Manifesto of January 16, 1844 (draft 2)
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Manifesto of January 16[edit]
With Mella's return from Haiti in the beginning of 1844 Sánchez used this time to draft a manifesto, which was later handed to Tomas Bobadilla for publishing. In that manifesto, justification for the separation from Haiti is described in these words:
| “ | THE decent ATTENTION and respect due to the opinion of all men and to that of civilized nations; demands that when a People that has been united to another, wants to resume their rights, vindicate them, and dissolve their political ties, declare frankly and in good faith, the causes that move them to their separation, so that they do not believe that it is ambition , or the spirit of novelty that can move you.
We believe we have demonstrated with heroic constancy that the ills of a government must be suffered while they are bearable, rather than justice done by abolishing forms; but when a long series of injustices, violations and vexations, continuing to the same end, denote the design of reducing everything to despotism and the most absolute tyranny, it falls to the sacred right of the peoples and their duty, to throw off the yoke of such a government, and provide to new guarantees; ensuring its future stability and prosperity. Because men gathered in societies with the sole purpose of conspiring for its preservation, which is the supreme law, received from nature the right to propose and request the means to achieve it: and for the same reason, such principles authorize them to guard against as much as it can deprive them of that right, This is why the peoples of the eastern part of the island, formerly Spanish or of Santo Domingo, using their own, driven by twenty-two years of oppression and hearing the cries of the homeland from all sides, have taken the firm resolution to separate forever of the Haitian Republic, and become a free and sovereign state. Twenty-two years ago, the Dominican People, due to one of those fatalities of luck, is suffering the most ignominious oppression...either their fall depended on ignorance of their true national interest, or because they allowed themselves to be swept away by the torrent of individual passions, the fact is that a more outdated and degrading yoke was imposed on it than that of its ancient mother country. Twenty-two years ago, the peoples were deprived of all their rights, they were violently deprived of those benefits to which they were creditors, if they were considered as added parties to the Republic. And it was not long before they had made him lose even the desire to free himself from such humiliating slavery!!! When in February of 1822, the eastern part of the Island yielding only to the force of circumstances, did not refuse to receive the army of General Boyer, who as a friend crossed the limits of both parts, the Dominican Spaniards did not believe that With such concealed perfidy, he would have broken the promises that served as a pretext to occupy the towns, and without which, he would have had to overcome immense difficulties and perhaps march over our corpses if luck had favored him. No Dominican received him then, without showing a desire to sympathize with his new fellow citizens: the simplest part of the towns he was occupying, going out to meet him, thought they would find in him who had just received the title of peacemaker in the North, the protection that he had so hypocritically promised. Little by little, through the disguise, which hid the sinister sights that he brought, everyone warned that they were in the hands of an oppressor, of a fierce tyrant!!! Upon entering the city of Santo Domingo, disorders and vices came with him in droves! The perfidy, the division, the slander, the violence, the denunciation, the usurpation, the hatred and the personalities until then little common in these innocent Towns. His decrees and provisions were the beginning of discord and the sign of destruction. Through his disorganizing and Machiavellian system, he forced the main and richest families to emigrate, and with them talent, wealth, commerce and agriculture: he removed from his council and from the main jobs, the men who could have represented the rights of their fellow citizens, ask for the remedy of evils and express the true demands of the Homeland. In contempt of all the principles of public law and of peoples, he reduced many families to indigence, taking their properties to collect them in the domains of the Republic, and donate them to individuals in the Western part, or sell them at very low prices. He devastated the fields, stripped the churches of their riches, trampled and vilified the Ministers of Religion, took away their rents and rights, and due to their abandonment, left the public buildings to fall into total ruin, so that their leaders could take advantage of the spoils and that this way they would satisfy the greed that they brought with them from the West. Later, to give his injustices an appearance of legality, he enacted a law, so that the assets of those absent would enter the state, whose brothers and immediate relatives still exist submerged in misery. He still not satisfied his greed, with sacrilegious hand attentive to the properties of the sons of the East; he authorized theft and fraud by the law of July 8, 1824; prohibited the community from common land, which by virtue of agreements and for the utility and necessity of the families, had been preserved since the discovery of the Island, to take advantage of them in favor of their State, finish ruining the breeding of animals and impoverishing the a multitude of parents. Little did he care! Destroy everything, ruin it! This was the object of his insatiable greed! Fertile in devising the evils with which he had to consummate the work of our ruin and reduce everything to nothing, he put in place a monetary system, which imperceptibly has been reducing by degrees, families, the employees, the merchants and the generality of the inhabitants, to the greatest misery. With such views he propagated the Haitian Government its corrupting principles. Under the influence of his infernal politics, he unbridled passions, raised parties, hatched detractor plans, established espionage and introduced discord and discord even in the domestic home. If he spoke out in Spanish against tyranny and oppression, he was denounced as a suspect, he was dragged to jail, and some went up to the scaffold to intimidate others, and that the sentiments our parents conveyed to us would expire once and for all. The Homeland fought and persecuted, he could not find a safe refuge against the fury of tyranny, except in the breasts of an afflicted youth and some pure souls who knew how to hide his sacrosanct principles, to make propaganda, in happier times and to revive with energy those who lay in a state of despondency and torpor. The twenty-one years of Boyer's perverting administration passed, during which time the inhabitants of the East suffered all the privations that cannot be enumerated: he treated its inhabitants worse than a people conquered by force: he squeezed the juice out of them, getting as much benefit as he could to satisfy his greed and that of his loved ones: he made slaves in the name of freedom; he forced them to pay a debt that they had not contracted like those of the Western part, who took advantage of other people's goods; when on the contrary, they owe us the wealth that they have usurped or embezzled. This was the sad picture of this part, when on January 27 of last year, they raised the Keys in the South of the Island, the cry for reform: with the speed of an electric fire the towns were inflamed; they adhered to the principles of a manifesto of September 1, 1842, and the Eastern part flattered itself. But in vain! of a happier future. His good faith reached so much!... Commander Rivier, proclaimed himself Head of execution interpreter of the will of the sovereign people; he dictated laws at his whim; he established a government without any legal form, without counting for him, with any of the inhabitants of this part that had already declared himself in favor of his revolution; he toured the island, and in the department of Santiago without legal foundations, he remembered with sorrow, the sad times of Toussaint and Dessalines bringing with them a monstrous general staff, which demoralized everywhere: he sold jobs, plundered churches; they had to expatriate to get rid of the persecutions that were done to them. And when he calculated that his designs had been accomplished and the object that he had proposed secured, he set them free, without any satisfaction for the grievances or damages received. Our condition has not changed in any way: the same outrages, the same treatments of the previous administration, the same or higher taxes, the same monetary system without any guarantee that works the ruin of its peoples and a petty constitution that will never make the country happy. , has put the seal on ignominy, depriving us against natural law even of the only thing that we had left of Spaniards, of the native language! and putting aside our august Religion, so that it disappears from among us: because if when that State religion, if when it was protected, she and her ministers were despised and vilified, what will not be now surrounded by sectarians and enemies? The violation of our rights, customs, and privileges, and so many vexations, have awakened our position in us, make us aware of our servitude and despondency, and the principles of the law that govern nations decide the matter in favor of our country, as they did. in favor of the Netherlands against Felipe II in 1581. Under the authority of these principles, who would dare to reproach the resolution of the people of the Keys, when they rose up against Boyer and declared him a traitor to the Homeland? And who will dare to inveigh against ours, declaring the eastern part of the island separate from the Republic of Haiti? We have no obligation to those who do not give us the means to fulfill it: If the eastern part was considered voluntarily incorporated into the Haitian Republic, it should enjoy the same benefits as those to whom it had joined; And if by virtue of that union, we were obliged to uphold their integrity, she was obliged on her part to give us the means to fulfill it: she failed them, violating our rights and us to the obligation. If it is considered to be subject to the Republic, then all the more reason it should enjoy without restrictions all the rights and prerogatives that had been agreed upon or had been promised to it, and lacking the unique and necessary condition of its subjection, it remains free and entirely released; and the duties towards herself oblige her to provide for her own preservation by other means. If one considers with respect to the constitution of Haiti, 1816, It will be seen that in addition to the originality of the case, of giving a bastard constitution, to a foreign country that neither needed it, nor named its natural deputies to discuss it, there is also a very scandalous usurpation, because even then the Haitians were not in possession from this part, nor before, when the French were expelled from the French part, they gave it away, this one, because it was not theirs. By the Treaty of Basel, this part was ceded to France, and later restored or returned to Spain by the peace of Paris, by virtue of which the takeover of it by the Spanish in 1809 was sanctioned, and which lasted until the 30th of November 1821 that it separated from the metropolis. When the sons of the West revised the constitution in 1816, this part did not belong to Haiti or to France: the Spanish flag flew from their fortresses, By virtue of a perfect law, and from the fact that the Island of Santo Domingo was called by its natives, Haiti does not follow, that the Western part that first became a sovereign state giving itself the name of the Republic of Haiti, is called the Eastern part. or oriental, as an integral part of it, when the 1st. belonged to the French and the 2nd. to the Spanish. What is very certain is that if the part of the East belongs to a domination, other than that of its own children, it would be to France or Spain, and not to Haiti, since those of the East have a better right to dominate those of the West, than on the contrary, if we go back to the first years of the discovery of the immortal Columbus. Consequently, given the established assumption, there is a usurpation that does not legitimize anyone's right, in a case like ours. So it is that, considering that the vexations and violence committed in twenty-two years, against the previously Spanish part, have reduced it to the greatest misery and will complete its ruin; that the duty of its own conservation and of its future well-being, oblige it to provide for its security by convenient means, being of law: (that a people that has become voluntarily dependent on another, in order to achieve their protection, remains free of his obligations, at the moment that he lacks it, even if it is due to the impossibility of the protector). Considering that a people that is obliged to obey by force and obeys, does well, and that after it can resist and resists, it does better. Considering, finally, that due to the difference in customs and the rivalry that exists between one and the other, there will never be perfect union or harmony. The peoples of the previously Spanish part of the Island of Santo Domingo, satisfied that in twenty-two years of aggregation to the Haitian Republic, they have not been able to take any advantage; rather, on the contrary, they have been ruined, they have become impoverished, they have degraded, and they have been treated in the lowest and most abject way, they have resolved to separate forever from the Haitian Republic, to provide for their security, and conservation, constituting themselves under its old limits, in a free and sovereign State. In which, and under its fundamental laws, it will protect and guarantee the democratic system: the freedom of citizens, forever abolishing slavery: the equality of civil and political rights without regard to distinctions of origin or birth: properties will be inviolable and sacred: The Catholic Religion, Apostolic and Roman will be protected in all its splendor as that of the State; but none will be persecuted or punished for their religious opinions: The freedom of the press will be protected: the responsibility of public officials will be ensured: there will be no confiscation of property for crimes or offenses: public instruction will be promoted and protected at the expense of the State: rights will be reduced to the minimum possible: there will be complete oblivion of votes and political opinions issued up to this date, as long as individuals adhere in good faith to the new system. Military ranks and jobs will be kept under the rules established. Agriculture, commerce, science and the arts will be equally promoted and protected: the same as the status of people born on our soil, or that of the strangers who come to live in it in accordance with the laws. Finally, efforts will be made to issue, as soon as possible, a currency with a real and true guarantee, without the public losing the Haitian one. This is the end that we propose with our separation, and we are resolved to give the entire world the spectacle of a people that will sacrifice itself in defense of its rights and that it will be reduced to ashes and rubble, if its oppressors who boast of being free and civilized, they want to impose conditions even harsher than death on us. If against reason and justice they want us to transmit to our children and to posterity a shameful slavery, then, facing all dangers, with persevering firmness, we solemnly swear before God and men, that we will use our weapons in defense of our freedom and our rights, trusting in the mercies of the Almighty who will happily protect us, making our opponents lean towards a just and rational reconciliation, avoiding bloodshed and the calamities of war frightful that we will not provoke; but that it will be extermination if the case arises. DOMINICANS! (Included under this name all the children of the Eastern part and those who want to follow our fate) The national interest calls us to the union! For a firm resolution, let us show ourselves to be the worthy defenders of freedom: let us sacrifice hatred and personalities for the sake of the country: let the feeling of public interest be the motive that decides us for the just cause of freedom and separation; with it, we do not diminish the happiness of the Republic of the West, and we make ours. Our cause is holy: we would not lack resources, more than what we have on our own soil, because if necessary we will use those that foreigners could provide us in such a case. Divided the territory of the Dominican Republic into four provinces, namely Santo Domingo, Santiago or Cibao, Azua from the limit of Ocoa and Seybo, the Government will be composed of a certain number of members of each one of them so that they thus participate proportionally in their sovereignty. The Provisional Government will be composed of a board composed of eleven members elected in the same order. This junta will reassume all the powers until the constitution of the State is formed, and it will determine the means that it deems most convenient, to maintain the acquired freedom, and will finally call one of the most distinguished patriots in command of the army, that it should protect our limits by adding the subordinates that are needed. To the Dominican union! Since the opportune moment is presented to us from Neiba to Samaná, from Azua to Monte Cristi, opinions agree and there is no Dominican who does not exclaim with enthusiasm: SEPARATION, GOD, HOMELAND AND FREEDOM. Santo Domingo and January 16, 1844 and 1st of the Homeland. Tomás Bobadilla, MR Mella, F. Sánchez, M. Jimenes, Feliz Mercenario, José M. Pérez Jr., Juan Arriaga, Carlos Moreno, Ldo. Valverde, Pedro Bonilla, P. de Castro y Castro, Manuel Cabral, Silvano Puyol, José M. Caminero, Mariano Echavarría, Ramón Echavarría, Angel Perdomo, Bernardo Santin, Juan Santin, Pedro Mena, Juan Ruiz, F. Sosa, Manuel Guerrero , W. Guerrero, Tomás Concha, Jacinto Concha, JN Ravelo, P. Valverde, Joaquín Puello, Gavino Puello, W. Concha, J. de la Cruz García, J. Pichardo, Pablo Pichardo, Gabrie J. de Luna, Luis Betances , Joaquín Lluveres, Domingo Rodríguez, C. Rodríguez, JG Brea, Jacinto Brea, Antonio Brea, Juan Pina, M. Leguisamon, Narciso Sánchez, Antonio Volta, Ignacio Padua, Pedro M. Mena, M. Aybar, José Piñeyro, Ramón Alonso , Hipólito Billini, E. |
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