NATIONALIZATION OF DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS

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• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000300250002-2
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• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 18, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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[REPRINTED FROM The Geographical Review, Vol. 70, No. l,-.1anuary 1980]
NATIONALIZATION OF DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS*
JOHN P. AUGELLI
THE borderlands between two emerging states tend historically to be zones of
cultural overlap and political instability where the national identity and loyal-
ties of the people often become blurred. In the absence of a sharply defined in-
ternational boundary and an effective political control by the central governments,
the frontier provides an excellent opportunity for interpenetration and sway.' Border
populations are little concerned with jurisdictional limits; residents work out in-
timate economic and social reciprocity with their neighbors in the adjoining country;
and the ties that bind them to compatriots in their national core areas are often
tenuous. .
These conditions are tolerated only when a state is immature and the power of
the central authority is weak. Ultimately governments tend to pursue strong nation-
alization policies along their territorial borders. The vague frontier zone is replaced
by a sharp boundary line; border people are infused with a marked sense of national
purpose or are supplemented by settlers from the core area of the country. Efforts are
made to integrate the borderlands with the rest of the national territory.' Such poli-
cies and their geopolitical consequences are no longer significant in Europe and An-
glo America where mature states are separated by sharply defined boundaries, but
they are, or may become, important in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
In Latin America, for example, a number of conditions tends to stimulate govern-
ment efforts to nationalize frontiers. With few exceptions, international boundaries in
the region run through sparsely populated' ands well removed from the nuclei of
concentrated settlements that form the national ecumenes or core areas. There are
only four instances where international boundaries pass through heavily settled areas
in Latin America: Venezuela-Colombia between Cilcuta and San Crist?bal; Colom-
bia-Ecuador in the Basin of Tulcan; Peru-Bolivia in the Lake Titicaca Basin; and
Argentina-Brazil along the Uruguay River.' Also with few exceptions, the bounda-
ries seldom separate people of widely contrasting folk or national cultures. In addi-
* I am grateful to all who aided me in carrying out this study, but especially to the Dominican geogra-
pher, Ing. Oscar Cucurullo, to Professors Charles Palmer and Gustavo Antonino at the University of Flor-
ida, and to the University of Kansas for research support.
'For the purpose of this essay, "international boundary" refers to a specific line of demarcation; "frontier"
is a zone of uncertain width lying astride an international boundary; and "borderlands" is considered to
be virtually synonymous with "frontier." A more detailed definition of these and related terms and con-
cepts is available in a variety of works, including Ladis Kristof, The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries,
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 49, 1959, pp. 269-282; Stephen B. Jones, Boundary
Concepts in the Setting of Place and Time, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 49, 1959,
pp. 241-255; and Julian V. Minghi, Boundary Studies in Political Geography, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, Vol. 53, 1963, pp. 407-428.
2 Derwent Whittlesey, The Impress of Effective Central Authority Upon the Landscape, Annals of the Asso-
ciation of American Geographers, Vol. 25, 1935, pp. 85-97.
3 Preston E. James, Latin America: State Patterns and Boundary Problems, in The Changing World (ed-
ited by W. Gordon East and A. E. Moodie; London: George G. Harrap and Co., 1956), p. 893.
? DR. AUGELLI is professor of geography and Latin American studies at the University of
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.
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20 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
tion to Hispaniola, the only other international boundaries that separate national
groups of noteworthy cultural difference run along the borders of Mexico and the
United States, of the Guianas with Brazil and Venezuela, and of Guatemala with Be-
lize.
Many Latin American countries continue to be plagued by boundary disputes
with one or more of their neighbors. Virtually no country has been free of border
problems during this century, and several are still hotly involved in boundary con-
troversies. Among these, for example, are El Salvador and Honduras, Venezuela and
Guyana, Guatemala and Belize, and Ecuador and Peru. There is danger, as illus-
trated by the loss_of Ecuadorian territory to Peru, that a country which neglects a
frontier area too long may lose its de jure claim over the disputed territory to an ag-
gressive neighbor.' Finally adding impetus to the nationalization of frontiers of Latin
America are the emerging sense of nation and nationalism and the tendency of ruling
groups to encourage ferment over border disputes?often in an effort to divert atten-
tion from explosive internal problems.
Perhaps the most obvious example of Latin American frontier nationalization
was the policy implemented by Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican borderlands with
Haiti. Beginning in the mid-1930s and continuing until the dictator's assassination in
1960, the policy proposed to stabilize the boundary and presumably to lessen the ten-
sions of what had been the most volatile frontier in the Americas, to block further
occupation of Dominican territory by Haitians, and to foster a strong sense of na-
tional identity among the people of the Dominican border provinces. The nature of
Trujillo's policy and the extent to which it succeeded in achieving these goals are the
primary concerns of this study. Accordingly an effort will be made to analyze briefly
the background causes of frontier conflict on Hispaniola, to examine the instruments
and the processes employed to achieve nationalization of the Dominican borderland,
to assess the geographical and political impact of the nationalization policy, and, in-
cidentally, to relate the Dominican experience to frontier problems elsewhere in
Latin America.
BACKDROP OF FRONTIER CONFLICT AND INSTABILITY
The oldest and still the most important cause of frontier instability in Hispaniola
stems from the sharp contrasts between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The vast
economic and cultural differences that began between the French and Spanish colo-
nies of Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies continue between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to this day. Currently
the Dominican Republic with a population of approximately five million inhabitants
occupies roughly two-thirds of Hispaniola. The overall population densities of more
than 260 persons per square mile are high compared with countries of continental
Latin America, but comparatively low for the West Indies. Land hunger due to satu-
ration has been less acute historically than in most other Antillean territories such as
Barbados or Haiti. Despite a high degree of latifundismo (large landholdings), until re-
cently only a small percentage of the Dominican peasantry found it necessary to
farm agriculturally marginal lands in areas remote from the two large population
4-Raymond Crist, Politics and Geography, Some Aspects of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces Operative
in Andean America, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 25, 1966, pp. 349-358.
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS 21
clusters in the country?the Cibao east of Santiago and the southern coastal plains.'
In contrast, more than five million Haitians occupy a territory notably smaller than
the Dominican Republic. Much of Haiti is too mountainous, too eroded, or too dry
for rewarding farm production. The country has been characterized as an environ-
mental disaster. Destruction of forests for charcoal and for other uses has resulted in
widespread soil erosion. With overall population densities already more than 500
persons per square mile and with a ratio of four persons per cultivated acre, relatively
heavy settlement has been pushed into the most marginal agricultural areas. The
Haitians have had little choice but to "spread over mountains and plains, wet areas
and dry ones, regardless of conditions."'
Cultural and economic contrasts are equally marked between the two countries.
Most Dominicans are of mixed European and African stock. Percentage breakdown
of the Dominican population by race varies with the criteria used for classification.
Except along sections of the border with Haiti and in some of the sugar lands of the
southern coastal plains, there are very few "pure" blacks. Similarly, except in a lim-
ited number of upper class families and in a few remote zones of the Cordillera Cen-
tral or among recently arrived immigrants, the number of persons of undiluted Euro-
pean stock is small. In round figures, Dominican sources suggest that approximately
25 percent of the total population is white, 12 percent is black, and the remainder
falls into a wide range of mixture between the two. Despite a strong black presence,
the long struggle against the Haitians to preserve national identity has made Domin-
icans fiercely Hispanic and non-African in cultural identification. The Dominican
may be a mulatto or a black racially, but he speaks Spanish, is baptized Roman
Catholic and "thinks white." Like other Latin American peoples, the Dominicans
have felt the need, if not the full impact, of change and modernization. The vast ma-
jority of the Haitians, on the other hand, is racially black and culturally more Afri-
can than European. In cities such as Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien where most of
the mulatto elite live, there is evidence of European influence and of the contempo-
rary world, but there is little in the rural landscape Of Haiti or in the way of life of
most Haitians that suggests European colonization or twentieth-century modern-
ization.
The Dominican economy rests primarily on agriculture but includes a significant
commercial dimension with cattle and the production of sugar, cacao, and coffee on
large estates. Despite a sharp drop in the rate of economic growth after 1960, the Do-
minican per capita income is roughly three times greater than that of the Haitians:
With an economy based largely on subsistence farming of small peasant plots and
with a resource base that is limited, poorly endowed, or exhausted, Haiti is the most
poverty-stricken country in the Americas. In the period between 1955 and 1970, for
example, it is estimated that, because of the wide discrepancy between economic de-
velopment and population growth, annual per capita income of Haiti dropped from
US$77 to US$74.8
Memories of bitter conflicts reinforce the national contrasts between Haiti and
'Robert West and John Augelli, Middle America: Its Lands, and Peoples (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Pren-
tice-Hall, 2nd ed., 1976), pp. 163-166.
6 West and Augelli, footnote 5 above, p. 166.
7 Socio-Economic Progress in Latin America, Tenth Annual Report (Washington, D.C.: Inter-American
Development Bank, 1970), p. 191.
8 Socio-Economic Progress, footnote 7 above, p. 238.
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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
the Dominican Republic. Beginning with the first Haitian invasion of Santo Do-
mingo in 1801, the relations between the two countries became stained with racial
and cultural hatreds that gave rise to repeated, savage bloodletting. Any Dominican,
no matter how illiterate, knows of the Haitian occupation of his country (1822-1844)
and of the countless battles fought a machetazo (with machetes or long knives) without
quarter between his people and their western neighbors. Time has done little to
soften the feelings of fear and hatred that the Dominicans harbor toward Haiti. For
many Haitians the feelings are mutual.
-20?
-19.
-18.
7.1*
72*
H ISPAN IOLA
INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY
--- CURRENT (SINCE 1936)
TREATY OF ARANJUEZ (1777)
HAITIAN UTI UTI POSSIDETIS OF 1874(?)
MILES
7?*
70*
19?-
18*-
FIG. 1?Hispaniola: international boundary changes, 1777-1936.
Inevitably much of this history of conflict swirled around the international
boundary line, periodically unmooring it and casting it further eastward into terri-
tory claimed by the Dominicans. For almost 150 years preceding the 1936 Trujillo-
Vincent agreement that fixed the present line, there was no mutually recognized po-
litical divide between the Dominican Republic and Haiti (Fig. 1). The border be-
tween the two countries was a vaguely defined zone of conflicting territorial claims,
well removed from effective political control by central government authority. Such
conditions tended to favor the more numerous, land-hungry Haitians rather than the
Dominicans. As a result, in the past the Haitians occupied not only their own undis-
puted borderlands but also spilled into territory claimed by the Dominicans. During
much of the nineteenth century, the eastward spread of Haitian settlement was aided
by formal military invasion and occupation. Even when such invasions ceased after
the 1850s, peaceful penetration of Dominican territory by uncounted thousands, of
Haitian settlers continued. An ill-defined boundary, the enormous difference in pop-
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS 23
ulation pressure between the two countries, the instability and weakness of the Do-
minican government that rendered it helpless to control the border regions and to in-
tegrate them with the rest of the country?all these factors contributed to the
eastward march of Haitian people and culture and to the creation of a political
"shatter belt" on Hispaniola.
The first direct cause of frontier dispute in Hispaniola goes back to historical dis-
agreements stemming from the Peace of Ryswick (1697) when the western part of the
island became French and the rest remained Spanish. The boundary between the
two sections was vague, and quarrels between the French and Spanish colonists were
frequent.? The Treaty of Aranjuez (1777) supposedly fixed a permanent boundary
well to the west of the present line, recognizing the communes of Las Caobas,
Hinche, San Rafael, and San Miguel de la Atalaya as undisputed Spanish territory
(Fig. 1). The Aranjuez boundary was soon obliterated, however, when in the Treaty
of Basel (1795) Spain ceded the entire island to France.
To the Haitians who fell heir to the former French colony of St. Domingue
through revolution and independence, the Treaty of Basel provided a claim to the
political indivisibility of Hispaniola. The principle of political indivisibility was
stated by Toussaint L'Ouverture in his 1801 invasion, and it was reaffirmed later by
Desalines and during the Haitian occupation of the former Spanish colony from
1822 to 1844. Even after Haiti abandoned the indivisibility claim after her defeat in
the 1850s, no solution could be found for the establishment of an acceptable bound-
ary line until the 1930s. Through most of the period between 1859 and 1936, the Do-
minicans continued to insist on the Aranjuez line of 1777, while the Haitians based
their claim on uti possidetis and called for a boundary running east of all territory ac-
tually settled by Haitians. The Haitian uti possidetis line was never clearly defined,
but in 1874, for example, it ran to the east of Pedernales River in the south, of Las
Matas de Farfan in the center, and of Guayubin in the north.'? In an effort to find a
solution to the festering frontier question, the Dominican government finally aban-
doned most of its historical claims, accepted the present boundary in the 1936 Tru-
jillo-Vincent agreement, and prepared to insure the future stability of the new fron-
tier.
THE CHALLENGE OF THE BORDERLANDS IN 1936
On prima facie evidence, there seems to be little reason why the boundary estab-
lished by Ale 1936-treaty-should give-rise to further dispute. From north to south the
line winds for 171 miles through some of the least hospitable terrain on the island.
For much of its length the boundary cuts virtually at right angles through the rugged
Cordillera Central and other east-west trending uplands. Where the line passes
through riverine lowlands, such as those of the Dajabon or Massacre, the Pedernales,
and the Artibonite, the climate is arid, making agriculture difficult without irriga-
tion. Nor are minerals or other resources abundant along the boundary.
9 The Geographer, U.S. Department of State, Dominican Republic-Haiti Boundary, International Boundary
Study No. 5, Washington, D.C., 1961, p. 1.
have relied heavily for historical and some contemporary data on M. A. Machado Baez, La domini-
canizacion fronteriza, Vol. 3 of the series, La era de Trujillo (Ciudad Trujillo, 1955). Like other authors in
this series, however, Machado Baez seems more concerned with singing Trujillo's praises than with objec-
tivity.
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24 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
Under these conditions, the Dominican border provinces delimited by the 1936
boundary were a poverty-stricken area of limited population. More important, that
population was often of dubious nationality. Long exposure to Haitian influence and
settlement had gradually eroded the traditional Hispanic character and the Domini-
can national identity from both people and landscape. Part of the population was of
undiluted Haitian stock and culture, while much of the rest were Rayanos, frontier
people representing a blend of both cultural streams who felt as much at home in one
national jurisdiction as in the other. Intermarriage and cohabitation between Hai-
tians and Dominicans had been common, with the result that negritude in the racial
composition of the frontier population had been constantly increasing. The French
patois (creole) of Haiti was as common as Spanish, and Roman Catholicism, always
a badge of Hispanic cultural identity, had been undermined by the importation of
African voodoo rites from the west." Economic patterns had been similarly affected.
Communication with Dominican markets was so limited that the small commercial
surplus of the frontier moved largely toward Haiti; Haitian middlemen were more
common than Dominicans. The Haitian gourde was widely used and accepted as cur-
rency almost as far east as Santiago, and even overseas trade tended to favor Haitian
ports. To complicate matters, lack of political control had reduced the border prov-
inces to centers of lawlessness where contraband moved unmolested and bandit raids
were frequent. Along most of the frontier, the international boundary had never been
delimited, and where it had been marked, nobody paid any attention to it.
The stamp of cultural heterogeneity was equally apparent on the land. The dis-
tinctive Haitian house type constructed of wattle and mud occupied as prominent a
position as the Dominican palm-board structure (Figs. 2 and 3). Dispersed settlement
so typical of Haitian peasantry was more common than the village groupings favored
by Dominicans, and the road net, such as it was, was oriented more to the west than
to the east.
In the face of those conditions and in the fear of further Haitian encroachment,
Trujillo determined on a strong policy of nationalization or "Dominicanization"
along the frontier after the 1936 agreement. As already noted, the basic aims of the
nationalization program were to stamp the Dominican national identity on both
people and land of the frontier provinces, to integrate them politically, economically,
and socially with the rest of the country, to halt further encroachment by the Hai-
tians, and to achieve political stability along the frontier.
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPACT OF TRUJILLO'S NATIONALIZATION POLICY
The Dominican government under Trujillo employed a variety of methods to
achieve nationalization of the borderlands. Among the first was the wholesale ex-
pulsion, often by force, of thousands of Haitians in 1937 and later. Precisely how
many Haitians were expelled or killed at that time is difficult to determine because of
the charges and countercharges of both governments. (Significantly, in 1960 I en-
countered scores of Spanish-speaking refugees in Haiti at places such as d'Osmond,
Grand Bassin, Billiguy, and Saltadere who still longed to return to the Dominican
Republic.) All immigration from Haiti, except for seasonal laborers, was prevented
"The pre-1937 Haitian influence in the Dominican border provinces was not uniform. Thus the town of
Elias Pi?a was mainly Haitian, and creole was the most common language. In contrast, Banica, located
less than twenty miles north of Elias Pi?a, remained basically Dominican with Spanish as the chief lan-
guage.
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DOMINICAN tORDERLANDS
25
FIG. 2?Haitian rural house. Note contrast with Dominican house shown in Fig. 3.
FIG. 3?Dominican rural house.
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26 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
FIG. 4?Dominican frontier church. Roman Catholicism, always a badge of Dominican cultural iden-
tity, was a major instrument of nationalization.
both by strict policing of the border and by discriminatory immigration policies that
discouraged legal entry.
Following the expulsion of the Haitians, the remaining population in the border
provinces was subjected to an intense religious and educational campaign. Because
Dominicans viewed Roman Catholicism as a symbol of their cultural identity, they
recruited the Church to combat the feared effects of Haitian voodoo. The govern-
ment contracted with the Papal Nuncio in Santo Domingo for a special corps of mis-
sionaries to spearhead the eradication of African rites and to reestablish Catholicism
on the frontier. Dozens of new churches and chapels were constructed and main-
tained by the government in every town and at strategic sites in rural areas along the
border (Fig. 4). These functioned as religious frontier posts, roughly comparable to
the Indian missions of the Spanish colonial period. The churches served not only as
centers of Catholic indoctrination but also as propaganda bases for Dominican na-
tionalism.
The classroom became an even more important instrument of Dominicanization
than the church. Between 1936 and 1960, the number of schools in the border prov-
inces increased from fewer than seventy to more than 250, giving the frontier zone
almost the highest ratio of schools to area and population in the entire country.
Equally significant, the compulsory education law was more stringently enforced in
the borderlands than elsewhere; teacher recruitment was more carefully supervised;
and special financial incentives were created to attract qualified personnel. The gov-
ernment also provided free books, lunch, and, in needy cases, free clothing for stu-
dents.
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS 27
These measures went hand-in-hand with the absolute uniformity of content and
rigid government control of the curriculum. Major emphasis was given to the study
of the Spanish language; many schools were equipped with radios to receive propa-
ganda broadcasts- from the capital; and every aspect of education, from the flag-rais-
ing ceremony in the morning; through pictures of Dominican heroes in the class-
room, to sports and music, emphasized patriotic themes.
FIG. 5?Hispaniola: international boundary marker near Dajabbn.
A roughly parallel program was developed for adult education. In theory the aim
was to eliminate the widespread illiteracy among the campesinos (peasants), but in
practice its chief goals were to wipe..away an stains Haitian,influence,and to Los,
ter a strong sense of Dominican nationalism in the population. To these ends, Tru-
jib's government established a select corps of "Frontier Cultural Agents," it ar-
ranged for the free circulation of Dominican newspapers and for recitals by
companies from the University of Santo Domingo, the National School of Fine Arts,
and other cultural organizations; and it used frequent radio broadcasts and mass po-
litical rallies to keep the frontier populations abreast of "every palpitation in the na-
tional life."
Another instrument of nationalization used by Trujillo was the landscape itself.
The international boundary was accurately delimited and marked (Fig. 5). Every ef-
fort was made to sharpen the visible contrast on either side of it. Frontier towns re-
ceived special attention (Figs. 6 and 7). The government lavished millions of dollars
on public construction such as hospitals, schools, political headquarters, military bar-
racks, housing projects, and other structures. Whenever possible, concrete was used as
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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
FIG. 6?Municipal building at Elias Piria. Trujillo lavished large sums of money on public buildings
and parks in Dominican frontier towns.
FIG. 7?Dominican border town of Dajabon, 1960.
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS
29
building material, and the architectural style was always typically Hispanic. Hun-
dreds of houses built of wattle and mud in the Haitian manner were ordered de-
stroyed in towns and rural areas and replaced by houses typically Dominican in ap-
pearance. Dispersed settlement so characteristic of the Haitian countryside across the
border was also discouraged in favor of agglomerated settlements that often devel-
oped ribbon-like along the highways.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
FRONTIER COLONIES
1958
? Active
0 Deactivated
...P.-Traditional invasion routes
miles
FIG. 8?Dominican frontier colonies in 1958. Note concentration astride traditional invasion routes
from Haiti.
Isolation, an important factor in orienting the frontier to Haiti, was overcome by
the construction of an excellent network of highways that connected the border re-
gion with the Dominican core areas in the Cibao and the southern coastal plain. As a
result, no settlement was more than a few hours by motor vehicle-from-the capital.
The new transportation facilities were not only instrumental in the transformation of
the landscape and in the economic and political integration of the border, but also,
one suspects, they were planned to facilitate military reinforcements to the region, if
necessary.
Efforts were made to increase the total population of the border region and to
hasten the economic development of the frontier. Various means were employed to
achieve these goals, but chief among them was the agricultural colony (Fig. 8). At
first colonization made use of military and penal personnel and their dependents, but
these measures proved insufficient, and a much broader program of colonization was
undertaken. A strip of land ten kilometers wide parallel to the international bound-
ary was set aside for settlement, and as of 1960, numerous settlements had been es-
tablished. Significantly most of these were concentrated astride the traditional in-
vasion routes from Haiti. The importance that was attached to the colonization
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30 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
scheme may be judged from the liberal inducements of the government-aid program.
Settlers were given land, houses, tools, work animals, and cash subsidies, as well as
liberal tax exemption. In addition, because much of the frontier is subhumid to semi-
arid, the government constructed numerous irrigation works that began to change
the economy of much of the region from grazing and marginal farming to more in-
tensive agriculture.'2
DOMINICAN BORDER PROVINCES
1935-1950
BARAHONA
.c?&.,
MONTE CRISTI ???7...4!?.T? PLATA
(???,....: ".....
",....
..?s, ' N...
...'
.
(J(, L. /
JP SANTIAGO
i ..\ : (
r ) -\"-
?
BENEFACTOR/I1\
?
c ',," t ,
0
??11 . ? ) x AZUA 4.,..'
?????? .-4-,....
? ," 6 (.. BAHORUCO "):1 N?..
IP ''` . s 1 ... 0
' f 4
',_ CIA ? '
(N.N\ .. .(?
?-... -.)
"Ni
BARAHONA
0 Provincial Capital
S udy area
miles
50
km
50
FIG. 9?Changes in size, nomenclature, and capitals of Dominican border provinces between 1935 and
1950.
Still another step taken in the nationalization drive was to reduce the size and to
increase the administrative efficiency of the Dominican provinces bordering on Haiti.
In 1935 the Dominican frontier zone was included in three large provinces (Azua,
Barahona, and Monte Cristi) whose capitals were removed from the border both by
distance and by economic interests (Fig. 9). The administrative center of Azua was
more than seventy miles from the international boundary, and that of Barahona was
only slightly less. The provincial capital of Monte Cristi was closer to the border, but
its northern coastal location and orientation made it little concerned with the west-
ern frontier. By 1950 three new, substantially smaller and more manageable border
12 Thirty-seven of the 111 irrigation projects completed between 1937 and 1960 were located within
twenty miles of the Haitian border. These frontier projects irrigated more than 100,000 acres of land.
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS
31
FIG. 10?Haitian frontier village, 1960. Note contrast with Dominican border settlement shown in Fig.
11.
FIG. 1 1?Dominican border settlement, 1960.
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FRONTIER ZONE:
SETTLEMENT AND POPULATION
International Boundary
Urban Centers
? 500-1000
? 1000-2000
? 2000-3000
? More than 3000
* Major Garrisons
Population Density Per Square Mile
771 Les; than 60
tiEL-7-f.1 60 - 120
6122._.1 120-250
11111111111111111
Over 250
10 20
Miles
19t
I at.
FIG. 12
FRONTIER ZONE:
SETTLEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION
Fort libe
Cap Haitian
International Boundary
Urban C enters
? 500-1000
? 1000-2000
? 2000-3000
El More than 3000
* Major Garrisons
All-Weother Roads
Paved (First Class)
tmit Paved (Second Class)
-- Unpaved
71??0.
0 10 20
Miles
19.1
10??
FIG. 13
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DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS 33
provinces had been established, and in each case the town designated as provincial
capital was at or near the international boundary. In addition the place names were
changed to conform to the spirit of nationalism. The new frontier units and adjacent
provinces were christened with names such as "Independencia," "Libertador," and
"Benefactor." Hundreds of public buildings and dozens of settlements were given the
names of Dominican patriots, famous battles, and other symbols of national sugges-
tion.
Finally capping and insuring the "national look" of the frontier was a strong mili-
tary and police establishment. Virtually every settlement in the region had its garri-
son, and every approach from Haiti was closely guarded. At first the border prov-
inces were under the direct administration of military governors. Civilian governors
later became the rule, but they continued to work in close coordination with the mili-
tary commanders of the zone.
My reconnaissance in 1960 revealed that Trujillo's policy had transformed the
frontier into a showcase of Dominican progress and national identity that none could
mistake for the Haitian patterns across the border. The international boundary be-
tween the two countries was consciously honed into one of the sharpest political and
cultural divides in the world. This was abundantly apparent to the geographer at-
tuned to landscape changes (Figs. 10 and 11). To elaborate on a few of the more im-
portant contrasts, the Dominican sector of the frontier zone was far more urbanized
than the Haitian, both as to settlement and function (Fig. 12). In addition to garrison
and administrative roles, the Dominican border towns functioned as service centers
for rural areas that produced rice, peanuts, vegetables, and other cash crops. Con-
trast was apparent in the density and the quality of the all-weather road network
(Fig. 13). On the Haitian side, there was not a single, paved highway. In fact, the
only stretch of paved road was a small section of the international highway that
edged into Haiti, and even that was built by the Dominicans. Although the Domini-
can border population increased fairly rapidly in the period between 1935 and 1960,
it was still well below that of the Haitian frontier zone. In 1950 Donald Dyer placed
the total population of the border communes at 75,000 on the Dominican side of the
boundary and 250,000 on the Haitian side." By 1960 the Dominican total stood at
125,000, while estimates for the Haitian communes indicated approximately 390,000
people.
These and other visible contrasts that placed the Dominican Republic in a more
favorable light vis-?is Haiti served nationalization well. By constantly emphasizing
the superiority of Hispanic cultural tradition and Dominican symbolism and by
sharpening landscape contrasts along the border, Trujillo's policy of nationalization
helped to destroy Haitian influence on the frontier. The Dominican peasants, even
those who were obviously black, came to feel ashamed of any association that
smacked of Haitian origin. Patois was no longer spoken, at least not in public; the
practice of voodoo became a crime; and public denunciation of the Haitian con-
nection became a duty.
To all intents and purposes the nationalization policy created a closed frontier
between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Trade across the international bound-
ary, which under any circumstances would be small, was all but nonexistent. Al-
'3 Donald R. Dyer, Distribution of Population on Hispaniola, Economic Geography, Vol. 30, 1954, pp. 337-
346.
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34 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
though the seasonal importation of Haitian labor, which was cheaper than Domini-
can workers, continued, the movement was subject to stringent regulations. There
was virtually no other legal movement of people across the boundary.
DOMINICAN POSTMORTEMS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR LATIN AMERICA
By making use of his absolute political power, by spending large sums of money,
and by playing on the traditional fear and hatred that Dominicans habored for Hai-
tians, Trujillo was able to achieve at least a few of his nationalization goals. There is
little doubt that his policy successfully intensified the Dominican national identity
and effectively integrated the borderlands with the Dominican core areas. But Tru-
jillo's policies did not erase the conditions that had helped to make the Dominican-
Haitian frontier a historical zone of violent confrontation. On the eve of the dicta-
tor's death, the emphasis of the contrast between the two border zones, the closing of
the border to the movement of people and commerce, and the intensification of Do-
minican national consciousness under his nationalization policy may have actually
exacerbated the political tension and the potential instability of the borderland on
Hispaniola.
Developments since 1960 raise still further doubt concerning the effectiveness of
the nationalization effort. The political turmoil touched off by Trujillo's death down-
graded the importance of the frontier. The power struggle in Santo Domingo and
Santiago siphoned some of the military strength guarding the frontier. In the late
1970s the Dominican military presence along the frontier was still conspicuous, but
less so than at the height of Trujillo's regime. Although there was no wholesale exo-
dus from the border provinces, the rate of Dominican population growth was sharply
reduced. With reduced government subsidies and supervision, some of the settlers in
the agricultural colonies left for the cities or elsewhere. Among the departing were
Japanese immigrants who had established themselves at the town of Pedernales and
near Monte Cristi. The special cadres of teachers, missionaries, and other resource
personnel were disbanded; the frontier schools are now considered the "Siberia" of
the Dominican school system. Only the least competent or the problematic teachers
are assigned to the schools of the area. Showcase border towns, such as Elias Pi?a
and Dajabon, lost much of their luster as governmental concern for the frontier
waned. In a letter to me dated June 16, 1976, Dr. Charles Palmer said of Elias
"it now has the appearance of having seen much better days. The sewer and water
systems malfunction, sidewalks are in poor,repair, public buildings are run down. In
short, it is not at all the model border town of the Trujillo era."
Even more important in the context of the aims of Trujillo's nationalization pol-
icy, the population pressure from the west is again being felt in the Dominican bor-
der provinces. There is evidence that Haitian "wetbacks," taking advantage of de-
creased surveillance, are again moving into Dominican territory. Some of this
movement is seasonal and legal, coinciding with the zafra, or cane-harvesting season,
in the Dominican Republic. In addition to the thousands of legally contracted Hai-
tian laborers who are brought in to work for the sugar mills, there are many more
illegal migrant workers who simply across the border in search of work. Many Do-
minican farmers along the border rely on Haitian workers who are paid approxi-
mately 50 cents a day. Even the gardens of Dominican military officers stationed
along the frontier are often tilled by Haitian workers.
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io
DOMINICAN BORDERLANDS 35
As a result of this renewed penetration from Haiti, the Haitian house that Tru-
jillo declared illegal is again seen in the Dominican landscape. In at least some part
of the Dominican border provinces, such as the mountains south of Elias Filth., an in-
creasing number of people speak Spanish with a Haitian accent, and the Dominican
frontier provinces are again becoming a zone of cultural overlap.
Significantly, despite the renewed Haitian penetrations, there was an actual eas-
ing of tension along the Dominican border after Trujillo. Normal trade and tourism
between the Dominican Republic and Haiti were resumed in l972.' Although the
Dominican government is not expending large sums on public buildings, garrison
towns, the frontier schools and churches, it is pushing ahead with economic develop-
ment of the frontier, especially by the construction of irrigation works and hydro-
electric production-plants. Equally significant were the efforts of the Haitian and
Dominican governments to cooperate in frontier irrigation projects.
Although the Dominican experience is unique in many respects, it suggests at
least three lessons that may have potential application in other Latin American fron-
tier situations. First, the precise delimitation of international boundaries may be de-
sirable, but intense nationalization policies of frontiers is not the answer to ease fric-
tion in border regions. On the contrary, by intensifying national consciousness such
policies contribute to the intensification of political tension and to possible instability
along frontiers.
Second, when there is a substantial difference in population pressure and living
standards between two adjoining countries, it is all but impossible to block the flow
of legal and illegal migrants from the higher population pressure to the lower. If the
Dominican model is valid, no frontier can be made completely impermeable to the
penetration of people driven by poverty and hunger. Nor is large-scale explusion of
illegal aliens the answer. Third, perhaps the most effective approach to ease frontier
tensions is through cooperative rather than adverse relationships between national
governments. Cooperative ventures such as road construction, irrigation works, elec-
trification schemes, and other joint programs that will benefit people on both sides of
the border may ultimately cost less and achieve more than nationalization.
" Pedro M. Casals Victoria, El comercio entre Haiti y la Repablica Dominicana, Eme Eme, Vol. 1, 1973,
pp. 57-66.
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