Manifesto of January 16, 1844

The Dominican Declaration of Independence, as indicated by the date, was a written document that was conceived just before the founding of the Dominican Republic. It is the declaration of independence of the Dominican nation, a platform on which the newly republic was founded on. This manifesto presents the reasons that justifies the separation from the Haiti, explaining word for word the grievances and suffering brought on by tjhe Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo, which lasted for 22 years from 1822 to 1844. It also goes into great detail of the conditions of the new state that would emerge from the independence.

Manifesto of January 16

“ The defense and respect due to the opinion of all men and to that of civilized nations require a country united with another and desirous of retaking and vindicating it's rights by breaking it's political ties, to declare frankly and in good faith the reasons for doing so. They induce him to take that step, best he he thought to have been promoted by a spirit of curiosity and ambition. We believe we have demonstrated with our heroic perseverance that the ills of s government must be endured as long as they seem bearable to us, this being better than doing justice or avoiding them. But when a long series of injustice, violence and humiliation ends up proving the intention of reducing everything to despair and the most absolute tyranny, it is then a sacred right for the people and even s duty.

Due to the fact that men have not come together in society except for the purpose of working for their conservation, that they have received from nature the right to propose the means and to seek them in order to obtain that result, for that very reason, such principles authorize them to be on their guard, to guard against anything that might deprive them of that right, when society is threatened.

That is wlthe reason why the inhabitants of the eastern part of the island, before Spanish or Santo Domingo, making use of their rights, driven as they were by twenty-two years of oppression and hearing from all sides the lamentations of the homeland, they have taken the firm resolution to seperate forever from the Haitian Republic and to establish a free and sovereign state.

For twenty-two years, the Dominican people, due to a fateful fate, have suffered the most infamous oppression: whether that state of degradation has depended on their true interest, or whether they have allowed themselves to be swept away by the torrent of individual passions, the fact is that a heavier and more degrading yoke has been imposed on it than that of the ancient metropolis.

For twenty-two years, the people, deprived of all their rights, have been violently deprived of all the be benefits in which they should have participated if they had been considered an integral part of the Republic. And the desire to escape from such humiliating slavery was almost removed from him... When in February 1822, the eastern part of the island yielding only to the force of circumstances, agreed to receive the army of General Boyer that, as a friend, he went beyond the limits of both parties. The Dominican Spaniards could not believe that with such concealed perfidy, he could have broken the promises that served as a pretext to occupy the country and without which he would have, he had to overcome many difficulties and even walk over our corpses if luck had favored him.

There was not a single Dominican who did not receive him then without demonstrations of sympathy. Wherever he went, the people came out to meet him; he thought he found in the man who had just received a title of peacemaker in the north, the protection that had been promised him in such a hypocritical way; but very soon looking through the veil that hid his pernicious intentions, it was discovered that he had given the country over to his oppressor, to a ferocious tyrant!...

With him entered Santo Domingo the tangle of all vices and disorders perfidy, denunciation, division, slander, violence, usurpation and personal hatred, unknown until then in the soul of that kind people....

His decrees in his provisions were the beginnings of discord in the sign of destruction. Through his Machiavellian system that disorganized everything he forced the most respectable families to emmigrate, and with them, talents, wealth, commerce and agriculture disappear from the land. He removed from his council and from the main jobs those men could have defended the rights of their fellow citizens, proposed of remedy for the ills, and made known the true needs of the country. Disregarding all the principles of public law and of people, he reduced many families to misery and indigence, taken away their properties to bring them under the control the Republic, giving them to individuals from the western part or selling them at a vile price. He devastated the countryside and destroyed agriculture and commerce. He stripped the churches of their wealth, mistreated and humiliated the ministers of religion, deprived them of the income and their rights. And through his negligence, left public buildings to fail into ruins so that his lieutenants could take advantage of the damage and could thus satisfy the greed that they brought with them from the West.

Later, in order to give these injustices the appearance of legality, he issued a law so that the assets of the absentees, whose brothers and relatives are to this day in the most horrible misery, were incorporated into the domain of the State. Such measures did not satisfy his greed. He also put his sacrilegious hand on the properties of the sons of the East and authorized theft and fraud with the law of July 8, 1824. He prohibited the community from communal lands that by virtue of conventions and for the utility and family needs had subsisted since the discovery of the island, and that with the sole purpose of profiting the State. With this measure, he ended up ruining the herds and impoverishing many parents; but he didn't care much about ruining and destroying everything....

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