Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: Historical Setting
On February 27, 1844—thereafter celebrated as Dominican
Independence Day—the rebels seized the Ozama fortress in
the capital. The Haitian garrison, taken by surprise and apparently
betrayed by at least one of its sentries, retired in disarray.
Within two days, all Haitian officials had departed Santo Domingo.
Mella headed the provisional governing junta of the
new Dominican Republic. Duarte returned to his country on
March 14, and on the following day entered the capital amidst
great adulation and celebration. However, the optimism generated
by revolutionary triumph would eventually give way to the
more prosaic realities of the struggle for power.
Ambivalent Sovereignty, Caudillo Rule, and Political
Instability
The decades following independence from Haiti were
marked by complex interactions among Dominican governing
groups, opposition movements, Haitian authorities, and representatives
of France, Britain, Spain, and the United States.
Duarte and the liberal merchants who had led the initial independence
effort were soon swept out of office and into exile,
and the independent tobacco growers and merchants of the
northern Cibao valley, who tended to favor national independence,
were unable to consolidate control of the center. Government
revolved largely around a small number of caudillo
strongmen, particularly Pedro Santana Familias and Buenaventura
Baez Mendez (allies who became rivals), and their
intrigues involving foreign powers in defense against Haiti and
for personal gain. All these factors meant that neither a coherent
central state nor a strong sense of nationhood could
develop during this period.
The Infant Republic, 1844-61
Santana's power base lay in the military forces mustered to
defend the infant republic against Haitian retaliation. Duarte,
briefly a member of the governing junta, for a time commanded
an armed force as well. However, the governing junta
trusted the military judgment of Santana over that of Duarte,
and he was replaced with General Jose Maria Imbert. Duarte
assumed the post of governor of the Cibao, the northern farming
region administered from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros,
commonly known as Santiago. In July 1844, Mella and a
throng of other Duarte supporters in Santiago urged him to
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