España Boba or "The Era of Foolish Spain" was a period, from 1809 to 1821, in which the Spanish imperial government exercised only nominal power over its colony in Santo Domingo. To the regret of many colonist writers (Spanish colonists and the Creole elite), for most of its colonial history the Spanish monarchy had given little attention to Santo Domingo.
However, during the second decade of the 19th century the colonial neglect acquired epic proportions. In fact, for all practical purposes, the colony in Santo Domingo during these years (1809–1821) was governed as an afterthought through the more significant Cuban administration.
Cuba, in contrast with Santo Domingo, had ceased to be considered a marginal colony after the brief yet consequential British occupation of 1763. And while in the 19th century Santo Domingo was experiencing a loss of its white planters and landowner class, Cuba was welcoming a larger number of enterprising bourgeois, which fitted well with its increasingly powerful planter class.
The Dominican colonial elite, on the other hand, had suffered substantially from the effects of the Haitian Revolution, and were in a weaker condition than those in Cuba. However, while in Cuba (and even in Puerto Rico) industrial sugar production was expanding and thus demanding a larger number of slaves and with it producing a racially polarized society, in Santo Domingo, during the España Boba, the material gap among social classes was not as marked. In other words, the weaker the colonial power, the less tyrannical it was.
This meant that Cuba had a larger number of slaves and an increasing oppressive colonial system than in Santo Domingo, but what comes out of the Dominican literature of this time is a constant lament, which echoes the insecurities of the ruling elite that had been apparently abandoned by its colonial masters.