Spanish Haiti / Espana Boba
The 1809 restoration of Spanish rule ushered in an era referred to by some historians as Espana Boba (Foolish Spain). Under the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII, the colony's economy deteriorated severely. The war waged between the French and the blacks in the old French Colony of St. Domingue was characterized by nameless atrocities committed on both sides. The last vestiges of former prosperity were swept away and the country converted into a wilderness.
Baron Marie Louis Ferrand tried to defend the French part of the island, but was forced to retire to the city of Santo Domingo, the command of which was unanimously offered to him. Dessalines, at the head of an army of 22,000 men, soon invested the city, but after several bloody combats Ferrand obliged him to raise the siege, 18 March 1803.
Dessalines laid siege to the capital on March 5, 1805. In the meantime his lieutenant, Christophe, overran the Cibao, sacking the towns and committing horrors. Santiago was captured before the inhabitants had time to flee, and a large number were murdered by the savage invaders. The members of the municipal council were hung, naked, on the balcony of the city hall; the people who had sought refuge in the main church were put to the sword and their bodies mutilated; and the priest was burnt alive in the church, the furniture of the edifice constituting his funeral pyre.
Ferrand, holding thenceforward undisputed possession of the Spanish part of the island, devoted himself to improving the condition of the unfortunate Spanish colonists. He was made by Napoleon in 1804 lieutenant-general, and then captain-general, of the island, and had full authority to carry out all his plans for reform. He abolished the system of tithes and ecclesiastical rents which until then had been collected for the profit of the state, and by this means encouraged the reclaiming of uncultivated lands. He also fitted out numerous privateers for the purpose of preying on English commerce. He was also created successively baron, count of the empire, and grand commander of the legion of honor.
The inhabitants were loyal to Spain and chafed under foreign rule; many believed there was danger of Haitian invasion so long as the French remained; certain tax exactions stirred up animosity; and the stories of Spain's resistance to Napoleon's aggressions inflamed the spirits of the leading men. Conspiracies ensued, fomented principally by a Cotui planter named Juan Sanchez Ramirez, who had emigrated in 1803, but returned after four years of exile.
At this time news arrived of great political changes in Spain. The governor of Porto Rico first enlightened Ferrand on this point by a declaration of war. The latter, deprecating the useless shedding of blood, tried to ersuade the Spaniard that it was to their mutua interest to live in peace, and to avoid espousing the dissensions of the mother countries. The governor of Porto Rico, however, proceeded to incite an insurrection at Barahonda in October 1808, and Ferrand was forced to take arms in defence.
Ferrand immediately set out to quell the uprising and on November 7, 1808, met Sanchez Ramirez at Palo Hincado, about two miles west of Seibo. He was vigorously attacked by the revolutionists, his native troops deserted, and his other troops were cut to pieces. The greater part of the French were killed, and seeing that all was lost and that all his work was ruined, Ferrand blew out his brains with a pistol. Ferrand's head was cut off on the battle-field and borne in triumph on a pike. Later the Spanish government repudiated this treatment, and paid suitable honors to the remains of the French general.
By 1808 a number of emigre Spanish landowners had returned to Santo Domingo. These royalists had no intention of living under French rule, however, and sought foreign aid and assistance to restore Spanish sovereignty. Help came from the Haitians, who provided arms, and the British, who occupied Samana and blockaded the port of Santo Domingo in 1809. The remaining French representatives fled the island in July 1809.
In the first years of the new Spanish colony there was an undefined attempt at uprising on the part of a few white hotheads, and an attempt to incite the slaves against their masters on the part of a few black ones, but in both cases the ringleaders were captured and put to death. The great struggle for independence in South America gradually influenced the minds of the inhabitants of Santo Domingo; Bolivar's brief visit to Haiti also had its effect, and secret separatist societies began to be founded.
Some Dominicans began to wonder if their interests would not best be served by the sort of independence movement that was sweeping the South American colonies. In the beginning of 1821 a conspiracy was discovered and numerous arrests made. Plotting continued nevertheless, stimulated by a prominent lawyer, Jose Nunez de Caceres, who dreamed of making the country a state of Bolivar's Colombian Republic.
In keeping with this sentiment, Spanish lieutenant governor Jose Nunez de Caceres announced the colony's independence as the state of Spanish Haiti on November 30, 1821. On the night of November 30, 1821, the conspiracy culminated in an uprising in the capital; most of the troops had been won over to the cause of independence and offered no resistance; the rest were taken by surprise; and the revolutionists without difficulty made themselves masters of the gateway "Puerta del Conde" and of the other gates and forts. The Spanish governor was placed under arrest and put aboard a vessel sailing for Europe, and the Colombian flag was raised. Public proclamation was made of the independent and sovereign State of Spanish Haiti, affiliated with the Republic of Colombia, and Jose Nunez de Caceres assumed the office of political governor and president of the State, while the provincial assembly became a provisional junta of government.
The State of Spanish Haiti lasted barely nine weeks. Caceres requested admission to the Republic of Gran Colombobia (consisting of what later became Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama), recently proclaimed established by Simon Bolivar and his followers. While the request was in transit, however, the president of Haiti, Jean-Pierre Boyer, decided to invade Santo Domingo and to reunite the island under the Haitian flag.
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