HIST 4003/CLAS 4003
Hurricanes and Revolutions
History of Ayti/Hispaniola/Dominican Republic & Haiti
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:20 - 3:50 pm, Piskor Hall 19.
Professor: Juan Ponce-Vázquez
Office: 204 Piskor HalL
Phone: 315 229 5345
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: [email protected]
Course description
The history of Hispaniola, currently divided in the countries of Haiti and Dominican Republic,
has remained pivotal to the development of the Caribbean and the Atlantic world. The two parts
of the island evolved in unique ways, thus creating distinct but interconnected societies. In the
east the plantation economy went into decline very early on, thus creating a remarkable rural
society, the first in the Caribbean in which free people of African descent predominated; in the
west, a brutal plantation regime ended in a spectacular slave revolt (The Haitian Revolution) that
shook the foundations of the Atlantic world.
The objective of this course is to present the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as unique sites of
colonial experimentation and anti-colonial struggle, as well as a site of complex sovereignty
questions both in its pre-national and national period. We will look at both parts of the island
together, marking the differences between both societies while highlighting those things that
connect them, such as the development of plantation economies during the colonial period, the
control of caudillos in their respective national politics and societies, the role of U.S.
Imperialism, the rise and fall of dictatorial regimes, and the importance of the island’s diaspora.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, students are expected to:
1) Connect people, events, and ideas within larger themes of Hispaniola, the Caribbean, and the
Atlantic World and compare and contrast the experiences of different groups of people with
regard to race, ethnicity, class, gender, politics, and generation.
2) Develop critical thinking skills through engagement with scholarship and literature (also
known as historiography) in Latin America by identifying the argument, the primary sources
on which that argument is based, and by putting that work in context by relating it to other
course material.
3) Analyze primary sources (documents, oral testimonies, or images from a particular time and
place that a historian is examining) within their own historical contexts.
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4) Develop critical thinking skills through engagement with scholarship and literature (also
known as historiography) of the region by identifying the argument, the primary sources on
which that argument is based, and by putting that work in context by relating it to other course
material.
5) Gain a basic understanding of how historical change happens and how historians think and
practice history.
6) Make clear, organized arguments (either in oral or written form) supported by historical
evidence and analysis of that evidence.
Required Readings (available at the University Bookstore)
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, ed., Haitian History, New Perspectives. New York, Routledge,2013.
Eric Paul Roorda, Lauren Derby, and Raymundo González, eds., The Dominican Republic
Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke University Press, 2014.
Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of the Bones. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 6th ed. Boston and New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN-13: 978-0312535032
Course requirements & evaluation
Participation (20%) - Students are expected to engage in class discussion and express their
views and analysis of the class materials. Sitting in class in silent while staring at your
colleagues, looking out of the window, or taking abundant notes of what everyone says is NOT
participation. Shyness is not an excuse. Discussion time is a good moment to bring up some of
the thoughts you might have had while reading or watching the materials and to react to the
views of your colleagues. You must take their ideas seriously and be able to respond to them.
You must be able to disagree with your colleagues and to welcome the exchange of ideas that
follows when someone disagrees with you. If you do not participate, you have not met your
responsibility to yourself, to each other, or to the course.
3 Critical Essays (30%) - In the course of the semester, during the weeks marked below (see
class schedule), students will hand in papers where they analyze and reflect on the readings or,
movies assigned for that specific week (and no other). These papers are not intended to be a mere
report of the content of the readings. They must include an original analysis and an interpretive
point of the topic, and you should explain why that material was important, and support it with
appropriate examples and materials. 3 pages each.
Midterm (15%) - It will consist of three excerpts from primary or secondary sources, which you
need to contextualize and explain.
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Historiographical Essay (20%) - Students will find three scholarly articles about Hispaniola in
specialized journals and will write a 10 to 12-page paper in which they compare the authors’
conclusions, approach, methodology, and sources. The use of any other scholarly materials to
illuminate the topic (used in class or from outside class) is expected and encouraged.
Final Exam (15%) - Similar to the midterm. It will be a take home exam.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT ALL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS
All written assignments must be printed, paginated, stapled, and handed in class the date
they are due. Unless you are bedridden, emailed copies are not welcome and you will be
penalized. Papers without staples will also be penalized. Papers must be formatted in Times
New Roman 12, with 1 inch margins. All references must be formatted using the Chicago
Manual of Style footnote and bibliographic citation format (aka Chicago 15th edition, notes
and bibliography). This is the format historians use. For more info, see Rampolla, p.
113-145, or the Web (or via VPN if you are off-campus) at: http://
www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
Students must attend the screening of the documentary film Fatal Assistance (2013) on
February 17 at 7:30pm (Hepburn 218). Please plan ahead.
Class Policies
- Attendance: you must come to class. You are allowed three absences throughout the semester
for any reason, including illness. One extra absence will subtract 0.25 from your final grade. I
will take attendance every single class. If you are not in class when I call your name and show
up later, it will be considered a late arrival. Three late arrivals will be considered an unjustified
absence, and will count towards your total allotment. If you accumulate 5 absences you will
receive a maximum grade of 1.0 in the class. You will fail if you have 6 absences or more.
Note for student athletes: This absence policy also applies to you, regardless of your team’s
schedule. Please come to talk to me (during office hours, not before/after class!) early in the
semester about your schedule, and bring a full printed copy of your schedule to the meeting.
- If you miss class, please do not email me to ask me what you missed! It is your responsibility to
find out through your colleagues, class schedule or any other means. If once you find out there
are things you do not understand, then you are very welcome to come to office hours and I will
help you in every way I can.
- Cell phone use is prohibited in class. Find out where the “power off” and “silence” buttons are,
use them, and put the cell phone away. Whatever call or message is coming in during class can
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wait until the end of class. Texting is not allowed, and neither is the use of any portable
electronic devices.
- Laptops are not allowed in class.
- Take deadlines seriously. All major assignments and deadlines are laid out in the class schedule
so you can plan around them. Being crunched by several deadlines at once is no excuse for late
assignments. If you must miss class when an assignment is due, arrange to get it to me by the due
date. Any late papers (including those left in my box without warning while the rest of us are in
class) will lose 0.50 for each day the paper is late. After three days, assignments will not be
accepted. As for exams, you must take them the day they are scheduled. If you miss class the
day of an exam, you cannot take it later.
- Changes to course schedule: The instructor reserves the right to adjust the course schedule or
readings to provide the best learning experience possible.
- Note about return of graded assignments: Grading takes time in the Humanities and Social
Sciences. Grading written assignments well and offering thoughtful comments takes even a
longer time. Returning graded assignments will always take at least two weeks, and more likely,
close to three. Please factor this into your expectations when it comes to waiting for your exams
and papers.
- Policy on Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s ideas, words, or artistic,
scientific, or technical work as one’s own creation. Using the ideas or work of another is
permissible only when the original author is identified. Paraphrasing and summarizing, as well as
direct quotations, require citations to the original source. Plagiarism may be intentional or
unintentional. Lack of dishonest intent does not necessarily absolve a student of responsibility
for plagiarism. It is the student’s responsibility to recognize the difference between statements
that are common knowledge (which do not require documentation) and restatements of the ideas
of others. Paraphrase, summary, and direct quotation are acceptable forms of restatement, as long
as the source is cited. Students who are unsure how and when to provide documentation should
read Rampolla, pp. 98-105, and are advised to consult with me. Offenders will be penalized to
the full extent outlined by the university guidelines.
You can check your grades in Sakai anytime. They will be in a 100 point scale. Since the
university’s grading scale is divided into .25 increments, I include the following chart to help you
understand the correlation between the 100 point scale for class assignments and the 0.0-4.0
university scale.
96-100
92-95
88-91
4.0
3.75
3.5
68-70
65-67
62-64
2.0
1.75
1.5
4
84-87
80-83
77-79
74-76
71-73
3.25
3.0
2.75
2.5
2.25
59-61
55-58
0-54
1.25
1.0
0.0
Title IX makes it clear that violence and harassment based on sex and gender are Civil
Rights offenses subject to the same kinds of accountability and the same kinds of support
applied to offenses against other protected categories such as race, national origin, etc. If
you or someone you know has been harassed or assaulted, you can find the appropriate
resources here:
- Title IX coordinator: Lisa Cania. (315) 229-5567. [email protected]
- Counseling Services, Sexual Assault Support Group: Tara Tent (315) 229-5392
[email protected]
- For crisis intervention, you can reach St. Lawrence University 24-hour Sexual
Violence Hotline (315) 244-5466. If you prefer out of campus support, REACHOUT of
St. Lawrence County: (315) 265-2422.
- Safety and Security (315-229-5555) and the police (911).
Class Schedule
WEEK 1: Introduction
January
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Description of the course, and discussion of goals, themes, assignments,
and class policies.
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Introduction part 2.
Readings: “Conceptualizing the Atlantic World,” in Egerton et al., The Atlantic World: A
History, 1400-1888. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, 2007, pp. 1-37
DR Reader, ch. I, “The People Who Greeted Columbus”
WEEK 2: Indigenous Societies of Ayti, Europeans and early colonial Santo Domingo.
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Readings: Robert Paquette and Stanley Egerman, eds., The Lesser Antilles in the
Age of European Expansion, U. of Florida Press, 1996, chapter one (William Keegan,
“Columbus was a Cannibal: Myth and First Encounters,”) and two (Louis Allaire,
“Visions of Cannibals: Distant Islands and Distant Lands in Taino World Image.”)
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DR Reader, ch. I: “Religion of the Taíno People”, and ”The First Christian
Converts…”, “The Indian Monarchs”, “A Voice in the Wilderness”, and “The
Royal Response.”
5
WEEK 3: The Rise of Santo Domingo and St. Domingue.
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Readings: Genaro Rodríguez Morel, “The Sugar Economy of Española in the
Sixteenth Century” and Herbert Klein, “The Atlantic Slave Trade to 1650.” In
Stuart Schwartz, Tropical Babylons. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2004, pp. 84-114,
201-236.
DR Reader, ch. II, “The Slave Problem in Santo Domingo”
February
3
DR Reader, ch. II, “Lemba and the Maroons of Hispaniola,” “Francis Drake’s
Sacking of Santo Domingo,” “The Bulls,” “The Buccaneers of Hispaniola,”
“Business Deals with the Buccaneers,” “The Idea of Value on Hispaniola.”
CRITICAL ESSAY 1 DUE
WEEK 4: Slavery and Development in Hispaniola.
5
Readings: “Freedom, Slavery, and the French Colonial State” and “Citizenship
and Racism in the New Public Sphere.” In Garrigus, Before Haiti, 2006, 83-108
and 141-170.
10
Haitian History, chapter 2 (by Carolyn Fick)
DR Reader, ch. III, “The Monteros and the Guerreros,” “The Border Maroons of
Le Maniel.”
MID SEMESTER BREAK
WEEK 5: African Diaspora Politics, Culture and Identity.
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Class Film: Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (2008, 52 minutes)
Readings: Guerin C. Montilus. “Guinea versus Congo Lands: Aspects of the
Collective Memory of Haiti.” In Joseph E. Harris, ed. Global Dimensions of the
African Diaspora. Washington: Howard University Press, 1993, 159-166
Hepburn 218 at 7:30pm
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Film screening: Fatal Assistance (2013. 100 minutes)
“The Clustering of African Ethnicities in the Americas,” in Gwendolyn
Midlo-Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links.
Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005, pp. 55- 79
Haitian History, chapter 4 (by John K. Thornton)
6
CRITICAL ESSAY 2 DUE
WEEK 6: The Haitian Revolution, part 1
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Readings: Haitian History, chapter 3 (by David Geggus)
“Free People of Color in the Southern Peninsula,” in Garrigus, Before Haiti,
227-264.
26
Elizabeth Colwill, “Gendering the June Days: Race, Masculinity,
and Slave Emancipation in Saint Domingue,” JOHS 15-1&2 (2009), pp. 102-122.
DR Reader, ch. III, “The People Eater,” “The Boca Nigua Revolt,” and “Hayti
and San Domingo.”
WEEK 7: The Haitian Revolution, part 2.
March
3
Film (to watch on your own): Égalité For All (2008)
Readings: Laurent Dubois, “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Rethinking the
Intellectual History of the French Atlantic.” Social History 31:1 (2006), 1-14.
Haitian History, chapter 1 (by Michel Rolph Trouillot)
5
MIDTERM EXAM
WEEK 8: Revolution in the Atlantic.
10
Readings: Matt Childs, “A Black French General Arrived to Conquer the Island’:
Images of the Haitian Revolution in Cuba’s 1812 Aponte Rebellion.” The Impact
of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. Ed. David Geggus. Columbia:
USC Press, 2001. 135-56.
Haitian History, chapters 5 (by Ashli White)
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Haitian History, chapter 6 (by Ada Ferrer) and 9 (by Leslie M. Alexander)
SPRING BREAK!!
I would suggest that you read Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones over the break. It’s not due until
Week 12, but it is long, and there are other readings too, so please don’t leave it for the last minute!
WEEK 9: España Boba and “Unification”/”Occupation.”
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Readings: Anne Eller: "“All would be equal in the effort”: Santo Domingo’s
“Italian Revolution”, Independence, and Haiti, 1809-1822." Journal of Early
American History 1 (2011) 105-141.
7
DR Reader, ch. III, “After the War, Tertulias,” “Stupid Spain,” “Arrogant Bell
Bottoms,” and “Dominicans Unite”.
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Reading: Frank Moya Pons, “The Land Question in Haiti and Santo Domingo:
The Sociopolitical Context of the Transition from Slavery to Free Labor, 1801 1843,” In Manuel Moreno Fraginals et al. Between Slavery and Free Labor.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1985, pp. 181-214.
Haitian History, chapter 7 (by Mimi Sheller)
CRITICAL ESSAY 3 DUE
WEEK 10: Caudillos, Empires, and Peasants.
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Readings: Sara Johnson-La O, “The Integration of Hispaniola: A Reappraisal of
Haitian-Dominican Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries.” Journal of Haitian
Studies 8:2 (2002): 4-29.
Haitian History, chapter 8 (by David Nicholls).
April
2
DR Reader, Chapter IV, “Pedro Santana,” “The Caudillo of the South,” “In the
Army Camp at Bermejo,” Spanish Recolonization: a Postmortem,” “A Lesson in
Quite Good-Breeding,” “Your Friend, Ulises.”
DR Reader, Chapter V, “Public Enemies: The Revolutionary and the Pig,”
“Barriers to Progress: Revolutions, Diseases, Holidays, and Cockfights”,
“Patrons, Peasants and Tobacco.”
(IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, START THINKING ABOUT YOUR HISTORIOGRAPHICAL
ESSAY!)
WEEK 11: Uncle Sam to the Rescue? U.S. Imperialism in Dominican Republic and Haiti.
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Haitian History, chapter 10 (by Brenda Gayle Plummer)
DR Reader, chapter VI.
9
Eric Paul Roorda. “The cult of the airplane among US military
men and Dominicans during the US Occupation and the Trujillo
régime.” In GM Joseph et al, eds., Close Encounters of Empire:
Writing the Cultural History of US-Latin American Relations.
Durham: Duke, 1998, 269-310
WEEK 12: The Trujillo Era: Totalitarianism and Modernity in the Caribbean.
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Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones. New York: Penguin, 1999.
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DR Reader, Chapter VII
8
WEEK 13: Balaguer, and the Duvaliers.
21
Film (to watch on your own): The Agronomist. (2002)
Haitian History, chapter 12 (by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith)
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DR Reader, chapter VIII
WEEK 14: Neoliberalism, and Contemporary Dominican and Haitian politics.
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Readings: Samuel Martínez. “Not a Cockfight: Rethinking Haitian-Dominican
Relations.” Latin American Perspectives 30.3 (2003), 80-101.
Lauren Derby. “Gringo Chicken With Worms.” In Close Encounters of Empire.
Joseph, LeGrand, Salvatore, eds. Durham: Duke U., 1998.
30
Haitian History, chapter 13 (by Paul Farmer)
DR Reader, Chapter X, “Tribulations of Dominican Racial Identity.”
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