I thought Anne Eller brilliantly argued her case for a revised Dominican history and historiography, if not the history of Hispaniola, in her book. It is not only impressive that she chose to write about the popular alliances between Dominicans and Haitians in order to defeat the Spanish recolonization, but she did so with a bottom-up approach that was difficult at a time when the "lettered cities" in both Santiago and Santo Domingo attempted to shape Dominican nationhood and popular opinion in their fashion. After all, those lettered cities did not completely fail, since contemporary perception about the Hispaniola divide is that Haitians and Dominicans have been at each other's throats since the end of Hispaniola unification in 1844. But Eller points to that attempt at cultural and racial distinction between either side of the island as an elite construction that hid Dominican and Haitian trade connections, cultural connections, and military alliances for the sake of geopolitical reputation. I am quite interested to see further inquiries into the relationship between the Haitian and Dominican popular classes in the late 19th century, as the literature about Dominican history heavily skews towards the Trujillo dictatorship.
This was another book that brought to light the differences between the ideas of the elites and the common people that I hadn't understood before reading.
Rafael and others: you might take a look at Richard Turits's article "A World Destroyed, a Nation Opposed," which tries to recreate the border region using oral histories.
I literally just read "A World Destroyed, a Nation Opposed" by Turits for my English class wit Professor Foley. Reading both this book and that essay in the same week was difficult in terms of framing a perspective on this weeks reading. Know that there was this essay basically asserting that the development of anti-Haitian sentiment was the project of the bourgeoisie liberal elites of the Dominican Republic juxtaposed with this popular movement for independence which was led by liberal elites in many ways, was in a word confusing. However, at the same time the essay [provided more context for the ideology around race on Hispaniola.
Again, I had no idea the history of the tension between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I always assumed the issue was the tension between Spain and France as imperial rivals. Eller’s explanation here that these tensions did not arise from the inherent differences in the colonial powers but that these tensions are a manufactured false narrative are fascinating. Her documentation of the real fears of what is now the Dominican Republic being returned to a site of enslavement being the bond that brought Haitian forces to help the Dominicans fight for freedom is fascinating, given that it seems like such a small island to be fighting. Given the current anti-Haitian climate in the Dominican Republic, this book offers insight into how the current thinking in the Dominican Republic is hard to justify. If, as Ellers argues, the Haitians came to the other side of the island to help the Dominicans fight for their survival, and some stayed, it seems difficult to draw clear lines of demarcation between who is Haitian and who is Dominican. I had never stopped to analyze the way racism functions here, and that the myth of a pure European Dominican bloodline was contributing to it. It never occurred to me that the Dominicans were claiming a European “whiteness” to differentiate themselves from the Haitians. I would have liked to see more here about the role of women in these contexts, but perhaps the source material doesn’t exist from the 1800s to write deeply about women. A look at the intersection of gender and race would have also helped me better conceptualize the relationships between the groups. I found the way Ellers renamed time periods to help guide the reader through her argument and to challenge the way we use language shaping our perceptions was an interesting move. While I often read historiographies that change the timelines of analysis, I found this particularly useful and thoughtful, both in reflecting the author’s thinking and in helping me reconsider my own thinking. I did not come to this book with a lot of knowledge that would have contradicted her language, though, and can only speculate on how this is received by those who are used to a more traditional timeline. Her renaming the border region as the center of the island is also an interesting way to force people to consider the island as a whole rather than to focus on the fictional divisions of politics on a landscape.
I agree with you about wanting to see more about women's roles during this time period, and I was especially interested to read about how revolutionary women spread messages and disrupted Spanish authority (p. 157). Later on in the chapter, Eller also brings up interesting primary source information about how some women in loyalist towns were harassed or faced with legal consequences (even death in one case) for their lack of subscribing to the Spanish Catholic way of life. Spanish were upset by women leaving their homes alone, dancing with men inappropriately, or cohabiting with a man while unmarried (p. 168-9). Even though these men were apparently white and Spanish, I'm sure none of us are shocked by the fact that the women bore the consequences from the Spanish authorities. Their acts didn't seem to have been problematic until Spanish colonial authority returned. This speaks to the Spanish attempts to infiltrate daily life and impose conservative Catholic views on the people as an effort to reinstate control over their returned colony. I would have loved to have had these sources analyzed further.
Hi Jen, I also think talking more about women and how they would portray their race could have added to this book. We know Salon culture was big in Latin America and Europe which women were the primary moving force of. Leaving it out was kind of head scratching.
President Geffrard of Haiti stated that "the survival of one people is intricately tied to the survival of the other," (p. 119) and Eller did a fascinating job of exploring that connection throughout the 19th century. Today, the idea that the Dominican Republic was "liberated" from Haitian rule is widely accepted, but Eller explores the idea that this was not the full story.
The fear of slavery was another current throughout the story, and many Dominicans feared re-enslavement under Spanish rule. Even though the entire island remained without slavery after Spain took back the Dominican, some Haitians felt insecure in their autonomy as long as Spain maintained a colonial presence. In order to maintain their control, Spanish pushed an anti-Haiti message, especially among the elite. For example, where Dominicans had control of local government, they remained loyal to Spain and feared Haitian influence stirring up rebellion. Spanish seemed to think that "race war" was the natural outcome, and that predominantly black Haiti would influence black Dominicans to rise up against colonization. This was also evident in the Spanish call for more white settlers to come to the Dominican, and on some elite's insistence in smuggling slaves into the country because they could not rethink their white superiority mindset. For pro-independence Dominicans, many welcomed Haitian assistance and felt their fight for liberation was all the more urgent because of their fear of re-enslavement. As long as slavery existed in any Spanish colonies, it was a threat to all black autonomy and independence in the Caribbean, whether or not the Spanish intended to attempt re-enslaving the Dominican. It was in Spain's interests to keep Haitians and Dominicans separate in order to maintain their colonial control. This made Haitian and Dominican people inextricably linked throughout the 19th century. If we follow Eller's argument, the animosity that exists between these two countries may have started among the elites rather than the general population, because the elites had more to gain from separation.
I agree with you in terms of what you said about the elite Dominican class constructing the paranoia of a race war against the best interests of the popular classes on either side of Hispaniola, who were predominantly not white. Eller brilliantly conveys how threatening it must have been for the Dominican and Haitian popular classes when the Dominican elite invited a Spain that was interested in the reconstitution of slavery and hoping for enough white immigrants from Europe would balance the demographic scales towards a majority-white populace. Meanwhile, Spain was invited back to the peninsula in order to stave off U.S. imperial aggression at a time when the United States was expanding slavery into new territories.
Your reflection makes me think of the national political dichotomy of a national hero versus a traitor that pops up often in Latin American political discourse. In subverting Dominican historiography that points to Juan Pablo Duarte as a hero of Dominican independence, is Eller implicitly arguing that this Dominican elite, that reinvited the Spaniards and remained in power after the Restoration War, should be looked at as a treasonous class?
Rafael, yes, I do think that part of what Eller is saying is that both Spanish and Dominican elites attempted to simplify the messaging in order to paint certain groups as traitors and others as heroes (themselves). Maybe that does make Dominican elites treasonous for manipulating the story to suit their best interests. Part of what I found interesting about this book is that we can see how the simplified messaging impacted how we learn about this time period, but also how it impacted the way these events actually transpired. Eller does a wonderful job of bringing out the complexities that aren't immediately visible based on that traitor/hero narrative.
So Eller gives a great overview of the events surrounding Dominican independence, the interrelationship with Haiti both politically and culturally, even if it involved a fair amount of Google searches for those of us not familiar with some of the historical references of the region. Most impressively though Eller appears to do a fair amount of this historical construction through analyzing the sources which are representative of the people and not the elite bourgeoisie classes. I also thought this book reiterated many of the history's we are reading concerning the formation of republics/democracy's, which taken as a whole reveals a very unified pattern in the development of these nations.
That pattern reappears in each of the colonial spaces, both before and post revolution, and are in many cases administered, constructed, and enacted by the same bourgeoisie liberal elites. The pattern itself is the lose of actual democratic processes and autonomy of the people to the demands of a growing global capitalist market which appears to be willing to reconcile a relationship with the most brutal and inhumane of dictators if it increases profit margins (while stomping out movements which ideologically and practically are no different than the US revolution) in an attempt to secure control of the domestic population, maximization of profits for those ruling elites of both the former colonies and the imperial powers who mandate this loss of liberty, and maintian the global hegemony of imperial powers. However, Eller gives plenty of examples of why such movements for actual independence and self-determination would have ultimately failed even if the domestic leadership remained true to the rhetoric that brought so many poor working class people to a violent end. Eller also reveals that the imperial leadership of liberal capitalist elites, and their liberal supplicants in the Dominican Republic, will be the intellectual and political progenitors of the generation of Dominican elite that will come to promote and justify the Haitian genocide of 1937 under the fascist leadership of Trujillo. Which leads to the final point Eller elucidates within the overall construction of this narrative, whether intentionally or not, I do not really know. That point being, the natural position for the acceleration of capitalist demands, the formulation of a chauvinist national identity, the introduction of race based pseudoscience, and a growing need need to oppress public resistance, is fascism.
That's right kid's, when liberalism and capitalism have a baby, its always fascism! There, I said it.
While i enjoyed Ann Eller’s we dream together I found it difficult to read through in terms of race. I felt the teleological approach in presenting race such as “Dominicans of color sometimes used 'white' as a simple shorthand for 'foreigner" made it difficult to discern the divergence of races. This wording i felt convoluted the Eller’s argument in contrasting racial thoughts between elites and non-elites. It was hard to distinguish if the elites and their behavior are the root of race today in Haiti and the Dominican Republic or if outside factors were contingent in race construction. I had to reread segments constantly to understand what the author was trying to communicate.
Stephen, I agree that Eller was not clear enough in her definition for the term race. We all understand that race in Latin America is different than here in the United States. Definitions matter when it comes to history. It is because race in Eller's book is one of the main themes. If she was more clear about her definition, it is possible that her thesis and her book would had be of higher quality.
Dalina and Zach, I think that one of the hardest things to define, and therefore confusing, in Latin America is race specially in DR where most people, if viewed with US standards of race, would be considered Black. Over there, is a different story. Take General Trujillo for instance, he portrayed himself as a white man and perhaps thought of himself as a white man. He would put powder on his face to appear lighter in his photos. But Trujillo's skin color was "mulatto" or "moreno." One of his grandparents was Haitian, what do you do there to define race?
For me, this book more than any other discussion has shown me to what degree race is a social construct. I had always understood the socially constructed links between color, identity, and the judging of people on superficial factors. Now my eyes are open to the idea that the construction of race can, to a limited extent, reject definition by color. More inherently I appreciate the unique construction of race identity in the Caribbean and how much of it stems from slavery and the reactions to the Haitian revolution.
Eller's book was a mess. While the history that she presented in her book about 19th century Dominican Independence was is interesting, it is no excuse for how poorly it was executed. Eller was unable to clearly defined the term "race". The result of this error made her book unclear in terms of her argument and thesis. The only thing that Eller did right in this book was that the events of the book were structured chronologically, which gave the reader a sense of the history that occur. Overall, I was disappointed by Eller's book for her lack of a clear argument, thesis, and definition.
I think Eller's argument is that the myth of a Dominican-Haitian conflict that has always existed is, instead, the product of Dominican elites asserting a "whiteness" that they claim based on European ancestry, and that the truth is that the Dominicans and Haitians pulled together to fight for independence under the real threat of re-enslavement, an issue the Haitians found an important enough reason to join in the fight. I'm not sure Dr. Caplan would assign a book she felt was a "mess" without merit--there are too many important and influential books to squander class time on a book that lacks an argument or fails to execute. Finding weaknesses in a book is one thing, but I think dismissing it out of hand fails to engage with the material with the intention of understanding the perspective of the author before criticizing.
Zachary, I’m also having a hard time with Eller’s book and finding the writing and problems with the narrative structure are really getting in my way of understanding her argument (which is, frankly, why I am responding to you before writing my own comment, as I’m still struggling to figure out what I have to say about this book). You note that she structures her argument chronologically, and broadly stated, that is true, but her jumping around within the text of each chapter is also driving me nuts and making the narrative hard to follow. For instance, on page 40 of my electronic Kindle edition, three consecutive sentences read as follows: “An 1822 French expedition betrayed interest in the strategic peninsula that was decades old. In the 1840s, French diplomats argued that a series of specious debts ought to justify their occupation of the peninsula, and they sent warships on numerous missions there. By the 1850s, U.S. envoys angled for plans of their own.”
I’m also not getting a good sense of what racial arguments she is making — it seems that she’s jumping around and not providing a clear structure for understanding what she is arguing within the context of the time period regarding how race plays into the tensions both intra-island and inter-island. I am continuing to truck on through, but it’s not easy. I appreciate Jen’s clarity here about the lack of existence of a Dominican-Haitian conflict from time immemorial, and I look forward to the rest of the class clarifying what I am failing to make sense of in this book.
Zachary you are right that Eller did not isolate her argument of the racial troubles between the Dominican elites to the lower class laborers and the Haitians. She gave an impression of Dominican Republic being a land of racial harmony when there was the separation of race among the elite and Spanish decent Dominicans. Also, she could have gone deeper in regards of the racial conflict that was inflicted and initiated by the Spaniards and Cubans and their racial influence on the Dominican government.
Eller's book is a myth-buster for contemporary Haitian/Dominican political and racial relationships. The book points out how both Haitians and rural Dominicans in the nineteenth century had a common bond in the struggle towards freedom, anti-slavery and self-government.
With DR's annexation to Spain, carried out by "the few" Dominican elites, it was understandable that tensions would rise due to the fear of re-enslavement. I found it "funny," how royal officials, capitalists, and Dominican elites, used different sophisms to mask that they wanted to re-establish slavery with indentured servants "not to be confused with the enslaved African race" (pg1070). The indentured servants had to be anything but Europeans who were not "acclimated" for the types of jobs. Eller clearly pointed out that the best tactic to topple the new Spaniard regime was the fear of enslavement which Dominican rebels and Haitians used to gain popular support. Eller did a great job demonstrating that most Dominicans, except the elites, had a strong connection to the ideals brought by the Haitian Revolution. For most (rural) Dominicans to be a "Haitian," either by birth or by training, meant that the person stood for liberty, antislavery, and equality-- In other words, in the nineteenth century the word "Haitian", and Haiti, the country, carried with itself moral authority.
The book was well-written and clear. However, I would have liked more information on the "Brief Independence" when Santo Domingo was part of La Gran Colombia in 1821. How did this come about? Why did D.R. unified with Haiti a year later? What were the negotiations and/or ramifications with La Gran Colombia? She did not explain in detail those processes.
I agree with you, Eller should've gone into more detail about how the Dominican Republic joined La Gran Colombia. how that relationship/compromise came to fruition would have been very interesting to know.
Ann Eller's "We Dream Together" read like a typical historical story with the exception that Eller dives deeper into the attitudes and struggle of the Dominican people. The close relationship with Haiti and Cuba gave the insight that the Dominican Republic valued the bonds with the French and the corrosive relationship with the Spanish. It was amazing to see how much the lives of the Dominicans and Haitians were intertwined. How involved in the Dominican revolution the Haitians were. That race, education, and religion played a vital role in the advancement of the Dominican people.
My first reading of the history of Haiti and the Dominican Republic came from a chapter in the book Collapse which compared the environmental fates of the two sides of the island. Eller's book has shown me that the standard political history provided as background to the environmental history played into the common image of the two nations as having always been in conflict. On the other hand: Eller's account has also reinforced my understanding of geography as a central factor in shaping the history of the island. Eller does not dwell on way it was so easy for the island to be divided between colonial powers but in discussing the names applied to the island she does mention its mountainous interior. She also provides a map showing the spread of settlements across the island. Bearing these two things in mind it is clear that the interior mountains provided a natural division between the eastern and western halves. The chapter focusing on the conduct of the guerrilla adds further support to the idea that geography shaped the islands history by providing a terrain advantageous to the guerrilla tactics employed to resist the Spanish occupation. The main focus of the book, over constructed racial identities by elites and fears of re-enslavement, demonstrates why the island remained divided through the 20th century, even as new technologies could have diminished any geographical barriers.
The ways in which race impacted relations in the 19th century between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as well as Spain, was one of the things that struck me the most about the book. More specifically, the fact that the elites in Dominican Republic were wiling to allow Spain to hold control over the country. The most surprising thing of all was the role of Haitians in the independence and how they were concerned with the reestablishment of slavery in the island. This reality of Dominican independence is not taught this way, and I’d say that the role of Haiti is often ignored. Today, we often think of elite Dominicans such as Juan Pablo Duarte as iconic figures surrounding the country’s independence, largely ignoring the role of Haitians.
I thought Anne Eller brilliantly argued her case for a revised Dominican history and historiography, if not the history of Hispaniola, in her book. It is not only impressive that she chose to write about the popular alliances between Dominicans and Haitians in order to defeat the Spanish recolonization, but she did so with a bottom-up approach that was difficult at a time when the "lettered cities" in both Santiago and Santo Domingo attempted to shape Dominican nationhood and popular opinion in their fashion. After all, those lettered cities did not completely fail, since contemporary perception about the Hispaniola divide is that Haitians and Dominicans have been at each other's throats since the end of Hispaniola unification in 1844. But Eller points to that attempt at cultural and racial distinction between either side of the island as an elite construction that hid Dominican and Haitian trade connections, cultural connections, and military alliances for the sake of geopolitical reputation. I am quite interested to see further inquiries into the relationship between the Haitian and Dominican popular classes in the late 19th century, as the literature about Dominican history heavily skews towards the Trujillo dictatorship.
ReplyDeleteThis was another book that brought to light the differences between the ideas of the elites and the common people that I hadn't understood before reading.
DeleteRafael and others: you might take a look at Richard Turits's article "A World Destroyed, a Nation Opposed," which tries to recreate the border region using oral histories.
DeleteI literally just read "A World Destroyed, a Nation Opposed" by Turits for my English class wit Professor Foley. Reading both this book and that essay in the same week was difficult in terms of framing a perspective on this weeks reading. Know that there was this essay basically asserting that the development of anti-Haitian sentiment was the project of the bourgeoisie liberal elites of the Dominican Republic juxtaposed with this popular movement for independence which was led by liberal elites in many ways, was in a word confusing. However, at the same time the essay [provided more context for the ideology around race on Hispaniola.
DeleteAnn Eller, We Dream Together
ReplyDeleteAgain, I had no idea the history of the tension between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. I always assumed the issue was the tension between Spain and France as imperial rivals. Eller’s explanation here that these tensions did not arise from the inherent differences in the colonial powers but that these tensions are a manufactured false narrative are fascinating. Her documentation of the real fears of what is now the Dominican Republic being returned to a site of enslavement being the bond that brought Haitian forces to help the Dominicans fight for freedom is fascinating, given that it seems like such a small island to be fighting. Given the current anti-Haitian climate in the Dominican Republic, this book offers insight into how the current thinking in the Dominican Republic is hard to justify. If, as Ellers argues, the Haitians came to the other side of the island to help the Dominicans fight for their survival, and some stayed, it seems difficult to draw clear lines of demarcation between who is Haitian and who is Dominican. I had never stopped to analyze the way racism functions here, and that the myth of a pure European Dominican bloodline was contributing to it. It never occurred to me that the Dominicans were claiming a European “whiteness” to differentiate themselves from the Haitians. I would have liked to see more here about the role of women in these contexts, but perhaps the source material doesn’t exist from the 1800s to write deeply about women. A look at the intersection of gender and race would have also helped me better conceptualize the relationships between the groups.
I found the way Ellers renamed time periods to help guide the reader through her argument and to challenge the way we use language shaping our perceptions was an interesting move. While I often read historiographies that change the timelines of analysis, I found this particularly useful and thoughtful, both in reflecting the author’s thinking and in helping me reconsider my own thinking. I did not come to this book with a lot of knowledge that would have contradicted her language, though, and can only speculate on how this is received by those who are used to a more traditional timeline. Her renaming the border region as the center of the island is also an interesting way to force people to consider the island as a whole rather than to focus on the fictional divisions of politics on a landscape.
I agree with you about wanting to see more about women's roles during this time period, and I was especially interested to read about how revolutionary women spread messages and disrupted Spanish authority (p. 157). Later on in the chapter, Eller also brings up interesting primary source information about how some women in loyalist towns were harassed or faced with legal consequences (even death in one case) for their lack of subscribing to the Spanish Catholic way of life. Spanish were upset by women leaving their homes alone, dancing with men inappropriately, or cohabiting with a man while unmarried (p. 168-9). Even though these men were apparently white and Spanish, I'm sure none of us are shocked by the fact that the women bore the consequences from the Spanish authorities. Their acts didn't seem to have been problematic until Spanish colonial authority returned. This speaks to the Spanish attempts to infiltrate daily life and impose conservative Catholic views on the people as an effort to reinstate control over their returned colony. I would have loved to have had these sources analyzed further.
DeleteHi Jen,
DeleteI also think talking more about women and how they would portray their race could have added to this book. We know Salon culture was big in Latin America and Europe which women were the primary moving force of. Leaving it out was kind of head scratching.
President Geffrard of Haiti stated that "the survival of one people is intricately tied to the survival of the other," (p. 119) and Eller did a fascinating job of exploring that connection throughout the 19th century. Today, the idea that the Dominican Republic was "liberated" from Haitian rule is widely accepted, but Eller explores the idea that this was not the full story.
ReplyDeleteThe fear of slavery was another current throughout the story, and many Dominicans feared re-enslavement under Spanish rule. Even though the entire island remained without slavery after Spain took back the Dominican, some Haitians felt insecure in their autonomy as long as Spain maintained a colonial presence. In order to maintain their control, Spanish pushed an anti-Haiti message, especially among the elite. For example, where Dominicans had control of local government, they remained loyal to Spain and feared Haitian influence stirring up rebellion. Spanish seemed to think that "race war" was the natural outcome, and that predominantly black Haiti would influence black Dominicans to rise up against colonization. This was also evident in the Spanish call for more white settlers to come to the Dominican, and on some elite's insistence in smuggling slaves into the country because they could not rethink their white superiority mindset. For pro-independence Dominicans, many welcomed Haitian assistance and felt their fight for liberation was all the more urgent because of their fear of re-enslavement. As long as slavery existed in any Spanish colonies, it was a threat to all black autonomy and independence in the Caribbean, whether or not the Spanish intended to attempt re-enslaving the Dominican. It was in Spain's interests to keep Haitians and Dominicans separate in order to maintain their colonial control. This made Haitian and Dominican people inextricably linked throughout the 19th century. If we follow Eller's argument, the animosity that exists between these two countries may have started among the elites rather than the general population, because the elites had more to gain from separation.
Hi Katie,
DeleteI agree with you in terms of what you said about the elite Dominican class constructing the paranoia of a race war against the best interests of the popular classes on either side of Hispaniola, who were predominantly not white. Eller brilliantly conveys how threatening it must have been for the Dominican and Haitian popular classes when the Dominican elite invited a Spain that was interested in the reconstitution of slavery and hoping for enough white immigrants from Europe would balance the demographic scales towards a majority-white populace. Meanwhile, Spain was invited back to the peninsula in order to stave off U.S. imperial aggression at a time when the United States was expanding slavery into new territories.
Your reflection makes me think of the national political dichotomy of a national hero versus a traitor that pops up often in Latin American political discourse. In subverting Dominican historiography that points to Juan Pablo Duarte as a hero of Dominican independence, is Eller implicitly arguing that this Dominican elite, that reinvited the Spaniards and remained in power after the Restoration War, should be looked at as a treasonous class?
Rafael, yes, I do think that part of what Eller is saying is that both Spanish and Dominican elites attempted to simplify the messaging in order to paint certain groups as traitors and others as heroes (themselves). Maybe that does make Dominican elites treasonous for manipulating the story to suit their best interests. Part of what I found interesting about this book is that we can see how the simplified messaging impacted how we learn about this time period, but also how it impacted the way these events actually transpired. Eller does a wonderful job of bringing out the complexities that aren't immediately visible based on that traitor/hero narrative.
DeleteSo Eller gives a great overview of the events surrounding Dominican independence, the interrelationship with Haiti both politically and culturally, even if it involved a fair amount of Google searches for those of us not familiar with some of the historical references of the region. Most impressively though Eller appears to do a fair amount of this historical construction through analyzing the sources which are representative of the people and not the elite bourgeoisie classes. I also thought this book reiterated many of the history's we are reading concerning the formation of republics/democracy's, which taken as a whole reveals a very unified pattern in the development of these nations.
ReplyDeleteThat pattern reappears in each of the colonial spaces, both before and post revolution, and are in many cases administered, constructed, and enacted by the same bourgeoisie liberal elites. The pattern itself is the lose of actual democratic processes and autonomy of the people to the demands of a growing global capitalist market which appears to be willing to reconcile a relationship with the most brutal and inhumane of dictators if it increases profit margins (while stomping out movements which ideologically and practically are no different than the US revolution) in an attempt to secure control of the domestic population, maximization of profits for those ruling elites of both the former colonies and the imperial powers who mandate this loss of liberty, and maintian the global hegemony of imperial powers. However, Eller gives plenty of examples of why such movements for actual independence and self-determination would have ultimately failed even if the domestic leadership remained true to the rhetoric that brought so many poor working class people to a violent end. Eller also reveals that the imperial leadership of liberal capitalist elites, and their liberal supplicants in the Dominican Republic, will be the intellectual and political progenitors of the generation of Dominican elite that will come to promote and justify the Haitian genocide of 1937 under the fascist leadership of Trujillo. Which leads to the final point Eller elucidates within the overall construction of this narrative, whether intentionally or not, I do not really know. That point being, the natural position for the acceleration of capitalist demands, the formulation of a chauvinist national identity, the introduction of race based pseudoscience, and a growing need need to oppress public resistance, is fascism.
That's right kid's, when liberalism and capitalism have a baby, its always fascism! There, I said it.
While i enjoyed Ann Eller’s we dream together I found it difficult to read through in terms of race. I felt the teleological approach in presenting race such as “Dominicans of color sometimes used 'white' as a simple shorthand for 'foreigner" made it difficult to discern the divergence of races. This wording i felt convoluted the Eller’s argument in contrasting racial thoughts between elites and non-elites. It was hard to distinguish if the elites and their behavior are the root of race today in Haiti and the Dominican Republic or if outside factors were contingent in race construction. I had to reread segments constantly to understand what the author was trying to communicate.
ReplyDeleteStephen, I agree that Eller was not clear enough in her definition for the term race. We all understand that race in Latin America is different than here in the United States. Definitions matter when it comes to history. It is because race in Eller's book is one of the main themes. If she was more clear about her definition, it is possible that her thesis and her book would had be of higher quality.
DeleteDalina and Zach, I think that one of the hardest things to define, and therefore confusing, in Latin America is race specially in DR where most people, if viewed with US standards of race, would be considered Black. Over there, is a different story. Take General Trujillo for instance, he portrayed himself as a white man and perhaps thought of himself as a white man. He would put powder on his face to appear lighter in his photos. But Trujillo's skin color was "mulatto" or "moreno." One of his grandparents was Haitian, what do you do there to define race?
DeleteFor me, this book more than any other discussion has shown me to what degree race is a social construct. I had always understood the socially constructed links between color, identity, and the judging of people on superficial factors. Now my eyes are open to the idea that the construction of race can, to a limited extent, reject definition by color. More inherently I appreciate the unique construction of race identity in the Caribbean and how much of it stems from slavery and the reactions to the Haitian revolution.
DeleteEller's book was a mess. While the history that she presented in her book about 19th century Dominican Independence was is interesting, it is no excuse for how poorly it was executed. Eller was unable to clearly defined the term "race". The result of this error made her book unclear in terms of her argument and thesis. The only thing that Eller did right in this book was that the events of the book were structured chronologically, which gave the reader a sense of the history that occur. Overall, I was disappointed by Eller's book for her lack of a clear argument, thesis, and definition.
ReplyDeleteI think Eller's argument is that the myth of a Dominican-Haitian conflict that has always existed is, instead, the product of Dominican elites asserting a "whiteness" that they claim based on European ancestry, and that the truth is that the Dominicans and Haitians pulled together to fight for independence under the real threat of re-enslavement, an issue the Haitians found an important enough reason to join in the fight. I'm not sure Dr. Caplan would assign a book she felt was a "mess" without merit--there are too many important and influential books to squander class time on a book that lacks an argument or fails to execute. Finding weaknesses in a book is one thing, but I think dismissing it out of hand fails to engage with the material with the intention of understanding the perspective of the author before criticizing.
DeleteZachary, I’m also having a hard time with Eller’s book and finding the writing and problems with the narrative structure are really getting in my way of understanding her argument (which is, frankly, why I am responding to you before writing my own comment, as I’m still struggling to figure out what I have to say about this book). You note that she structures her argument chronologically, and broadly stated, that is true, but her jumping around within the text of each chapter is also driving me nuts and making the narrative hard to follow. For instance, on page 40 of my electronic Kindle edition, three consecutive sentences read as follows: “An 1822 French expedition betrayed interest in the strategic peninsula that was decades old. In the 1840s, French diplomats argued that a series of specious debts ought to justify their occupation of the peninsula, and they sent warships on numerous missions there. By the 1850s, U.S. envoys angled for plans of their own.”
DeleteI’m also not getting a good sense of what racial arguments she is making — it seems that she’s jumping around and not providing a clear structure for understanding what she is arguing within the context of the time period regarding how race plays into the tensions both intra-island and inter-island. I am continuing to truck on through, but it’s not easy. I appreciate Jen’s clarity here about the lack of existence of a Dominican-Haitian conflict from time immemorial, and I look forward to the rest of the class clarifying what I am failing to make sense of in this book.
Zachary you are right that Eller did not isolate her argument of the racial troubles between the Dominican elites to the lower class laborers and the Haitians. She gave an impression of Dominican Republic being a land of racial harmony when there was the separation of race among the elite and Spanish decent Dominicans. Also, she could have gone deeper in regards of the racial conflict that was inflicted and initiated by the Spaniards and Cubans and their racial influence on the Dominican government.
DeleteEller's book is a myth-buster for contemporary Haitian/Dominican political and racial relationships. The book points out how both Haitians and rural Dominicans in the nineteenth century had a common bond in the struggle towards freedom, anti-slavery and self-government.
ReplyDeleteWith DR's annexation to Spain, carried out by "the few" Dominican elites, it was understandable that tensions would rise due to the fear of re-enslavement. I found it "funny," how royal officials, capitalists, and Dominican elites, used different sophisms to mask that they wanted to re-establish slavery with indentured servants "not to be confused with the enslaved African race" (pg1070). The indentured servants had to be anything but Europeans who were not "acclimated" for the types of jobs. Eller clearly pointed out that the best tactic to topple the new Spaniard regime was the fear of enslavement which Dominican rebels and Haitians used to gain popular support. Eller did a great job demonstrating that most Dominicans, except the elites, had a strong connection to the ideals brought by the Haitian Revolution. For most (rural) Dominicans to be a "Haitian," either by birth or by training, meant that the person stood for liberty, antislavery, and equality-- In other words, in the nineteenth century the word "Haitian", and Haiti, the country, carried with itself moral authority.
The book was well-written and clear. However, I would have liked more information on the "Brief Independence" when Santo Domingo was part of La Gran Colombia in 1821. How did this come about? Why did D.R. unified with Haiti a year later? What were the negotiations and/or ramifications with La Gran Colombia? She did not explain in detail those processes.
Hi Johnny,
DeleteI agree with you, Eller should've gone into more detail about how the Dominican Republic joined La Gran Colombia. how that relationship/compromise came to fruition would have been very interesting to know.
^Also Alexandra.
DeleteAnn Eller's "We Dream Together" read like a typical historical story with the exception that Eller dives deeper into the attitudes and struggle of the Dominican people. The close relationship with Haiti and Cuba gave the insight that the Dominican Republic valued the bonds with the French and the corrosive relationship with the Spanish. It was amazing to see how much the lives of the Dominicans and Haitians were intertwined. How involved in the Dominican revolution the Haitians were. That race, education, and religion played a vital role in the advancement of the Dominican people.
ReplyDeleteMy first reading of the history of Haiti and the Dominican Republic came from a chapter in the book Collapse which compared the environmental fates of the two sides of the island. Eller's book has shown me that the standard political history provided as background to the environmental history played into the common image of the two nations as having always been in conflict. On the other hand: Eller's account has also reinforced my understanding of geography as a central factor in shaping the history of the island. Eller does not dwell on way it was so easy for the island to be divided between colonial powers but in discussing the names applied to the island she does mention its mountainous interior. She also provides a map showing the spread of settlements across the island. Bearing these two things in mind it is clear that the interior mountains provided a natural division between the eastern and western halves. The chapter focusing on the conduct of the guerrilla adds further support to the idea that geography shaped the islands history by providing a terrain advantageous to the guerrilla tactics employed to resist the Spanish occupation. The main focus of the book, over constructed racial identities by elites and fears of re-enslavement, demonstrates why the island remained divided through the 20th century, even as new technologies could have diminished any geographical barriers.
ReplyDeleteThe ways in which race impacted relations in the 19th century between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as well as Spain, was one of the things that struck me the most about the book. More specifically, the fact that the elites in Dominican Republic were wiling to allow Spain to hold control over the country. The most surprising thing of all was the role of Haitians in the independence and how they were concerned with the reestablishment of slavery in the island. This reality of Dominican independence is not taught this way, and I’d say that the role of Haiti is often ignored. Today, we often think of elite Dominicans such as Juan Pablo Duarte as iconic figures surrounding the country’s independence, largely ignoring the role of Haitians.
ReplyDeleteThis is Alexandra.
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