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The Haitians had lapsed long since into a condition resembling that of their African forefathers. They reveled in the barbarities of Voodoo, a sort of snake worship, and they groveled before "presidents" and "emperors" who rose and fell on the tide of decaying civilization. The Dominicans unhappily were not much more progressive.
The negroes have produced men of high ability: Heureaux, for instance, though unscrupulous and cruel, was a man of remarkable sagacity and energy. It must not be supposed for a moment that the Dominicans are inimical to whites or, like their neighbors, the Haitians, prefer to see their country peopled by negroes only.
When the Haitians came the church was abandoned; in 1824 it was assigned to the negro immigrants from the United States as a Methodist church, but it was allowed to go to complete ruin and much of its masonry was utilized by the Haitian rulers. A small part of the monastery has been rebuilt for use as an asylum for the insane.
The increase of the population since that time has been subject to little outside influence; there has been practically no emigration, and immigration has been insignificant, the few new settlers being chiefly negroes from the British colonies, Haitians, Porto Ricans, Syrians and European merchants.
S. "Our army now, the new army which we have obtained, is the worst army ever known in any country. I have been in Haiti, and the Haitians are splendid fellows compared with them. Our soldiers are merely a bodyguard for the Socialists, and robbers all. The true army, that went through the unspeakable sufferings of the war, was turned on the streets to starve.
Neither side lacked historical grounds for its contention. In the old colonial days church and state were united and the questions of ownership of the church buildings never arose. When the Haitians assumed control in 1822 they considered the church edifices as the property of the state alone and religious services continued only by sufferance of the government.
Most of the whites, especially the more prominent families, the principal representatives of the community's wealth and culture, definitely abandoned the country, some immediately upon the advent of the Haitians, others in 1824, when a hopeless conspiracy in favor of a restoration of Spanish rule was quenched in blood, and others in 1830, when a quixotic demand of the Spanish king for a return of his domain was refused by Boyer.
In the meantime a guerilla warfare had been going on with the Haitians along the border, and President Pierrot, who had overthrown Herard, was preparing to invade the Dominican Republic. His two armies were at first successful and captured several border towns, but that which entered in the south was repulsed at Estrelleta, while that which invaded the north was defeated at Beler.
San Cristobal, about 16 miles to the west of the capital, had only a chapel and two or three huts in 1820, but attained more importance when slaves freed by the Haitians on the surrounding sugar estates settled there. Bani is a pretty little town founded in 1764 and situated about 39 miles west of Santo Domingo, between the foothills and the sea.
The government soon found itself in financial difficulties, as it was expensive to maintain the country in a state of defense against the Haitians, and an issue of paper money without sufficient guarantees made matters worse. Revolutionary mutterings were heard, and though a number of leaders were shot, the public discontent grew greater and more apparent.
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