Prof. Roland The Caribbean in Post-Colonial Perspective ANTH 1115

 Hispaniola (1492) to Mainlands (1509) Early creole identities Racially mixed populations live off land Class/color mobility and inter-marriage  MESTIZAJE  Creole cultural identity Marginalized attempts to maintain identity, while resisting hegemonic manipulation

 Neglected residents Hispaniola trade beyond Spn empire  Depopulation/Burning of NW coast  French create wealthy sugar colony, St. Domingue  Impoverished Sto. Domingo supports neighbor via small-scale trade (cattle/agriculture)

 Dominican Independence (x3) 1795 Spanish surrender Sto Domingo to French during Saint Domingue uprising Haitian Independence in 1804 includes “Spn Haiti”  1844 independent of Haiti/Re-annexed to Spain 1865 Dominican Independence  Dominican = NOT Haitian Trujillo defines DR identity  Largely white, Catholic, Spanish De-Haitianization campaign of 1937  Perejil (Parsley) Massacre Darker Dominicans=Indios  Whiteness/Spanish ID also resisted

 Borderland theory Attends to frontiers between nations Considers shifting cultural meanings from place to place  Contesting DR as white  Constructing new meaning Taína as original  Dominicans globally linked Early contraband trade, US occupation/influence, FTZs/Structural Adjustment, Family networks, Media  “Being Dominican” has distinct meanings Social location, Racial location, Geographic location

 PR as neglected peasant colony of Spain Brief mass African slavery for sugar Vagrancy laws enlist jíbaros on plantations alongside slaves Creolized mixture softened racial lines

 “Remember the Maine?” US enters Cuba’s war for independence (“Spanish-American War”) Cuba, PR, and Philippines territories of US in 1898  Foraker Act of 1900 makes PR a US colony

 PR civilizable “nobles” v Filipino resistant “savages”  Education as a means to “Americanization”  PR passive resistance via “jaíba” strategies Moving sideways to move ahead

 Recovering indigenous identity as resistance (neo)colonialism Boríken = Taino name for the island Boriqua = Taino name for the people of Borinquen

 Commonwealth (PR status since 1952)  Estado Libre Asociado (Associated Free State)  Statehood  Independence

 3 roots of PR nat’l origin Spanish (European) Taíno (Indigenous – early decimation) African

 Recall: History as construct  Stage I: Criollo PR elite distinguish from Spn  Criollo=everything native, local, typical of Americas  Mestizaje=racial mixture, esp. Euro/Indig  Stage II: Scientific search  Stage III: Nationalist re-appropriation post WWII  Stage IV: Distancing from Spn heritage  Stage V: (1990s – present) Debates over indigeneity re statehood/independence positions

 Erasure/Banalization Emphasis on color Africans inferior to Tainos who were inferior to Spn  Cultural evolutionist rankings  Blackness masked by indio Tainos as natives Spn as conquerors Africans as newcomers/outsiders  Boriquen ID resists US but may marginalize African heritage

 What is the most significant difference btwn DR’s indios and PR’s Taínos?