Every Day Is Special: August 16 – Restoration of Independence in the Dominican Republic

August 16 – Restoration of Independence in the Dominican Republic

Posted on August 16, 2017

During the 1800s, the Dominican Republic declared its independence three times!

First, after years of trying to do so, the Dominican Republic finally declared its independence from Spain in 1821. It called itself Spanish Haiti.

(But, you know, in Spanish.)

But then Haiti took over. In other words non-Spanish Haiti, where the people spoke French, invaded and annexed "Spanish Haiti," where the people spoke Spanish. Both of these groups were living on the same Caribbean island, Hispaniola.

But the Dominicans didn't want to live under Haitian rule. So a group of them declared their independence again, in 1844, and they forced Haiti out and fought back every time Haitian forces tried to take over.

Unfortunately, being independent isn't a picnic. Two men fought for control of the new nation, but both Buenaventura Báez and Pedro Sánchez seemed interested in getting an older, more powerful nation to kinda-sorta adopt the Dominican Republic, rather than staying fully independent. One tried to convince the French and then the United States to take over. Eventually, in 1861, General Sánchez was able to convince Spain to re-colonize (as it were) the nation.

The Dominican Republic was the only Latin American country ever to revert back to being a Spanish colony.

Of course, as you can imagine, some Dominicans did not like this move one bit. Protests shook the colony, and on this date in 1863 a patriot declared independence again - for the third time in 40 years!

A War of Restoration broke out, and Spain got sick of yet another revolutionary war. In 1865 Spanish forces left the island - and ever since then the Dominican Republic has been independent.

The last declaration of independence is so important to the nation, August 16 is the date that the president addresses the nation - a sort of "State of the Union" speech - and it is also the date that, every four years, the new president takes power.