White Dominicans

In the modern era, sizeable numbers of white immigrants are settling in the Dominican Republic from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, especially countries like Spain, Italy, France, United States, Canada, Lebanon, and Israel, among others.[21][22] Around the region of Latin America, many whites and European-dominate multiracials are immigrating to the country from places like Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, among others. The Puerto Rican population in the Dominican Republic has been steadily climbing recently, and the country now has a large and fast growing Venezuelan population, of which whom make up the second largest immigrant group in Dominican Republic after Haitians.[23][24][25] White immigrants from North America and Europe tend to be significantly wealthier in comparison to the more middle and working class whites coming to the country from other parts of Latin America, the former preferring tourist areas like Punta Cana and Sosua, while the latter choosing big cities like Santo Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros. A large portion of Dominican emigrants and descendants, of all races including White Dominicans, who settled other countries like the United States and Spain, engage in Circular migration, in which they would live the early years working in the United States to retire the later years in Dominican Republic, or frequent relocation between homes in the United States and Dominican Republic, oftentimes a home of a family member.

The presence of whites in the Dominican Republic dates back to the founding of La Isabela, one of the first European settlements in the Americas, by Bartholomew Columbus in 1493. The presence of precious metals such as gold boosted migration of thousands of Spaniards to Hispaniola seeking easy wealth. They tried to enslave the Taíno, but many of these died of diseases, and those who survived did not make good slaves.

In 1510, there were 10,000 Spaniards in the colony of Santo Domingo, and it rose to over 20,000 in 1520. But following the depleting of the gold mines, the island began to depopulate, as most poor Spanish colonists embarked to the newly conquered Mexico or to Venezuela (which was aggravated by the conquest of Peru in 1533).[26] This was followed by a limited Spanish migration toward Hispaniola, composed overwhelmingly by males. In order to counteract the depopulation and impoverishment of the colony, the Spanish Monarchy allowed the importation of African slaves to hew sugar cane.

By 1542 there were only few hundred natives. Several epidemics wiped out the remaining natives on the island.

The shortage of Spanish females led to miscegenation, that drove the creation of a caste system, (casta), in which white Spaniards were at the top, mixed-race people at middle, and Amerindians and black people at the bottom. Endogamy became a norm within the higher classes, in order to maintain their status and remain racially pure especially, specially because only pure whites were able to inherit majorats. As a result, Santo Domingo, like the rest of Hispanic America, became a pigmentocracy. The local-born whites were known as blancos de la tierra ("whites from the land"), in contrast to the blancos de Castilla, "whites from Castile".

The color prejudice between blacks and whites practically disappeared due to the great misery that prevailed in the colony.[27]

By the mid-17th century, the overall population decreased to 3,000 inhabitants and it was concentrated in or near the city of Santo Domingo.[28] About one tenth of the colony’s population was Portuguese-born; they were concentrated in the Cibao valley, where they had an influence on the Spanish dialect spoken in that area;[29] another 3% was born in Spain or descended exclusively from Spaniards.

During the eighteenth century, there were French colonists that settled in many Spanish towns, particularly in Santiago, by 1730 they totalled 25% of the population.[30] This was seen as a problem for the Spanish authorities, because if the population became mostly French, there could be problems of loyalty toward Spain.[31]

In 1718 a Royal Decree ordered the expel of the French people from Santo Domingo. The Grand Mayor of Santiago, Antonio Pichardo Vinuesta, refused to obey the decree arguing that most of the Frenchmen had married local women and that their expulsion would damage the economy of the Cibao. Grand Mayor Pichardo was tried and imprisoned in the city of Santo Domingo, but in the next year, the Council of the Indies reasoned in favor of Pichardo and decided a pardon to the French. In 1720-1721, a revolt in Santiago against a new tax on beef exports to the Saint Domingue, arose Frenchification fears in the Santo Domingo elite; Captain-General Fernando Constanzo, governor of the Santo Domingo, accused the Cibaenian elite of seeking to annex their province to France.[32]

After the failed plans of the Spanish Monarchy to expel the French colonists, the Monarchy decided to actively encourage the mass settlement of Spanish families in order to counteract the Frenchification of the colony.[31] Over the next decades, the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo was the subject of a mass migration of Spaniards, most of whom came from the Canary Islands.[33]

During that period, Neyba (1733), San Juan de la Maguana (1733), Puerto Plata (1736), Dajabón (1743), Montecristi (1751), Santa Bárbara de Xamaná (1756), San Rafael de la Angostura (1761), Sabana de la Mar (1761), Las Caobas (1763), Baní (1764), Las Matas de Farfán (1767), San Miguel de la Atalaya (1768), Moca (1773), Juana Núñez (1775), San José de los Llanos (1779), San Pedro de Macorís (1779), and San Carlos de Tenerife (1785), were founded.[33] Due to this migration, it decreased the amount of coloreds and blacks: the black population dropped to 12%, the mulatto population to 8%, and the quadroons to 31%.[13]

After that peak, the local white population began to migrate (especially towards Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Venezuela), first with the Haitian rule, and later with the constant political and economic instability after Dominican independence. Historically, migration to Puerto Rico was constant (except between 1898 and the 1930s, when there was a wave of Puerto Rican migrants to the Dominican Republic) and it boosted in the 20th century because of the oppressive regimes of Trujillo and Balaguer.[34] Although, the country has received a tiny but steady immigration (from other countries than Haiti), which has partly offset the constant emigration.

French colony of Saint-Domingue in the West and Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in the East of Hispaniola island.

In the early seventeenth century, the Spanish government ordered the evacuation of the northern and western coast of the island, forcing relocation to areas close to the city of Santo Domingo as a defence measure against pirates from other European nations. This ended up being counterproductive to Spain, because in 1625 the pirates and buccaneers began to establish settlements on the island of Tortuga and in a strip north of Hispaniola surrounding Port-de-Paix. France dominated the buccaneers in the late 16th century and initiated the establishment of a colony that would enrich fast and rapidly expand throughout the western coast of Hispaniola. In 1777 France and Spain signed a border treaty, in which the western and northwestern coast of Hispaniola would be French and the rest of the island would be Spanish. By 1780 Saint-Domingue was the richest colony in the world, even than all the British Thirteen Colonies and the West Indies together. The French established an economy based on the production and export of sugar sustained on the forced labor of black slaves imported from west and central Africa. Slavery of blacks was characterized as one of the most ruthless in which terror and severe punishments were applied to slaves.[35]

By 1789, the population was composed as follows:[36][37][38]

• 40,000 Grand-blancs (literally "Great whites" in French) and Petit-blancs ("Little whites")
• 28,000 Sang-melés (French for: "Mixed blood") or free people of color.
• 452,000 slaves

The white population were 8% of Saint-Domingue’s population, but they owned 70% of the wealth and 75% of the slaves in the colony. The mulatto population were 5% of the population and had the 30% of the wealth. The slaves were 87% of the population.[38]

Burning of the Plaine du Cap in 1791, France Militaire, 1833

When the French Revolution started, the ideas of freedom among men spread in Saint-Domingue. Blacks (the majority of them were born in Africa, such as Jean-Jacques Dessalines) rebelled against their white masters and began a genocide against the French. In 1791, more than a thousand were killed.[38] In order to preserve their lives, they fled Saint-Domingue. The wealthy grand-blancs, returned to France or went to French Louisiana, but the petit-blancs who did not have many resources were compelled to move to the Eastern side of Hispaniola; although many of them went to Cuba,[39] and to Venezuela as well.

Notably, there were many sang-melés, some of which fled from Saint-Domingue as well, and settled in neighboring islands, mostly Puerto Rico and Cuba.

Pres. Rafael F. Bonnelly Fondeur was descended from Corsican and French colonists (French Creoles) from Saint-Domingue (Haiti), who escaped from the massacre of the whites.[40][41]

This French Creole (Franco-Haitian) migration toward the current Dominican Republic brought to the country many surnames like Beltrand (and its variants Beltrán and Beltré), Bisonó, Beauregard, Candelier, Ciprián, Coradín, Dipré (originally Dupré), Ferrant, Gautreaux, LaChapelle, Lavandier, Leclerc, Marichal, Morel, Oliver, Poueriet, Saint-Hilaire, and Yaclamic.[42][43][44][45]

The Treaty of Basel, signed in 1795, in which Spain ceded the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola to France in exchange for keeping Gipuzkoa, was supposed to be put into effect immediately, but the French authorities didn't comply in lieu that they were focused on the disturbances taking place in Saint-Domingue as well as the uprising of a revolution in France. It wasn't until 1801 when the black freedman Gen. Toussaint Louverture decided to invade Santo Domingo with his army under the guise proclaiming the abolition of slavery on behalf of the French Republic and then captured Santo Domingo from the French and took control of the entire island. From 1795 to 1801 the Dominicans were still ruled by the Brig. Joaquín García y Moreno, and Toussaint Louverture was governor from 1801-1802.

The Unification of Hispaniola lasted from 1822 until 1844, and sometime during this span, a totalitarian military government took place that forbade the Dominican people by law from taking public office, were on permanent curfew since early dusk and had the public university closed down on the pretext that it was a subversive institution.

Due to political instability during the España Boba period, some of the whites in Santo Domingo fled the country between 1795 and 1820, mainly to Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. However, many white families stayed on the island. Many whites in Santo Domingo did not consider owning slaves due to the economic crisis in Santo Domingo. But the few rich white elites that did, fled the colony. Many of these white families that stayed on the island settled in the cibao region owning land. Some Dominican historians and intellectuals, such as Américo Lugo, Joaquín Balaguer and Antonio del Monte y Tejada, deplored that "Santo Domingo lost most of its best families" at that era, specially during the Haitian domination.[3][46][47] After independence and being under Spanish control again in 1863, many families returned to the island including new waves of immigration from Spain occurred.

Donald Reid Cabral, Dominican politician of Scottish descent.

The majority of the immigrants that settled in the Dominican Republic in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century established their residence in Santo Domingo, Santiago, Moca and Puerto Plata.

During the 19th century Puerto Plata was the most important port in the country (and even became provisional capital) and hosted the European and North American migration to the Dominican Republic. The majority were Germans traders and tobacco producers, most of these German were from Hamburg and Bremen. There were also Englishmen, Dutch, Spaniards (mainly from Catalonia), Puerto Ricans (atleast 30,000 between 1880 and 1940), Cubans (at least 5,000 immigrated during the Ten Years' War) and Italians. After the Restoration War there was an inflow of U.S. and French. Most immigrants during this period completely assimilated into the local Dominican population. The most prominent migrants’ surnames that went to this city were Arzeno, Balaguer, Batlle, Bonarelli, Brugal, Capriles, Demorizi, Ferrari, Imbert, Lithgow, Lockward, McKinney, Paiewonsky, Prud’homme, Puig, Rainiere, Villanueva, Vinelli and Zeller. In 1871, half of Puerto Plata’s population was foreigner; and in both the 1888 and 1897 censuses, 30% was of foreign born.[5][6]

Most of the offspring of Puerto Plata’s immigrants moved to Santiago and Santo Domingo in the 20th century.

It is estimated that 80,000 Dominicans are descendants of Lebanese migrants. The Bourdier family are French & Lebanese. As well as Nadar family.[4]

In the mid-1880s the early immigrants arrived to the Dominican Republic, mainly to Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo, and after 1897 to Santiago. At first, they were despised by many (especially by merchants and peddlers who saw them as competitors, and later the aristocratic classes that prevented their entry into social clubs), but over the course of 50 years, they achieved a solid economic status and a prominent place within Dominican society. After 1900 many settled in San Pedro de Macorís, a city that lived through this migration an economic and cultural boom, that made San Pedro de Macoris to be known as the 'Sultana of the East'.[48]

Limpieza de sangre (Spanish: [limˈpjeθa ðe ˈsaŋɡɾe], meaning literally "cleanliness of blood") was very important in Mediæval Spain,[57] and this system was replicated on the New World. The highest social class was the Visigothic nobility of Central European origin,[58] commonly known as people of "sangre azul" (Spanish for: "blue blood"), because their skin was so pale that their veins looked blue through it, in comparison with that of a commoner who had olive skin. Those who proved that they were descendants of Visigoths were allowed to use the style of Don and were considered hidalgos. Hidalgos nobles were the most benefited of those Spanish who emigrated to America because they received royal properties (such as cattle, lands, and slaves) and tax exemptions. These people achieved a privileged position, and most of them avoided mixing with natives or Africans. This led to certain family names to be related both to whiteness, as with a better social-economic position; these family names were Angulo, Aybar, Bardecí, Bastidas, Benavides, Caballero, Cabral, Camarena, Campusano, Caro, Coca, Coronado, Dávila, De Castro, De la Concha, De la Rocha, Del Monte, Fernández de Castro, Fernández de Fuenmayor, Fernández de Oviedo, Frómesta, Garay, Guzmán, Heredia, Jiménez (and its variant Jimenes), Jover, Landeche, Lora, Leoz y Echálaz, Maldonado, Mieses, Monasterios, Mosquera, Nieto, Ovalle, Palomares, Paredes, Pérez, Pimentel, Quesada, Serrano, Solano, Vega, and Villoria.[59]

The Spanish of the highest rank who migrated to America in the sixteenth century was the noblewoman Doña María Álvarez de Toledo y Rojas, granddaughter of the 1st Duke of Alba, niece of the 2nd Duke of Alba, and grandniece of King Ferdinand of Aragon; she was married to Diego Columbus, Admiral and Viceroy of the Indies.[59]

Many Criollo families migrated to other Spanish colonies.

Further immigration from the 17th and 18th centuries made subsequently that newly rich families emerged among them, which are: Alfau,[60] De Marchena, Mirabal, Tavárez (and its variants Tavares and Taveras), Lopez-Penha, Marten-Ellis and Troncoso.
And others from the 19th and 20th centuries: Armenteros, Arzeno,[6][61] Báez, Barceló, Beras, Bermúdez, Bonetti, Brugal, Corripio, Esteva, Goico, Haché,Hoffiz, Lama, León, Morel, Munné, Ottenwalder, Pellerano,[62] Paiewonski, Piantini, Rochet, Rizek, Vicini, Vila,[63] and Vitienes.