Afro-Dominicans (also referred to as African Dominicans or Black Dominicans; ) are Dominicans of total or predominant Sub-Saharan African (Black African) ancestry. They are a minority in the country representing 7.5% or 642,018 of the population, according to the 2022 census.
In a previous estimate they were 7.5% of the Dominican Republic's population according to a survey published in 2021 by the United Nations Population Fund. About 4.0% of the people surveyed claim an Afro-Caribbean immigrant background, while only 0.2% acknowledged Haitian descent. Currently there are many black illegal immigrants from Haiti, who are not included within the Afro-Dominican demographics as they are not legal citizens of the nation.
The first black people in the island were brought by European colonists as indentured workers from Spain and Portugal known as Ladinos. When the Spanish Crown outlawed the enslavement of Natives in the island with the Laws of Burgos, slaves from West Africa and Central Africa were imported from the 16th to 18th centuries due to labor demands. However, with the decline of the sugar industry in the colony the importation of slaves decreased, leading to a rise in free blacks, which eventually became the majority within the Afro-Dominican demographic by the late 1700s. Many of these Africans eventually intermixed with the Europeans, Mestizos, and Natives creating a triracial culture.
In the 19th and 20th centuries black immigrants from the French and British West Indies, as well as the United States came to the island and settled in coastal regions increasing the black population. The Afro-Dominican population can now be found in most parts of the country, from coastal areas such as San Cristobal and San Pedro de Macoris to deep inland areas such as Cotui and Monteplata.
There is a lack of recent official data because the National Office of Statistics (ONE) has not released racial data since 1960, though the Central Electoral Board collected racial data until 2014. The 1996 electoral roll put the figures of "black" at 8.6% and "mulatto" at 52.8% of the adult population. The 1960 population census (the last one in which race was queried) placed it at 8.8%. According to a 2011 survey by Latinobarómetro, "The Adventure Guide to the Dominican Republic" the black population is estimated to be 35% of the Dominican population.
History 16th – 18th century
In 1502 (or 1503), the Spanish Crown finally acquiesced to the colonists' demands for enslaved Africans. The Santo Domingo colony, the only European possession yet in America, had already produced a devastating effect on the Taino, Lucayan (Arawaks), and Kalinga (Caribs) populations. A decade of intense exploitation and deadly waves of plagues had reduced the indigenous populations to levels that even the Spaniards considered dangerous. As the Hispaniolan Tainos (and Cigüayos) declined during the first couple of years of colonization, the colonial administration run by Christopher Columbus had gone against the wishes of Isabel I of Castile and had begun the first European slave trade on the western side of Atlantic. Raids that cleared out from Santo Domingo under the disguise of pacification and to evangelize nearby islanders had brought in other Amerindians to the colony. They were a large number of enslaved Lucayos from the Bahamas and Kalingas from the eastern islands. Now toiling alongside native Hispaniolans, these war captives became the first enslaved foreign workers on the island of Quisqueya, one of the indigenous names for the island that Columbus called Hispaniola. By the turn of the century, not even the captured neighbors could supply the labor demands of the mines and plantations. Rudimentary mining techniques and the always backbreaking mass-production of food-stuff required an ever-growing number of coerced workers. Expanding the colonization project to Puerto Rico and requesting the Crown permission to purchase enslaved Africans were the only two solutions colonists seemed capable of conceiving. Ferdinand I of Aragon, widowed and freed from Isabel's more cautious hand, granted both wishes to the embattled colonists in the Indies. It was never a liberal expansion nor an open trade, however. Though unrestrained by religious piety, Ferdinand, who was the ideal Prince in Machiavelli's imagination, was wary in the extreme of potential Conquistador-owned kingdoms (medieval style) in his new possessions, and of slave rebellions in the colonies. So, the first group of enslaved Africans to arrive at the Ozama River were not Piezas de Indias purchased from the Portuguese traders, but a select group of seasoned Black Ladinos. They formed their own confraternities as early as 1502, and they are considered the first community of the African diaspora in the Americas. The profit too was meant to stay within his kingdom. Indian resistances, flights, and diseases, however, forced the crown to open the market to thousands of bozales, enslaved Africans directly from the continent.
In 1521, the first major slave rebellion was led by 20 Senegalese Muslims of Wolof origin, in an ingenio (sugar factory) east of the Santo Domingo colony. Many of the insurgents fled to the mountains and established what would become the first autonomous African Maroon community in America. With the success of this revolt, slave revolts continued and leaders emerged among the African slaves, such as Sebastían Lemba. This also included people already baptized Christian by the Spanish, as was the case of Juan Vaquero, Diego de Guzmán and Diego del Ocampo. The rebellions and subsequent escapes led to the establishment of African communities in the southwest, north and east of the island, including the first communities of African ex-slaves in western Hispaniola that was Spanish administered until 1697, when it was sold to France and became Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti). This caused some concern among slaveholders and contributed to the Spanish emigration to other places. Even as sugarcane increased profitability in the island, the number of escaped Africans continued to rise, mixing with Taíno people of these regions, and by 1530, Maroon bands were considered dangerous to the Spanish colonists, who traveled in large armed groups outside the plantations and left the mountainous regions to the Maroons.
With the discovery of precious metals in South America, the Spanish abandoned their migration to the island of Hispaniola to emigrate to South America and Mexico in order to get rich, for they did not find much wealth there. Thus, they also abandoned the slave trade to the island, which led to the collapse of the colony into poverty. Still, during those years, slaves were used to build a cathedral that in time became the oldest in the Americas. They built the monastery, first hospital and the Alcázar de Colón, and the Puerta de las Lamentaciones (). In the 1540s, Spanish authorities ordered the African slaves building a wall to defend the city from attacks by pirates who ravaged the islands.
After 1700, with the arrival of new Spanish colonists, the Atlantic slave trade resumed. However, as industry moved from sugar to livestock, racial and caste divisions became less important, eventually leading to a blend of cultures—Spanish, African, and indigenous—which would form the basis of national identity for Dominicans. It is estimated that the population of the colony in 1777 was 400,000, of which 100,000 were Europeans and Criollos, 60,000 African, 100,000 mestizo, 60,000 zambo and 100,000 mulatto.
19th century Given the relative ease of manumission for enslaved Africans, some fugitive African slaves from Saint-Domingue, the western French colony of the island fled east to Santo Domingo and formed communities such as San Lorenzo de Los Mina, which is currently part of the "city" of Santo Domingo. (A second group of Haitian slaves was later imported to build the French colonial enclave Puerto Napoleon in Samana). Fugitives arrived from other parts of the West Indies as well, especially from the various islands of the Lesser Antilles.Francisco del Rosario Sánchez One of the Padres de la Patria / Fathers of the Patriotism – Colonial Zone-Dominican Republic (DR) – Retrieved 3 November 2012. Meanwhile, by this point, free blacks had consisted the majority of Afro-descendant Dominicans, who enjoyed some degree of social and political freedom in Santo Domingo. However, slavery remained legal, and remnants of colonial prejudices still persisted in Dominican society. These would become the underlying issues during the future struggles for Dominican independence until the 1840s. By the late 1780s, free people of color in the island were inspired by the French Revolution to seek an expansion of their rights, while also involving enslaved Africans to fight for their cause. Despite adhering to European royalist political views, Toussaint Louverture, the primary figure of what would become the Haitian Revolution, used the language of freedom and equality associated with the French Revolution.James, pp.125–126 From being willing to bargain for better conditions of slavery late in 1791, he had become committed to its complete abolition.Bell, pp.86–87; James, p.107 Inspired by Louverture's call for freedom and equality, which caused the Spanish to look with disfavor on his control of a strategically important region,Bell, pp.92–95 both free and enslaved blacks in Santo Domingo sought to continue their fight for freedom in the colony. These would transpire into a series of slave revolts to bring about that began in 1795, which would intensify following the Treaty of Basel, which led to the cession of Santo Domingo to France that same year. Over the next five years, slave insurrection persisted in Santo Domingo, the most impactful of the revolts being the 1796 Boca de Nigua slave revolt, which greatly weakened the effects of slavery in Santo Domingo.
In 1801, Louverture seized the colony from France and abolished slavery, freeing about 40,000 enslaved persons, and prompting much of the planter of that part of the island to flee to Cuba and Puerto Rico. After he was deposed in 1802, the French officials reasserted its domain in Santo Domingo, although slavery still remained prohibited. Some time after this, another slave revolt erupted, but was once again suppressed.
Simultaneously, Jean-Louis Ferrand rounded his troops to engage in slave raiding along the border. This action would infuriate and spark the wrath of Haiti's self proclaimed emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Realizing Ferrand's intention to restore slavery, Dessalines ordered an invasion of Santo Domingo in February 1805. He managed to reach the capital, but it was protected by a large wall, built back in 1540s by the Dominican slaves, thereby preventing Dessalines from laying his siege on the capital. However, after learning of a French ship believed to be heading towards Haiti to attack the country, Dessalines called off his invasion, and retreated through the Cibao, practicing scorched-earth tactics along the way, one famous exemple being the events that came to be known as the massacre, or beheadings, of Moca.
In 1809, the French government was toppled by the Criollo leader, Juan Sánchez Ramírez. However, slavery was re-established when the Spanish recovered the colony that same year. This caused discontent among the black population.