action on the part of Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina to homogenize the furthest stretches of the country in order to bring the region into the social, political and economic fold.[12] In doing so, however, the lives of tens of thousands of ethnic Haitians were sacrificed. Of these a majority were born in the Dominican Republic and belonged to well-established Haitian communities within the borderlands, thus making them citizens.[13] In the end, Haiti's President Vincent, sought reparations of $750,000 of which only $525,000 were ever paid and Trujillo began to develop the borderlands to more closely link them with urban areas.[14] These areas were modernized with the addition of state of the art hospitals, schools, political headquarters, military barracks and housing projects as well as a highway to connect the borderlands to major cities. Additionally, after 1937, quotas restricted the number of Haitians permitted to enter the Dominican Republic and a strict and often discriminatory border policy was enacted; Haitians continued to be deported and killed in southern frontier regions while at the same time refugees had died of exposure, malaria and influenza.[15]

[edit] Summary of Events

[edit] Endnotes

  1. ^ a b Forrest, Dave. The Dominican Dictator: Rafael Trujillo. James Logan High School. Retrieved on 2007-05-29.
  2. ^ McLaughlin, John J. (September 2006). The shadow of Trujillo.. VIEWPOINT - racism fuels political violence in Dominican Republic. National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved on 2007-12-22.
  3. ^ Wucker, Michele. The River Massacre: The Real and Imagined Borders of Hispaniola. Windows on Haiti. Retrieved on 2007-12-16.
  4. ^ Richard Lee Turtis, “A World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed: The 1937 Haitian Massacre in the Dominican Republic,” Hispanic American Historical Review 82, no. 3 (2002): 613.
  5. ^ Turtis, 590.
  6. ^ Turtis, 606.
  7. ^ John P. Augelli, “Nationalization of Dominican Borderlands,” Geographical Review 70, no. 1 (Jan., 1980): 21.
  8. ^ Augelli, 21.
  9. ^ Augelli, 24.
  10. ^ Turtis, 600.
  11. ^ Valentina Peguero, The Militarization of Culture in the Dominican Republic: From the Captains General to General Trujillo (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 114.
  12. ^ Turtis, 590.
  13. ^ Lauren Derby, “Haitians, Magic, and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands, 1900 to 1937," Comparative Studies in Society and History 36, no. 3 (July, 1994): 508. Derby continues to explain: “This point is important because, by the Dominican constitution, all those born on Dominican soil are Dominican. If this population was primarily migrants, then they were Haitians, thus making it easier to justify their slaughter. However, our findings indicate that they were legally Dominicans, ever if culturally defined as Haitians, since they were of Haitian origin.” Derby, 508.
  14. ^ Turtis, 623.
  15. ^ Eric Paul Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 132.

[edit] See also