Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Border Bloodbath
The zenith of the Haiti xenophobia was Trujillo's massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians
in 1937. After hearing reports that Haitian peasants were crossing into the Dominican Re-
public, perhaps to steal cattle, Trujillo ordered all Haitians along the border to be tracked
down and executed. Dominican soldiers used a simple test to separate Haitians from
Dominicans - they would hold up a string of parsley (
perejil
in Spanish) and ask everyone
they encountered to name it. French- and Creole-speaking Haitians could not properly trill
the 'r' and were summarily murdered. Beginning on October 3 and lasting for several days,
at least 15,000 - and some researchers claim as many as 35,000 - Haitians were hacked to
death with machetes, their bodies dumped into the ocean.
Trujillo never openly admitted a massacre had taken place, but in 1938, under interna-
tional pressure, he and Haitian president Sténio Vicente agreed the Dominican Republic
would pay a total of US$750,000 as reparation for Haitians who had been killed (US$50
per person). The Dominican Republic made an initial payment of US$250,000 but it's un-
clear if it ever paid the rest.
Trujillo's titles include Benefactor of the Fatherland, Founder and Supreme Chief of the Partido
Dominicana, Restorer of Financial Independence, First Journalist of the Republic and Doctor
Honoris Causa in the Economic Political Sciences.
