Ugly history: The 1937 Haitian Massacre - Edward Paulino

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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. But two months before the Rape of Nanking in China, and a year before Kristallnacht in Germany, a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign occurred on an island between the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Edward Paulino details the 1937 Haitian Massacre.

Lesson by Edward Paulino, animation by Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat.

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,

the Rape of Nanking in China,

and Kristallnacht in Germany,

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

to toil in profitable sugar plantations.

By 1777, the island had become divided

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.

But the new nation paid dearly,

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.

In the years following World War I,

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.

Despite being a quarter Haitian himself,

Trujillo saw the presence of a bicultural
Haitian and Dominican borderland

as both a threat to his power

and an escape route
for political revolutionaries.

In a chilling speech on October 2, 1937,

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,

acting on Trujillo’s orders,

murdered thousands of Haitian men
and women,

and even their Dominican-born children.

The military targeted black Haitians,

even though many Dominicans themselves
were also dark-skinned.

Some accounts say that to distinguish
the residents

of one country from the other,

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.

So if people struggled to say perejil,

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,

while bodies were thrown in ravines,

dumped in rivers,

or burned to dispose of the evidence.

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

is absolutely devoid of Haitians.

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.

Eventually, the Dominican government

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

but due to corrupt bureaucracy,

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

between the two countries.

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.