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Afro-Dominicans (also referred to as African Dominicans or Black Dominicans; ) are Dominicans of predominant or total Sub-Saharan African (Black African) ancestry. They are a minority in the country representing 7.5% or 642,018 of the population, according to the 2022 census.
In a previous estimate they were 7.8% of the Dominican Republic's population according to a survey published in 2021 by the United Nations Population Fund. About 4.0% of the people surveyed claim an Cocolo background, while only 0.2% acknowledged Haitian descent. Currently there are many black illegal immigrants from Haiti, who are not included within the Afro-Dominican demographics as they are not legal citizens of the nation.
The first black people in the island were brought by European colonists as indentured workers from Spain and Portugal known as Black Ladino. When the Spanish Crown outlawed the enslavement of Natives in the island with the Laws of Burgos, slaves from West Africa and Central Africa were imported from the 16th to 18th centuries due to labor demands. However, with the decline of the sugar industry in the colony the importation of slaves decreased, leading to a rise in free blacks, which eventually became the majority within the Afro-Dominican demographic by the late 1700s. Many of these Africans eventually intermixed with the Europeans, Mestizos, and Natives creating a triracial culture.
In the 19th and 20th centuries Cocolo from the French and British West Indies, as well as the Samana Americans came to the island and settled in coastal regions increasing the black population. The Afro-Dominican population can now be found in most parts of the country, from coastal areas such as San Cristobal and San Pedro de Macoris to deep inland areas such as Cotui and Monte Plata.
There is a lack of recent official data because the National Office of Statistics (ONE) has not released racial data since 1960, though the Central Electoral Board collected racial data until 2014. The 1996 electoral roll put the figures of "black" at 8.6% and "mulatto" at 52.8% of the adult population. The 1960 population census (the last one in which race was queried) placed it at 8.8%. According to a 2011 survey by Latinobarómetro, "The Adventure Guide to the Dominican Republic" the black population is estimated to be 35% of the Dominican population.
In 1521, the first major slave rebellion was led by 20 Senegalese Muslims of Wolof people origin, in an ingenio (sugar factory) east of the Santo Domingo colony. Many of the insurgents fled to the mountains and established what would become the first autonomous African Maroon community in America. With the success of this revolt, slave revolts continued and leaders emerged among the African slaves, such as Sebastían Lemba. This also included people already baptized Christian by the Spanish, as was the case of Juan Vaquero, Diego de Guzmán and Diego del Ocampo. The rebellions and subsequent escapes led to the establishment of African communities in the southwest, north and east of the island, including the first communities of African ex-slaves in western Hispaniola that was Spanish administered until 1697, when it was sold to France and became Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti). This caused some concern among slaveholders and contributed to the Spanish emigration to other places. Even as sugarcane increased profitability in the island, the number of escaped Africans continued to rise, mixing with Taíno people of these regions, and by 1530, Maroon bands were considered dangerous to the Spanish colonists, who traveled in large armed groups outside the plantations and left the mountainous regions to the Maroons.
With the discovery of precious metals in South America, the Spanish abandoned their migration to the island of Hispaniola to emigrate to South America and New Spain in order to get rich, for they did not find much wealth there. Thus, they also abandoned the slave trade to the island, which led to the collapse of the colony into poverty. Still, during those years, slaves were used to build a cathedral that in time became the oldest in the Americas. They built the monastery, first hospital and the Alcázar de Colón, and the Puerta de las Lamentaciones (). In the 1540s, Spanish authorities ordered the African slaves building a wall to defend the city from attacks by pirates who ravaged the islands.
After 1700, with the arrival of new Spanish colonists, the Atlantic slave trade resumed. However, as industry moved from sugar to livestock, racial and caste divisions became less important, eventually leading to a blend of cultures—Spanish, African, and indigenous—which would form the basis of national identity for Dominicans. It is estimated that the population of the colony in 1777 was 400,000, of which 100,000 were Europeans and Criollo people, 60,000 African, 100.000 mestizo, 60,000 zambo and 100,000 mulatto.
In 1801, Louverture seized the colony from France and Abolitionism, freeing about 40,000 enslaved persons, and prompting much of the Planter class of that part of the island to flee to Cuba and Puerto Rico. After he was deposed in 1802, the French officials reasserted its domain in Santo Domingo, although slavery still remained prohibited. Some time after this, another slave revolt erupted, but was once again suppressed.
Simultaneously, Jean-Louis Ferrand rounded his troops to engage in slave raiding along the border. This action would infuriate and spark the wrath of Haiti's self proclaimed emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Realizing Ferrand's intention to restore slavery, Dessalines ordered an invasion of Santo Domingo in February 1805. He managed to reach the capital, but it was protected by a large wall, built back in 1540s by the Dominican slaves, thereby preventing Dessalines from laying his siege on the capital. However, after learning of a French ship believed to be heading towards Haiti to attack the country, Dessalines called off his invasion, and retreated through the Cibao, setting entire municipalities on fire, slaughtering many civilians he encountered, and committed numerous atrocities with no regards to race, sex or age. It is said that while Dessalines essentially targeted white and mixed-race residents, he extended his order to anyone not based on color or race, but by "sentiment." As a result, many black residents (both free and enslaved) fell victim to the Haitian army. In addition, both black and mixed-race Dominicans were prohibited from leaving the island. In a church of Moca, two young black girls, Maria and Nicolasa de Medina, were able to survive the massacre, but had to witness the horrors of their entire family be put to death by the invading army. From each city attacked, citizens were taken captive and forced to accompany the army back to Haiti, with many of them dying of hunger. Haitian soldiers raped the young girls and women, with some forced to serve as sex slaves. Upon their arrival in Haitian territory, these prisoners were either massacred in the streets, or forced on plantations. This massacre came to be known as the Beheadings of Moca.
In 1809, the French government was toppled by the Criollo people leader, Juan Sánchez Ramírez. However, slavery was re-established when the Spanish recovered the colony that same year. This caused discontent among the black population.
In 1812, when the ruling Spanish government refused to abolish slavery and grant Spanish citizenship to free blacks, a conspiracy erupted. This ended in failure and its leaders, José Leocadio, Pedro de Seda, and Pedro Henríquez, (all of whom were free blacks), were executed. Some nine years later, in 1821, the Spanish was overthrow in a revolt, this time led by José Núñez de Cáceres, who renamed the independent nation as the Republic of Spanish Haiti. Tensions arose in the government, of which the topic of slavery was among the most divisive. Núñez de Cáceres, although he Manumission, refused to abolish it in the new nation. Slavery remained intact until 1822, when it was again abolished by the mulatto Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer, during the unification of Hispaniola which began in February of that year. However, he maintained a system of indentured servitude, the Code Rural, on the newly-emancipated Dominican slaves.
In 1824, African American free negro began to arrive under the Haitian administered island, benefiting from the favorable pro-African immigration policy of Boyer since 1822, called the Haitian emigration. Called the Samaná Americans, they mostly settled in Puerto Plata Province and the Samaná Peninsula regions.
In 1838, the liberal leader Juan Pablo Duarte established the Trinitario movement. Duarte, a strong advocate for racial unity, sought to establish a nation that guaranteed equal rights to all Dominicans irrespective of race and color. Despite these principles, Duarte still had to endure the early distrustful sentiments from the black and mixed raced populations. From their perspective, they considered the Trinitarios as a white supremacist organization because it was composed strictly of white middle class Dominican men, and thus, initially refused to support them. However, at the suggestion of Jose Díaz, Duarte's uncle, he suggested reaching out to prominent black leaders to gain the confidence of the people and help make the movement a reality. Los Puellos Many Afro-Dominicans such as Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, José Joaquín Puello, Gabino Puello, Manuel Mora, Elías Piña, María Trinidad Sánchez and Petronila Gaú would go on to play key roles in the struggle for independence.
However, following the proclamation of Dominican independence in 1844, fears of the return of slavery still accumulated amongst many Black soldiers, especially those who had been former slaves prior to 1822. Such was the case when Santiago Basora, leader of the "African Battalion" of the Liberation Army, led a revolt on the dawning hours of February 28, 1844. After this, the abolition of slavery was announced through a decree by the new government. (This would be reinforced through another decree by the Central Government Board chaired by Pedro Santana). After 1844, black laborers from the British West Indies were imported to work in the sugar plantations on the east of the island. (Their descendants are known today by the name of ).
Over the next 20 years, the First Dominican Republic was ravaged with political instability as a result of authoritarian regimes, specifically under the dominiance of prominent cuadillo leaders such as Buenaventura Báez and Pedro Santana. Although both were periodically in competition with the other for power, both had plans to give the country's independence back to a European power. In the early 1860s, Santana, backed by the Creole elite, secured a deal with Spain to revert the Dominican Republic back to colonial status. The annexation also found support from Afro-Dominicans, including well-distinguished politicians and military leaders who had fought in the Dominican War of Independence (1844–56). These included Juan Suero and Eusebio Puello. The former would later gain fame in the Spanish Army and was referred as El Cid Negro (The Black Cid), and the latter, (the brother of fallen black activists José Joaquin Puello and Gabino Puello), left the island for Cuba, where he, still as a Spanish general, participated several campaigns to suppress the insurrection led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in the Ten Years' War.
However, discontent soon followed and revolts to overthrow the regime began to take erupt. During the Dominican Restoration War (1863–65), in what started as a peasants rebellion, Afro-Dominicans who feared the return of slavery would play a central role in revolution. The war was characterized the first time where Black patriots united behind the rebellion to restore Dominican independence, and in the meantime, served in prominent positions of the revolutionary government and as high ranking military commanders. Some examples included José Cabrera, Marcos Evangelista Adón, Juan Nouesí, Felipe Mañón, and Eutimio Mambí.
Although politics remained unstable after the war, a dictatorship under Ulises Heureaux, had begun in 1882. His regime was marked by its dependency of foreign loans and corruption, which plagued the Dominican economy until his assassination in 1899.
The province with the highest proportion of blacks was San Pedro de Macorís with 40%, with half of those being of foreign origin. The provinces with the most immigrants were Monte Cristi and San Pedro de Macorís, with 11,256 and 10,145 foreigners, mostly from Haiti (97%) in the first province, and from the West Indies (56%), Haiti (20%) and Puerto Rico (17%), in the case of the latter. Proportionately, foreigners represented 26.3% of the population of San Pedro de Macorís and 16.8% of the population of Monte Cristi.
The towns with the highest proportion of blacks were Restauración with 74%, followed by La Victoria, and Villa Mella; those with the lowest proportion of blacks were Monción with only 4%, and Constanza, Altamira and Jarabacoa with 8% each. The towns with the highest proportion of Multiracial were Constanza and Monción, with 73% and 71% percent, respectively; the towns with the lowest proportion of mestizos were Villa Rivas and Pimentel with 9% each. The towns with the highest proportion of White Dominicans was Pimentel with 73%, followed by Castillo, Gaspar Hernández, La Peña, Villa Rivas, San José de las Matas, Jánico, Esperanza, Baní and Santiago.
Based on these records, the majority of African slaves were: Wolof people (captured from Senegal), Fon people, Ewe people, and Aja people (collectively called Ararás in Santo Domingo and captured from Dahomey & Allada, current Benin), Igbo people and Ibibio people (from the Bight of Biafra, modern-day eastern Nigeria), Yoruba people (from the Oyo Empire, modern-day western Nigeria), Akan people (from the Gold Coast, modern-day Ghana), Ambundu (from the Kingdom of Ndongo, in north Angola), Bakongo (from the Kingdom of Kongo, in northern Angola), Bran (originating from Brong-Ahafo Region, west from Ghana), Fulbe people, Kalabari tribe (originating from slave port from Calabar, in Nigeria), Terranova (slaves bought probably in Porto-Novo, Benin), Zape (originating from Sierra Leone), Bambara people and Biafada people (this latter was originating from Guinea-Bissau) people.
The Wolof were kidnapped to Santo Domingo from Senegal in the first half of the sixteenth century, until the kidnapping of this ethnic group was prohibited after his rebellion in 1522. Many of the slaves were also Ajas, usually taken in Whydah, Benin. The Ajas arrived in Santo Domingo, were well known for having made religious Fraternity, integrated exclusively for them, the San Cosme and San Damian.Esteban Deive, Carlos (September 5, 1977). Revista Ahora. Num. 721.
Black (, colloq. Moreno) has historically been a part of the official racial classification system of the Dominican Republic. The census bureau decided to not use racial classification beginning with the 1970 census. The Dominican identity card (issued by the Junta Central Electoral) used to categorize people as yellow, white, Indian, and black. In 2011 the Junta planned to replace Indian with mulatto in a new ID card with biometric data that was under development, but in 2014 when it released the new ID card, it decided to just drop racial categorization, the old ID card expired on 10 January 2015. The Ministry of Public Works and Communications uses racial classification in the driver's license, the categories used being white, mestizo, mulatto, black, and yellow.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) does not collect racial data since the Census of 1960. In that census, the ethnic features were obtained by direct observation of the people registered by the enumerator, without any questions asked. About 73% of the population was classified as mestizo (note that in the 1920, 1935, 1950 and 1960 censuses referred to mixed-race people as mestizo or mulatto), 16% was classified as white, and 11% was classified as black (1,795,000 of people).Fuente: Encuesta Latin American Public Opinion Project, LAPOP, The Dominican Republic is one of the few countries in Latin America where the majority of the population is made up of of predominately European and descent, with a lesser degree of Amerindian admixture.
[[File:Evolution of the Dominican Republic's genetic make-up.jpg|thumb|Timeline of the Dominican Republic's genepool showing a predominantly European-admixed founder population, and an increase of the African population over time. During most of the colonial period, the share of each ancestry group was as follows: 71% European, 10% Native, 19% African. After the 19th-century Haitian and Afro-Caribbean migrations the ratio changed to: 57% European, 8% Native and 35% African.
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There are also many Afro-communities that descend from post-colonial migrations, most notably the Samaná Americans and . Samaná Americans from the Samaná Peninsula, are descendants, of freed slaves from the United States, who entered the country in 1824 when it was under Haitian rule, because of the favorable pro-African immigration policy of Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer, constitute the most sizable group of native English speakers in the Dominican Republic. Aware of its distinctive heritage, the community, whose singular culture distinguishes them from the rest of Dominicans, refers to itself as Samaná Americans, and is referred to by fellow Dominicans as "los americanos de Samaná". Another Afro-group is the called Cocolo, descendants of those who came to the island from the English-speaking islands in the eastern Caribbean to work in the sugar plantations in the eastern part of the island between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they have formed communities in San Pedro de Macorís and La Romana. Its largest population of Afro-people are of Haitian origin, which is also the largest immigrant community in the country and is numbered according to some estimates, to be more than 800,000 people.
The 1920 Census registered 8,305 West Indians born abroad (they and their descendants are known as ) and 28,258 Haitians; the 1935 Census registered almost 9,272 West Indians and 52,657 Haitians. The Haitian population decreased to 18,772 in the 1950 Census, as an aftermath of the Parsley Massacre.
Dominicans of Haitian ancestry live scattered across the country, however, communities in the border provinces of Elías Piña and Independence where they predominate among the population, highlighting the presence of European football fields, a very popular sport in Haiti.
Geographic distribution of blacks in the country is often tied to history. Higher concentrations of Afro Dominicans, descended from African slaves bought to colonial Santo Domingo, are in the southeast plain, because that is where most of the slaves were in the Spanish side of the island, around Monte Plata, El Seibo, and Hato Mayor etc. This same region is where there is a high concentration of Haitian immigrants, working on sugarcane bateyes (plantations). Cocolos, blacks descended from immigrants from other Caribbean islands, especially the Lesser Antilles nations, often settled San Pedro and La Romana. Blacks descended from relocated American slaves, mostly settled Samana and Puerto Plata. Haitian immigrants also have a big presence in places with a lot of construction and tourist activity, larger cities and tourist towns like Punta Cana, as well as in the border region.
This dance derives, according to research by the folklorist Fradique Lizardo, several Dominican popular rhythms. One of the most widespread is the Música de palos (Music of sticks), name that designates both the pace and the membranophones used. National Rhythms with obvious African imprint are sarandunga, Música de Gagá (Ganga's music, arrived from Haiti), Baile de Palos (dance of Sticks), Música de Congos (Music of Congos), Cantos de Hacha (Songs of axe), los congos, la jaiba (the crab), el chenche matriculado (the chenche enrolled), etc. The salve, which in the words of the U.S. ethnomusicologist Martha Davis, is the most typical of the traditional Dominican genres, has two styles: one distinctly Spanish, amétrico and antiphonal, and another polyrhythmic, strongly hybridized between the Spanish and African styles. Among African instruments are the los palos (the sticks), balsié, and the gallumba.
It is important to also mark other musical instruments Dominicans of African origin such as the Palo mayor (mainmast), the canoita, los timbales (present in the bachata, also called bongos), and the tambora (Key instrument in the merengue music, the Dominican national dance). Historia Dominicana. Conferencia: "La discriminación de la cultura africana en la música dominicana" (Dominican History. "Discrimination of African culture in the Dominican music"). Wrote by Alejandro Paulino. General Archive of the Nation, 25 November 2010.
For his part, the Bachata is a hybrid of the bolero (especially the bolero rhythm) of the Dominican Republic with other musical influences of African origin and other musical styles like the son, the merengue and the chachachá. Buenas tareas (Good tasks)
On the other hand, there are also music genres Dominican widespread across the country, whose origin is uncertain, being considered of Spanish and African origin, depending on musicologists and historians. Such is the case of the merengue music. So, Luis Alberti, one of the musicians considered as fathers of merengue, thinks that the roots of this music genre are purely Spanish. F. Lizardo, Dominican folklorist, by contrast, thinks that this origin is in the Bara tribe of Madagascar, who came to the island in the eighteenth century and brought a dance called merengue that has spread throughout the Caribbean. A very similar pace, adds Lizardo, arrived today with the Yoruba of Dahomey. In the African polyrhythm was also the merengue. Also often linked to the origin of merengue a dance called URPA or UPA, a native of Havana and arrived in the Dominican Republic between 1838 and 1849. The dance sailed through the Caribbean coming to Puerto Rico where he was well received. One of the movements of this dance is called merengue which apparently is the way selected to call the dance, and came to the Dominican Republic where he evolved into the genre of merengue. However, the Cuban UPA is also a dance whose origin appears to be in West Africa. In fact, in early ls, despite its rise among the masses, the upper class did not accept the merengue for long, because apparently, their connection with African music. Another cause that weighed on the repudiation and attacks the merengue were literary texts that accompany it, usually risqué. Opinión sobre el merengue (Opinion on the merengue). Retrieved 21 March 2013.
Dominican folk music is intimately tied to religious culture, and interpreted primarily in the fiesta de santos (party of saints), also known, according to the area of the country, as velaciones (vigils), velas (candles) o noches de vela (sleepless nights). Other popular rhythms are of Spanish origin, such as the mangulina and the carabiné.
Funeral rites contain many features of African descent that are shared with other American countries. A typical example is the baquiní o velorio del angelito.
Another institution of mutual aid, of African origin, is revolving credit system that goes by the name of St. corresponding to esusu and Yoruba. As in Nigeria and other parts of Afro America, the San is composed preferably female. It consists, as is well known, in the establishment of a common fund to which each participant's San, contributes with a sum monthly or weekly. Each partner receives, on a rotating basis, the total value of the box, starting with the organized.
Some Dominican cuisine and dishes containing some products of African origin. Among the former are the guandul, the ñame and the funde. Typical African dishes seem to be the mangú, prepared with green plantains and derivatives cocola kitchen, the fungí and the calalú. A common drink among the black slaves was the guarapo, made of sugar cane juice.
According to census reports the majority, 73% identify as "Mestizo" or "Indio", Mestizo meaning mixed race of any type of mix, unlike in other countries of the Americas countries where it denotes solely a European and Indigenous mix, and Indio slang for mulatto in Dominican Republic. Most Dominicans acknowledge their obvious Mulatto racial mix, oftentimes with slight Taino admixture along with the already heavy African and European. However, even though the majority of Dominicans recognize their mixed race background, many Dominicans often think "less" of their African side in comparison to the European and even much smaller Taino. Many Dominicans (men and women) often prefer lighter romantic partners because of the more European features and to " Mejorar la raza" (better the race) in regards to starting a family.
Due to the influence of European colonization and the propagation of Africans or "darker people" as being of the lowest caste, having African ancestry is often not desired in the Dominican Republic, which can also be said of many other parts of the Americas America and even the United States, where African American men often prefer "lightskinned" mixed Mulatto looking women, as well as Africa and the Caribbean, where blacks often bleach their skin. Approximately 80% of Dominicans are of mixed racial ancestry and few people self-identify as being black. In Dominican Republic, racial categories differ significantly from that in North America. In the United States, the one-drop rule applies in such that if a person has any degree of African blood in them they are considered black. Which is seen as inaccurate from people in the Dominican Republic and many other countries in the Americas countries, as have just as much European ancestry as African. In other countries of the Americas there is more flexibility in how people racially categorize themselves. In the Dominican Republic a person who has some degree of black ancestry can identify as non-black if appearance wise they can pass of as being another racial category or is racially ambiguous.
Socio-economic status also heavily influences race classification in the country and tends to be correlated with whiteness. In the Dominican Republic, those of higher social status tend to be predominately of a lighter color tone as are often labeled as 'blanco/a', 'trigueño/a', or 'indio/a', while poorer people tend to be 'moreno/a', 'negro/a, or 'prieto/a', the latter category being heavily associated with Haitian migrants. Ramona Hernández, director of the Dominican Studies Institute at City College of New York asserts that the terms were originally a defense against racism: "During the Trujillo regime, people who had dark skin were rejected, so they created their own mechanism to fight against the rejection".
19th century
Given the relative ease of manumission for enslaved Africans, some fugitive African slaves from Saint-Domingue, the western French colony of the island fled east to Santo Domingo and formed communities such as San Lorenzo de Los Mina, which is currently part of the "city" of Santo Domingo. (A second group of Haitian slaves was later imported to build the French colonial enclave Puerto Napoleon in Samana). Fugitives arrived from other parts of the West Indies as well, especially from the various islands of the Lesser Antilles. Francisco del Rosario Sánchez One of the Padres de la Patria / Fathers of the Patriotism – Colonial Zone-Dominican Republic (DR) – Retrieved 3 November 2012. Meanwhile, by this point, Free Negro had consisted the majority of Afro-descendant Dominicans, who enjoyed some degree of social and political freedom in Santo Domingo. However, slavery remained legal, and remnants of colonial prejudices still persisted in Dominican society. These would become the underlying issues during the future struggles for Dominican independence until the 1840s.
By the late 1780s, free people of color in the island were inspired by the French Revolution to seek an expansion of their rights, while also involving enslaved Africans to fight for their cause. Despite adhering to European royalist political views, Toussaint Louverture, the primary figure of what would become the Haitian Revolution, used the language of freedom and equality associated with the French Revolution.James, pp.125–126 From being willing to bargain for better conditions of slavery late in 1791, he had become committed to its complete abolition.Bell, pp.86–87; James, p.107 Inspired by Louverture's call for freedom and equality, which caused the Spanish to look with disfavor on his control of a strategically important region,Bell, pp.92–95 both free and enslaved blacks in Santo Domingo sought to continue their fight for freedom in the colony. These would transpire into a series of slave revolts to bring about that began in 1795, which would intensify following the Treaty of Basel, which led to the cession of Santo Domingo to France that same year. Over the next five years, slave insurrection persisted in Santo Domingo, the most impactful of the revolts being the 1796 Boca de Nigua slave revolt, which greatly weakened the effects of slavery in Santo Domingo.
20th century
In 1920 the United States conducted a census in the country during its military occupation. The country was divided into 12 provinces and 63 cities and towns. The most populated Dominican province was Santo Domingo with 146,652 inhabitants, and the least populated was Samaná with 16,915 inhabitants. The most populated city was Santiago with 72,150 inhabitants, followed by La Vega with 58,466 and the capital city of Santo Domingo with 45,007 inhabitants; the least populated city was El Jovero (now Miches) with only 1,692 inhabitants.
Origins of the slaves
The slave trade involved nearly all of Africa's west coast inhabitants to be forcibly taken to the new world.
Demographics
Census
25.37% 11.47% 10.89% 7.45% Source: Dominican census
Geographic distribution
Though, African ancestry is common throughout the Dominican Republic, today it is more prevalent in eastern areas such as San Pedro de Macorís, La Romana, and the Samaná Peninsula, as well as along the Haitian border, particularly the southern parts of the border region; it is least prevalent in the Cibao Valley (especially within the Central Sierra region), and to a lesser extent, in some rural communities in El Seibo and La Altagracia provinces, and the western half of the National District as well. However, in the 19th and early 20th century, African ancestry was higher in the southwestern region than in the eastern region, due to the impact of the Afro-Antillean and Haitian immigration during the 20th century.
Genetics
Cultural contributions
African cultural remnants seen in the Dominican Republic in many different aspects, including music, dance, magic-religious beliefs, cuisine, economy, entertainment, motor habits, and language.
Music
Perhaps the greatest influence of enslaved Africans is observed in music and dance. Such influence comes from the dances, that, like the calenda, practiced in the Dominican Republic, as elsewhere in America, from the early years of slavery. We must Father Labat, who toured the West Indies in the eighteenth century, a fairly thorough calenda.
Fashion
The first Afro-Dominican models featured on the cover of Vogue Mexico are Licett Morillo, Manuela Sánchez, Annibelis Baez and Ambar Cristal Zarzuela for the September 2019 edition.
Religion
Although most black Dominicans are Catholic Church, Protestants make up 21.3% of the population. Atypical magical-religious beliefs are practice among some black Dominicans. The most characteristic feature is the Dominican Vudú, which relates directly to the magical activity but it's generally considered taboo in mainstream Dominican society.
Institutions and cuisine
The economic field include various institutions of mutual aid, existing both in the fields and in the cities. In rural areas, these institutions are in the form of groups of farmers who come together to collaborate on certain agricultural tasks such as planting, clearing of forests, land preparation, etc. Are called juntas (boards) o convites and have similar characteristics to Haitian combite closely related to the dokpwe of the Fon people of Dahomey. These tasks are accompanied by songs and musical instruments that serve as encouragement and coordination at work. All board members are required to reciprocate the assistance and collaboration in the work of others. After the day is a festival that is the responsibility of the landowner.
Buildings
African slaves were forced to build a cathedral that in time became the oldest in America. They built their monastery, first hospital and the Alcázar de Colón. In the 1540s, the Spanish authorities ordered the African slaves to build a wall to defend the city from attacks by pirates who ravaged the islands. They also built the Puerta de las Lamentaciones (Gate of wailing).
Racial discrimination and consciousness
As in most parts of the Americas the idea of black inferiority compared to the white race has been historically propagated due to the subjugation of African slaves. In the Dominican Republic, "blackness" is often associated with Haitian migrants and a lower class status. Those who possess more African-like phenotypic features are often victims of discrimination, and are seen as illegal foreigners. The Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, who governed between 1930 and 1961, tenaciously promoted an anti-Haitian sentiment and used racial persecution and nationalistic fervor against Haitian migrants. An envoy of the UN in October 2007 found that there was racism against blacks in general, and particularly against Haitians, which proliferate in every segment of Dominican society. The ebook, Spirals in the Caribbean : representing violence and connection in Haiti and the Dominican Republic by Sophie Maríñez, explores the colonial and imperial legacies of violence in the Caribbean through a new interpretive framework, taking as central material the literature, history, and cultural productions of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic and making several fundamental arguments. Maríñez, Sophie. Spirals in the Caribbean : Representing Violence and Connection in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/montclair/detail.action?docID=30746999.
Haitian diaspora
Haitians represent the largest minority of black foreigners in the country. Historically, the two Hispaniolan nations have had a strained relationship over political, economic and cultural topics. In contemporary times, the Dominican Republic has faced numerous accusations of human rights violations by several international organizations.
Notable people
See also
Notes
External links
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