Name: Ugly history: The 1937 Haitian Massacre - Edward Paulino
Uploaded: 2019-10-16T11:23:03.000Z
Duration: 5 min 40 s
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When historians talk about  the atrocities of the 20th century,

we often think of those that took place during and between the two World Wars.

Along with the Armenian genocide  in modern-day Turkey,

another horrific ethnic cleansing campaign

occurred on an island between  the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

The roots of this conflict  go back to 1492,

when Christopher Columbus stumbled  onto the Caribbean island

that would come to be named Hispaniola, launching a wave of European colonization.

The island's Taíno natives were decimated  by violence and disease

and the Europeans imported large numbers of enslaved Africans

between a French-controlled West  and a Spanish-controlled East.

A mass slave revolt won Haiti  its independence from France in 1804

and it became the world's  first black republic.

shut out of the world economy and  saddled with debt by its former masters.

Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic  would declare independence

by first overthrowing Haitian rule  of eastern Hispaniola

and later Spanish  and American colonialism.

Despite the long and collaborative history shared by these two countries,

many Dominican elites saw Haiti  as a racial threat

that imperiled political and commercial relations with white western nations.

the United States occupied  both parts of the island.

It did so to secure its power  in the Western hemisphere

by destroying local opposition  and installing US-friendly governments.

The brutal and racist nature  of the US occupation,

particularly along the remote Dominican-Haitian border,

laid the foundation for bigger atrocities  after its withdrawal.

In 1930, liberal Dominican president  Horacio Vásquez

was overthrown by the chief of his army,  Rafael Trujillo.

Trujillo saw the presence of a bicultural  Haitian and Dominican borderland

and an escape route  for political revolutionaries.

he left no doubt about his intentions  for the region.

Claiming to be protecting Dominican farmers from theft and incursion,

Trujillo announced the killing  of 300 Haitians along the border

and promised that this so-called "remedy"  would continue.

Over the next few weeks,  the Dominican military,

murdered thousands of Haitian men  and women,

even though many Dominicans themselves  were also dark-skinned.

Some accounts say that to distinguish the residents

the killers forced their victims  to say the Spanish word for parsley.

Dominicans pronounce it perejil,  with a trilled Spanish "r."

The primary Haitian language, however, is Kreyol, which doesn't use a trilled r.

they were judged to be Haitian  and immediately killed.

Yet recent scholarship suggests  that tests like this

weren't the sole factor used to determine who would be murdered,

especially because many of the border  residents were bilingual.

The Dominican government censored any news of the massacre,

This is why no one knows exactly  how many people were murdered,

though contemporary estimates  range from about 4,000 to 15,000.

Yet the extent of the carnage  was clear to many observers.

As the US Ambassador to  the Dominican Republic at the time noted,

“The entire northwest of the frontier on the Dajabón side

Those not slain either fled across the frontier or are still hiding in the bush.”

The government tried  to disclaim responsibility

and blame the killings  on vigilante civilians,

but Trujillo was condemned  internationally.

was forced to pay only $525,000  in reparations to Haiti,

barely any of these funds reached  survivors or their families.

Neither Trujillo nor anyone  in his government

was ever punished for this crime  against humanity.

The legacy of the massacre remains  a source of tension

Activists on both sides of the border  have tried to heal the wounds of the past.

But the Dominican state has done little,  if anything,

to officially commemorate  the massacre or its victims.

Meanwhile, the memory of the Haitian massacre remains a chilling reminder

of how power-hungry leaders can manipulate people

into turning against  their lifelong neighbors.

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Ugly history: The 1937 Haitian Massacre - Edward Paulino

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