Confronting Black Jacobins

Confronting Black Jacobins
Author: Gerald Horne
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2015-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1583675620

The Haitian Revolution, the product of the first successful slave revolt, was truly world-historic in its impact. When Haiti declared independence in 1804, the leading powers—France, Great Britain, and Spain—suffered an ignominious defeat and the New World was remade. The island revolution also had a profound impact on Haiti’s mainland neighbor, the United States. Inspiring the enslaved and partisans of emancipation while striking terror throughout the Southern slaveocracy, it propelled the fledgling nation one step closer to civil war. Gerald Horne’s path breaking new work explores the complex and often fraught relationship between the United States and the island of Hispaniola. Giving particular attention to the responses of African Americans, Horne surveys the reaction in the United States to the revolutionary process in the nation that became Haiti, the splitting of the island in 1844, which led to the formation of the Dominican Republic, and the failed attempt by the United States to annex both in the 1870s. Drawing upon a rich collection of archival and other primary source materials, Horne deftly weaves together a disparate array of voices—world leaders and diplomats, slaveholders, white abolitionists, and the freedom fighters he terms Black Jacobins. Horne at once illuminates the tangled conflicts of the colonial powers, the commercial interests and imperial ambitions of U.S. elites, and the brutality and tenacity of the American slaveholding class, while never losing sight of the freedom struggles of Africans both on the island and on the mainland, which sought the fulfillment of the emancipatory promise of 18th century republicanism.

The Dominican Republic and the Beginning of a Revolutionary Cycle in the Spanish Caribbean

The Dominican Republic and the Beginning of a Revolutionary Cycle in the Spanish Caribbean
Author: Luis Alvarez López
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2009-07-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0761847146

In this book, _lvarez-L-pez details the history of revolution in the Dominican Republic, which was an infant independent nation struggling to preserve its political independence from Haiti and from the expansionist policies of northern European countries and the United States. In 1861, the Dominican Republic was annexed to Spain. The Spanish empire expansionist policy sought to preserve Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the acquisition of the Dominican Republic strengthened Spain's hold on the Antilles Empire. Spain's policies strengthened the political objectives of the Dominican ruling class, which were political stability and control of the political power under a Caucasian empire. While both these objectives were achieved, the new colonial experiment was a total failure. The exclusion of the native ruling class, over taxation, economic exploitation, coercive imposition of the Catholic Church customs, prejudice against blacks and mulattos led to war, ending with the defeat of the Spanish Empire. This defeat opened a revolutionary cycle in the Spanish Caribbean.

We Dream Together

We Dream Together
Author: Anne Eller
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-11-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0822373769

In We Dream Together Anne Eller breaks with dominant narratives of conflict between the Dominican Republic and Haiti by tracing the complicated history of Dominican emancipation and independence between 1822 and 1865. Eller moves beyond the small body of writing by Dominican elites that often narrates Dominican nationhood to craft inclusive, popular histories of identity, community, and freedom, summoning sources that range from trial records and consul reports to poetry and song. Rethinking Dominican relationships with their communities, the national project, and the greater Caribbean, Eller shows how popular anticolonial resistance was anchored in a rich and complex political culture. Haitians and Dominicans fostered a common commitment to Caribbean freedom, the abolition of slavery, and popular democracy, often well beyond the reach of the state. By showing how the island's political roots are deeply entwined, and by contextualizing this history within the wider Atlantic world, Eller demonstrates the centrality of Dominican anticolonial struggles for understanding independence and emancipation throughout the Caribbean and the Americas.

The Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution
Author: Toussaint L'Ouverture
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2019-11-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1788736575

Toussaint L’Ouverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth century, in which slaves rebelled against their masters and established the first black republic. In this collection of his writings and speeches, former Haitian politician Jean-Bertrand Aristide demonstrates L’Ouverture’s profound contribution to the struggle for equality.

Modernity Disavowed

Modernity Disavowed
Author: Sibylle Fischer
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2004-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822332909

DIVA study of the ways that knowledge of the slave revolt in Haiti was denied/repressed/disavowed within the network of slave-owning states and plantation societies of the New World, and the effects and meaning of this disavowal./div

In the Time of the Butterflies

In the Time of the Butterflies
Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-01-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616200995

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com

Why the Cocks Fight

Why the Cocks Fight
Author: Michele Wucker
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1466867884

Like two roosters in a fighting arena, Haiti and the Dominican Republic are encircled by barriers of geography and poverty. They co-inhabit the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, but their histories are as deeply divided as their cultures: one French-speaking and black, one Spanish-speaking and mulatto. Yet, despite their antagonism, the two countries share a national symbol in the rooster--and a fundamental activity and favorite sport in the cockfight. In this book, Michele Wucker asks: "If the symbols that dominate a culture accurately express a nation's character, what kind of a country draws so heavily on images of cockfighting and roosters, birds bred to be aggressive? What does it mean when not one but two countries that are neighbors choose these symbols? Why do the cocks fight, and why do humans watch and glorify them?" Wucker studies the cockfight ritual in considerable detail, focusing as much on the customs and histories of these two nations as on their contemporary lifestyles and politics. Her well-cited and comprehensive volume also explores the relations of each nation toward the United States, which twice invaded both Haiti (in 1915 and 1994) and the Dominican Republic (in 1916 and 1965) during the twentieth century. Just as the owners of gamecocks contrive battles between their birds as a way of playing out human conflicts, Wucker argues, Haitian and Dominican leaders often stir up nationalist disputes and exaggerate their cultural and racial differences as a way of deflecting other kinds of turmoil. Thus Why the Cocks Fight highlights the factors in Caribbean history that still affect Hispaniola today, including the often contradictory policies of the U.S.

Intervention in the Caribbean

Intervention in the Caribbean
Author: General Bruce PalmerJr.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2014-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813150027

The 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic remains a unique event: the only time the Organization of American States has intervened with force on a member state's territory. It is also a classic example of a U.S. military operation that drew in America's hemispheric allies. Finally, its outcome was that rare feat in the annals of diplomacy—a peaceful political settlement of a civil war. Here for the first time is the full story of that action, as told by one of its leading participants. General Palmer was the U.S. Army's operations chief in Washington in April 1965 when the Dominican crisis broke, and was placed in command of U.S. forces deployed to the Republic. His perspective thus reflects both the perceptions of Washington officials and those of the U.S. commander on the scene. Palmer's instructions from President Johnson were to prevent another Cuba. Although the intervention remains controversial today, especially with Latin Americans, it was successful both politically and militarily, bringing unprecedented stability to the long-troubled Dominican Republic. The lesson Palmer draws is that success in such a venture comes only when political and military actions are orchestrated toward a common political goal. Palmer concludes with an assessment of the current situation in the broader Caribbean area, including a comparison of the 1965 Dominican and 1983 Grenadian interventions, and an analysis of the situation in Panama with its implications for the Canal Treaty. His book is a timely contribution to the history of the Caribbean that enlarges our understanding of this region's vital importance to the United States.

The Dominican Republic and the United States

The Dominican Republic and the United States
Author: G. Pope Atkins
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820319315

This study of the political, economic, and sociocultural relationship between the Dominican Republic and the United States follows its evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the mid-1990s. It deals with the interplay of these dimensions from each country's perspective and in both private and public interactions. From the U.S. viewpoint, important issues include interpretation of the rise and fall of the Dominican Republic's strategic importance, the legacy of military intervention and occupation, the problem of Dominican dictatorship and instability, and vacillating U.S. efforts to "democratize" the country. From the Dominican perspective, the essential themes involve foreign policies adopted from a position of relative weakness, ambivalent love-hate views toward the United States, emphasis on economic interests and the movement of Dominicans between the two countries, international political isolation, the adversarial relationship with neighboring Haiti, and the legacy of dictatorship and the uneven evolution of a Dominican-style democratic system. The Dominican Republic and the United States is the eleventh book in The United States and the Americas series, volumes suitable for classroom use.