Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

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Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
repelled, but the rebellion within Haiti continued, and the
French were forced to withdraw from the island by 1804. In
1809, helped by Britain, Spain regained control of the Dominican
portion of the island. Spain ruled only until 1821, however,
when the Dominican colonists revolted. Independence lasted
just a few weeks before Haiti invaded in 1822. The Dominicans
were not able to expel the Haitian forces until 1844 (see The
Struggle for Formal Sovereignty, ch. 1).
The long-delayed achievement of independence did not
bring peace to the new Dominican Republic, nor did it
improve public order. Political power was extremely decentralized,
and competition among factions of the landowning white
elite produced a level of national disunity that had disastrous
effects on public safety. Although the central government had
established a national army, this force essentially consisted of a
small group of officers who were interested chiefly in personal
enrichment and whose duties were largely ceremonial. The
national army was far outnumbered by armed militias that were
organized and maintained by local caudillos, who had set
themselves up as provincial governors. Using these militias, the
caudillos waged bloody civil wars as they contended for
regional and national power. National political life was characterized
by repeated coups and military uprisings against whichever
caudillo—usually self-promoted to general-officer status
had gathered enough power to seize the presidency.
The continuous civil war, political upheaval, and misrule
that characterized the republic's early years were punctuated by
repeated Haitian attempts to invade. During such periods of
danger, forces larger than the small national army were needed
to defend the country. These forces, hastily raised and poorly
equipped, were essentially conglomerations of regional militias
that had been filled out by poor farmers or landless plantation
workers who had been pressed into service. Once the threat
had subsided and Haitian forces had been repelled, the militias
would return to advancing the cause of particular regional
leaders. The impressed troops would return home, where some
would contribute to the general state of disorder by taking up
banditry.
During its first thirty years of independence, the Dominican
Republic was run directly, or indirectly, by General Pedro Santana
Familias and General Buenaventura Baez Mendez, whose
bitter rivalry was played out in civil wars that resulted in alternating
Santana and Baez regimes (see Ambivalent Sovereignty,
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