It’s no secret that Haitians were responsible for the abundance of work on the island. Haitians worked on the cane fields in the Dominican Republic, they also joined the Jamaicans on the sugar estates in Cuba. It is important to note that the Dominican Republic was actually the first site of sugarcane cultivation although it did not last past the sixteenth century. A hierarchy of sorts existed on the island placing those of darker complexion on the bottom. Slaves that were accustomed to the climate and way of the island were valued more, as expected. Those that were born on the island also earned a place above African slaves due to lighter complexion and being more aesthetically pleasing. Different tasks were allotted to those with different abilities; Haitians would be found working in the fields whereas more creolized persons would hold domestic tasks. Certain persons were also responsible for hunting and gathering food; particularly persons stolen from Guinea.

            In essence, a system of governance was put into place that would establish various liberties. Slaves had a degree of freedom, or the inverse of the probability of coercive limitation in daily life of many rights less often interfered with among free men. It is evident that slaves responsible for hunting were allowed to carry weapons and enjoyed fair treatment because of their job status. Those in the field however, had to bear the greatest burden because they worked the longest in the harshest conditions, in addition to having the most basic of necessities to retire to at the end of a long day. Codes were put in place to dictate the treatment and punishment; in most cases death was warranted but for misdemeanors, there were more gruesome torture methods.

           

It’s ironic how the most elite people were the ones that were subjected to the worst conditions. West Africa’s resource lacking environment accounted for a durable biological makeup, and they were more adapted to surviving in the tropics than Europeans. Africans were the immunological elite in the Caribbean; their ancestors endured a plethora of nutritional deficiencies and diseases. Sickle-cell anemia was a mutation that specifically resisted Malaria. Yellow fever and Malaria wiped out a great deal of Europeans because their bodies weren’t adapted to withstand these diseases. Also, slaves being born with the sickle-cell mutation were valued more because of their ability to withstand disease and also being native to the island.

            One may ask, why weren’t there more successful revolts? Europeans did a fairly good job of preventing slaves from gathering and conspiring. They were not allowed to gather, even for weddings. They didn’t have access to armaments that would’ve allowed them to overpower their masters. The link between plantations was removed in order to prevent an uprising. Haitians were eventually successful in revolting and achieving emancipation, not to say it was short lived, but years later Trujillo led a massacre of about 15,000 Haitians. The uprising led to a serious problem of migratory labor, emancipation was enjoyed for about a century, which led to freed slaves migrating to the Dominican Republic.

            Europeans were unable to use indigenous peoples for coerced agricultural labor, so Africans were imported. They found that sugar production was poor in Santo Domingo and was short lived but thanks to the Columbian exchange, they were able to focus on the cultivation of livestock. However the French made a lot of profit from sugar production in Saint Dominique and followed a very brutal system of slavery.

            Although the island was shared between France and Spain, the two had very different systems. The French were entirely more brutal and profit based whereas the Spanish realized sugar wasn’t working and shifted their focus elsewhere; also their treatment of slaves was far more humane.

La Rebelion de Esclavos de Haiti. by Torcuato S. Di Tella; The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History. by Kenneth F. Kiple;Sugar is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of la Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba. by Robert L. Paquette; Sugar and Modern Slavery: A Tale of Two Countries. by Roger Plant; Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. by Edward Reynolds; Narrative of a Five-Year Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam.by John Gabriel Stedman; Richard Price; Sally Price; British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams. by Barbara L. Solow; Stanley L. EngermanReview by: Laird W. BergadLatin American Research Review Vol. 25, No. 3 (1990), pp. 199-213

Published by: The Latin American Studies Association

Politics, Foreign Trade and Economic Development: A Study of the Dominican Republic. by Claudio Vedovato; The Dominican Republic: Politics and Development in an Unsovereign State. by Jan Knippers BlackReview by: Cary Hector and Alain GillesLatin American Perspectives Vol. 17, No. 4, Guatemala, Debt, and Drugs (Autumn, 1990), pp. 110-118Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.