A country of migrants

Its strategic location in the Caribbean islands has made the Dominican Republic a point of departure and arrival throughout its history. Indigenous populations arriving from the continent that would be called America settled on the island later known as Hispaniola and, upon the Discovery, the Spanish conquistadors began the migration that would forever mark the ethnic profile of the territory. With the Spanish settlement, the conditions were set for the massive transfer of an African slave population to the island.

The Dominican-born population of Spaniards and Africans - the decimated indigenous people left an ethnic heritage barely identifiable by the scientific resources of the 20th century - gave origin to the Dominican mulatto. The mixing of races and nationalities, however, has never been detained.

Neighboring Haiti forever transformed the border that separates the countries into a point of departure, return and permanency. In the period from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1961), important immigration influxes have taken place. This period contains two fundamental currents of immigration: the arrival of the laborers of the Antilles and later of the businessmen, peasants, traders and political refugees from neighboring islands and Europe.

The massive immigration of Antillean laborers was motivated by the need for a cheap work force for carrying out public works and cutting the sugar cane of the foreign capital sugar industry that blossomed in the last third of the 19th century. It is precisely during the first U.S. occupation, between 1915 and 1925, that the largest number of imported laborers lived in the country.

First, those from the Minor Antilles (English) predominated, especially around the turn of the century; but later, above all since the second quarter of the 20th century, Haitians have constituted the majority. They are not only located around the large sugar refineries (La Romana, San Pedro de Macorís, Barahona, etc.), but they also gradually settled on the Dominican side of the border.

The group of businessmen, farmers, traders and political refugees is less numerous than the former. These immigrants made significant economic, social and cultural contributions to the country. At first, the current was composed of political refugees and businessmen pushed out by the independence processes of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Then, the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of World War II attracted Spaniards, Italians and Germans (especially those of Jewish descent).

Trujillo's agricultural colonization plan along the border should be mentioned. Instead of counteracting the presence and assimilation of Haitians into the area and guaranteeing them sufficient nutrition, Trujillo unfolded a campaign to attract Europeans, Syria-Lebanese and even Japanese in exchange for land for cultivation.

Since the fall of the dictator, the migration flows have swelled. The immigration processes have increased and accelerated. Today, it is evident that the largest foreign colony is Haitian, but there is also a growing dynamic for the entrance of other foreigners from Europe, due to the expansion of tourism.