Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (62 page)

conquerors divided up the island and its Indian population among indi
vidual Spaniards, who put the Indians to work as virtual slaves, accidentally
infected them with Eurasian diseases, and murdered them. By the year 1519,
27 years after Columbus's arrival, that original population of half a million had been reduced to about 11,000, most of whom died that year of small
pox to bring the population down to 3,000, and those survivors gradually
died out or became assimilated within the next few decades. That forced the
Spaniards to look elsewhere for slave laborers.

Around 1520 the Spaniards discovered that Hispaniola was suitable for
growing sugar, and so they began importing slaves from Africa. The island's
sugar plantations made it a rich colony for much of the 16th century. How
ever, the Spaniards' interest became diverted from Hispaniola for multiple
reasons, including their discovery of far more populous and richer Indian
societies on the American mainland, particularly in Mexico, Peru, and Bo
livia, offering much larger Indian populations to exploit, politically more
advanced societies to take over, and rich silver mines in Bolivia. Hence
Spain turned its attention elsewhere and devoted little resources to Hispan
iola, especially as buying and transporting slaves from Africa were expensive
and as Native Americans could be obtained just for the cost of conquering
them. In addition, English, French, and Dutch pirates overran the Carib
bean and attacked Spanish settlements on Hispaniola and elsewhere. Spain
itself gradually went into political and economic decline, to the benefit of
the English, French, and Dutch.

Along with those French pirates, French traders and adventurers built
up a settlement at the western end of Hispaniola, far from the eastern part
where the Spanish were concentrated. France, now much richer and politi
cally stronger than Spain, invested heavily in importing slaves and develop
ing plantations in its western part of the island, to a degree that the Spanish
could not afford, and the histories of the two parts of the island began to
diverge. During the 1700s the Spanish colony had a low population, few
slaves, and a small economy based on raising cattle and selling their hides,
while the French colony had a much larger population, more slaves (700,000
in 1785, compared to only 30,000 in the Spanish part), a proportionately much lower non-slave population (only 10% compared to 85%), and an economy based on sugar plantations. French Saint-Domingue, as it was
called, became the richest European colony in the New World and con
tributed one-quarter of France's wealth.

In 1795, Spain finally ceded its no-longer-valuable eastern part of the
island to France, so that Hispaniola became briefly unified under France.

After a slave rebellion broke out in French Saint-Domingue in 1791 and
1801, the French sent an army that was defeated by the slave army plus the
effects of heavy losses to diseases. In 1804, having sold its North American holdings to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase, France gave up and abandoned Hispaniola. Not surprisingly, French Hispaniola's former slaves,
who renamed their country Haiti (the original Taino Indian name for the
island), killed many of Haiti's whites, destroyed the plantations and their infrastructure in order to make it impossible to rebuild the plantation slave
system, and divided the plantations into small family farms. While that was
what the former slaves wanted for themselves as individuals, it proved in
the long run disastrous for Haiti's agricultural productivity, exports, and
economy when the farmers received little help from subsequent Haitian
governments in their efforts to develop cash crops. Haiti also lost human re
sources with the killing of much of its white population and the emigration
of the remainder.

Nevertheless, at the time Haiti achieved independence in 1804, it was
still the richer, stronger, and more populous part of the island. In 1805 the
Haitians twice invaded the eastern (former Spanish) part of the island, then known as Santo Domingo. Four years later, at their own request, the Span
ish settlers reassumed their status as a colony of Spain, which however gov
erned Santo Domingo ineptly and with so little interest that the settlers
declared independence in 1821. They were promptly reannexed by the Haitians, who remained until they were expelled in 1844, after which the Haitians continued to launch invasions to conquer the east into the 1850s.

Thus, as of 1850 Haiti in the west controlled less area than its neighbor
but had a larger population, a subsistence farming economy with little exporting, and a population composed of a majority of blacks of African de
scent and a minority of mulattoes (people of mixed ancestry). Although the mulatto elite spoke French and identified themselves closely with France,
Haiti's experience and fear of slavery led to the adoption of a constitution
forbidding foreigners to own land or to control means of production
through investments. The large majority of Haitians spoke a language of
their own that had evolved there from French, termed Creole. The Domini
cans in the east had a larger area but smaller population, still had an
economy based on cattle, welcomed and offered citizenship to immigrants,
and spoke Spanish. Over the course of the 19th century, numerically small
but economically significant immigrant groups in the Dominican Repub
lic included Curacao Jews, Canary Islanders, Lebanese, Palestinians, Cu
bans, Puerto Ricans, Germans, and Italians, to be joined by Austrian Jews,

Japanese, and more Spaniards after 1930. The political aspect in which Haiti
and the Dominican Republic most resembled each other was in their political instability. Coups followed on each other frequently, and control passed or alternated between local leaders with their private armies. Out of Haiti's 22 presidents from 1843 to 1915, 21 were assassinated or driven out of of
fice, while the Dominican Republic between 1844 and 1930 had 50 changes
of president, including 30 revolutions. In each part of the island the presidents governed in order to enrich themselves and their followers.

Outside powers viewed and treated Haiti and the Dominican Republic
differently. To European eyes, the oversimplified image was of the Domini
can Republic as a Spanish-speaking, partly European society receptive to
European immigrants and trade, while Haiti was seen as a Creole-speaking
African society composed of ex-slaves and hostile to foreigners. With the
help of invested capital from Europe and later from the U.S., the Dominican
Republic began to develop a market export economy, Haiti far less so. That
Dominican economy was based on cacao, tobacco, coffee, and (beginning in
the 1870s) sugar plantations, which (ironically) had formerly characterized
Haiti rather than the Dominican Republic. But both sides of the island con
tinued to be characterized by political instability. A Dominican president
towards the end of the 19th century borrowed and failed to repay so much
money from European lenders that France, Italy, Belgium, and Germany all
sent warships and threatened to occupy the country in order to collect their
debts. To forestall that risk of European occupation, the United States took
over the Dominican customs service, the sole source of government revenues, and allocated half of the receipts to pay those foreign debts. During
World War I, concerned about risks to the Panama Canal posed by political
unrest in the Caribbean, the United States imposed a military occupation
on both parts of the island, which lasted from 1915 to 1934 in Haiti and
from 1916 to 1924 in the Dominican Republic. Thereafter, both parts
quickly reverted to their previous political instability and strife between
competing would-be presidents.

Instability in both parts was ended, in the Dominican Republic long before Haiti, by the two most evil dictators in Latin America's long history of
evil dictators. Rafael Trujillo was the Dominican chief of the national police
and then the head of the army that the U.S. military government established
and trained. After he took advantage of that position to get himself elected
as president in 1930 and to become dictator, he proceeded to remain in
power as a result of being very hardworking, a superior administrator, a
shrewd judge of people, a clever politician, and absolutely ruthless
—and of

appearing to act in the broad interests of much of Dominican society. He tortured or killed his possible opponents and imposed an all-intrusive po
lice state.

At the same time, in an effort to modernize the Dominican Republic,
Trujillo developed the economy, infrastructure, and industries, mostly run
ning the country as his own private business. He and his family eventually
came to own or control most of the country's economy. In particular, either
directly or through relatives or allies as front men, Trujillo held national
monopolies of beef export, cement, chocolate, cigarettes, coffee, insurance,
milk, rice, salt, slaughterhouses, tobacco, and wood. He owned or controlled
most forestry operations and sugar production, and owned airlines, banks,
hotels, much land, and shipping lines. He took for himself a portion of
prostitution earnings and 10% of all public employee salaries. He promoted himself ubiquitously: the capital city was renamed from Santo Domingo to
Ciudad Trujillo (Trujillo City), the country's highest mountain was re
named from Pico Duarte to Pico Trujillo, the country's educational system inculcated giving thanks to Trujillo, and signs of thanks posted on every
public water faucet proclaimed "Trujillo gives water." To reduce the possi
bility of a successful rebellion or invasion, the Trujillo government spent
half of its budget on a huge army, navy, and air force, the largest in the
Caribbean area, larger even than those of Mexico.

In the 1950s, however, several developments conspired to cause Trujillo
to begin to lose the former support that he had maintained through his
combination of terror methods, economic growth, and distributing land to
peasants. The economy deteriorated through a combination of government
overspending on a festival to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Trujillo regime, overspending to buy up privately owned sugar mills and electricity
plants, a decline in world prices for coffee and other Dominican exports, and a decision to make a major investment in state sugar production that
proved economically unsuccessful. The government responded to an unsuccessful Cuban-backed invasion by Dominican exiles in 1959, and to
Cuban radio broadcasts encouraging revolt, by increasing arrests, assassina
tions, and torture. On May 30, 1961, while traveling in a chauffeur-driven
unaccompanied car late at night to visit his mistress, Trujillo was ambushed
and assassinated in a dramatic car chase and gun battle by Dominicans, ap
parently with CIA support.

Throughout most of the Trujillo era in the Dominican Republic, Haiti
continued to have an unstable succession of presidents until it too in 1957
passed under the control of its own evil dictator, Francois "Papa Doc

Duvalier. While a physician and better educated than Trujillo, he proved to
be an equally clever and ruthless politician, equally successful in terrorizing
his country by secret police, and ended up killing far more of his country
men than did Trujillo. Papa Doc Duvalier differed from Trujillo in his lack
of interest in modernizing his country or in developing an industrial
economy for his country or for himself. He died a natural death in 1971, to
be succeeded by his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who ruled until
forced into exile in 1986.

Since the end of the Duvalier dictatorships, Haiti has resumed its former
political instability, and its already weak economy has continued to shrink.
It still exports coffee, but the amount exported has remained constant while the population has continued to grow. Its human development index, an in
dex based on a combination of human lifespan and education and standard
of living, is the lowest in the world outside Africa. After Trujillo's assassina
tion, the Dominican Republic also remained politically unstable until 1966,
including a civil war in 1965 that triggered the arrival again of U.S. marines and the beginning of large-scale Dominican emigration to the U.S. That pe
riod of instability ended with the election of Joaquin Balaguer, former
president under Trujillo, to the presidency in 1966, helped by ex-Trujillo
army officers who carried out a terrorist campaign against the opposing
party. Balaguer, a distinctive person whom we shall consider at more length
below, continued to dominate Dominican politics for the next 34 years, rul
ing as president from 1966 to 1978 and again from 1986 until 1996, and exercising much influence even while out of office from 1978 to 1986. His last
decisive intervention into Dominican politics, his rescue of the country's
natural reserve system, came in the year 2000 at the age of 94, when he was
blind, sick, and two years short of his death.

During those post-Trujillo years from 1961 to the present, the Domini
can Republic continued to industrialize and modernize. For a time its
export economy depended heavily on sugar, which then yielded in importance to mining, free trade zone industrial exports, and non-sugar agricul
tural exports, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. Also important to the
economies of both the Dominican Republic and Haiti has been the export
of people. More than a million Haitians and a million Dominicans now liv
ing overseas, especially in the United States, send home earnings that ac
count for a significant fraction of the economies of both countries. The Dominican Republic still rates as a poor country (per-capita income only
$2,200 per year), but it exhibits many hallmarks of a growing economy that