Skip to main content

Historical Anecdote



It is often not known that Quisqueya modern day Dominican Republic and Haiti was the first colony formally occupied by Columbus and his henchmen. What must not be forgotten is that our Island's history doesn't start in 1492 but goes back thousands of years, perhaps even as much as 9,000 years. It is said we have the first University an the first Church but what must be specified is we have the first European Catholic Church and the first European University as our natives had educational and religious institutions. 

The pre-columbian era is still full of mystery but certainly was a time in which multiple waves of native-americans both thrived and suffered conquest. From what is known today there where at least 3 distinct waves that reached our island before the arrival of Colombus and this diversity of peoples is reflected in the descriptions of the different chiefdoms and in our DNA.

Past 1492 is when we fully become who we are today because of the many mixes that occurred in the next 500+ years to come. Multiple waves of Free and Enslaved Africans, Rich capitalist as well as poor farmer Iberians amongst other Europeans and a myriad of events that is as unpredictable as the rain. 

This translates into some of us having some ancestors who came here as Free Africans early as 1492! or perhaps having African ancestors who where still enslaved in the early 1800s. To having ancestry from not only the native's on the island but from any of the multiple native peoples sold to Quisqueya from the United States, Colombia, Brazil, Curazao, Mexico, etc. To having European ancestry not just from Iberians and Galeo pepoles but perhaps from a random Polish person who passed through the Canary islands and ended up in our island. Or perhaps you may have ancestors who where enslaved east  Asian or east Indian peoples who although very few could be in your blood line. The combinations, and the possibilities are endless, and become more and more unpredictable as we go back in time.

This mix is by no means homogeneous nor is it in everyone, we all have our own stories and hopefully we can all find as much information as possible via genealogy, genetics and oral history in order to learn more about ourselves. 


Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 12, 2017 at 9:53 AM

    Excellent opening hermano.... The diversity of the island is a cornucopia of flavors adding spices / sazon 'al sancocho' called DR / Haiti. I'm excited at the possibilities of your project.. Bendiciones.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom in the Colony of Santo Domingo

Early society in the colony of Santo Domingo started out very similarly to other colonies in the Americas with a very high rate of enslaved natives, pillaging, murdering from the Spanish followed by a mass importation of Africans of a multitude of ethnicity ranging from inhabitants of the Jollof empire to inhabitants of the Kongo empire.  Santo Domingo which was later to become the Dominican Republic had a majority of enslaved peoples  up until the early 1600s, after which time period, a combination of events such sugar cane economy crashing in 1606 and plagues such as measles in 1666, created an environment where free people began to outnumber the enslaved. With an ever-decreasing white-population this also meant that the free population of the island also had less and less vigilance and had more access to social climbing. This of course does not erase the fact that we are not truly free until we are all free , and it was not until Feb. 1822 during Boyer's occupation that we gaine
1 comment
Read more

Moren@: Language of Resistance

It is often that Dominicans come to mind when it comes to self-hate or anti-blackness. "Dominican's don't like to be called black"- is a common term. I remember back close to a decade ago I watched one of my first afro-dominican documentaries "Congo-Pa-Ti" which featured the community of Villa Mella in North-Santo Domingo and although one part featured the outstanding traditions of the people, the other almost in mockery asked residents of villa mella what they considered themselves as far as "race", some respondents said yellow, cinnamon and where quite precise with their color. The ones that said "moren@" where translated in the subtitles as "mixed black" or "light skin black". In the end it seemed to illustrate for the English speaker that Dominican's don't use the term "negro" "black" and therefore use other terms to avoid it. Growing up as a person who gets called "moreno"
2 comments
Read more

Myth of extermination of Quisqueyas Native-Americans

First of all the native's in Quisqueya, present day Dominican Republic and Haiti where not one people, or a single cultural group. There was a complex set of people who had arrived in different waves from South-America, Central-america and likely even St. Augustine Florida. Per Anthropology the island has been inhabited for the last 10,000 years . One of the biggest misconceptions is that the Taino died off in the 1500s, there are old books that quote things like "By 1548, the Taíno population had declined to fewer than 500" - Wikipedia  . This is in fact false, there where pockets of native's throughout the island until relatively recent times. Historical  In Boya, Monteplata around 1656 it was reported that this was an 'Indian' town with about 6 houses, and it states the reason for the few # of total people is that most of these natives had gone to neighboring towns for employment. [villa que es de indios descendientes de los de esa isla; tendrá
3 comments
Read more