Haitian Influence On Dominican Identity

133 Words1 Pages
Haiti, which feed itself from the French in 1804, occupied Santo Domingo until 1822 and in its twenty year occupation had a profound impact on Dominican National Identity. The President of Haiti at the time tried to destroy the Hispanic culture by invoking French as the language of instruction and they took economical actions against the church and the catholic people by taxing them. The Dominicans did everything they could to deny they were like the Haitians, their language, their culture and in some respect their color2. In retaliation of the Haitians the Dominican president at the time, Trujillo, defined the Haitians as racially separate from Dominicans and had thousands of Haitians killed that resided on the border, he even went as far