The Haitian Massacre of 1937
In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, who was of mixed race, commanded his army to kill all Haitians living in the northwestern Dominican Republic that borders Haiti.
According to “Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History” published by Stanford University Press, rom Oct. 2 to Oct 8, hundreds of Dominican soldiers and local militia groups confined and slaughtered an estimated 15,000 Haitian people living in the area. Most of the victims were small farmers born in the Dominican Republic into families settled in the area for several generations. According to the Dominican Republic’s own constitution, most of the victims would have been considered citizens.
In 2007, the Catholic Church requested a national apology from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, archbishop of Santo Domingo, refused to comply because he said the Haitian massacre occurred 70 years ago, and Trujillo was killed in 1961. Rodriguez said: “In this case it’s Trujillo who should be asked to render account, who was the criminal. It doesn’t seem to me that the Dominican people have any guilt in that, honestly.”
