This is what historians like to call a "chestnut" or "folk derivation". The truth is that the name for the country is simply the adjectival use of the country's capital...Santo Domingo. It comes from the old custom of using the country's capital as a designation for the whole country. Like when reporters talk about "Washington today issued a warning to Pyong Yang." They are not really implying that the city of Washington D.C. issued a warning to the city of Pyong Yang. They are using the respective capitals to mean the U.S. and North Korea.

This was very common among all the Spanish colonies...hence Mexico is both the name of a country today AND it's capital city. Similarly...Puerto Rico was originally the name of what today we call the city of San Juan. San Juan was actually the name of the whole island. Because of this practice, the names got switched in the every day speech of the population and was therefore made official. Puerto Rico, the "rich port", became the name for the island. And San Juan...island's original Spanish name...became the main city's name.

We still do it today. Dominicans abroad generally speak of going to back to "Santo Domingo" when they really mean they are going back to the Dominican Republic.

"Heck, I think that even Antonio Duvergé, the celebrated Centinela de la Frontera, would have suffered because of his haitian ancestry."

Actually, though Duverge's parents were both Haitian mulattoes Duverge himself was born in Puerto Rico near the town of Hormigueros. If he had been born today he would've been born a US citizen.

Don't forget their plan to reinstate slavery, and in the same way that existed on Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti (plantation economy), which would have been plain insufferable to the dominican populace, as half of the population would have fallen under the slave category.

"The truth is that the name for the country is simply the adjectival use of the country's capital...Santo Domingo. "

Agreed. It's as simple as that. Also, there were references to "Dominican" in documents going back to Nuñez de Caceres' time and as such it automatically removes Duarte as the first person to refer to his countrymen as such.

Machacho, are you saying that dominicans get preferential treatment to get a visa to enter the USA since the 60's. Ok, I have heard it all but this would almost made me spit my tea all over my laptop. ROTFL. Please tell me you are joking. I let the dominicans speaking arawak in the DR today pass but this one is too much. I can't stop laughing. Ok I can't type anymore. Did he just say that. May I ask why dominicans were preferable? Can some one of the same nationality please respond to this non sense. I can't stop laughing. Ok you either were born in the USA or came here at a young age and don't know the sacrifices many dominicans have made to get to USA or Spain, Puerto Rico, Italy, Venezuela..

Although some people in the US and Britain retain still the custom of naming the country San Domingo, which irritates (or used to irritate) the haitian diplomatic corps a lot, seeing as that name reminded them of slavery and all what it meant to them (San Domingo = Saint Domingue)

"Don't forget their plan to reinstate slavery, and in the same way that existed on Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti (plantation economy), which would have been plain insufferable to the dominican populace, as half of the population would have fallen under the slave category. "

I really don't think that the Spanish intended to reinstate slavery when DR returned to the fold in the 1860s. Slavery was already dying in neighboring Puerto Rico and no documents I've seen from the time (or at least the reprints I've seen)refer to such a move and all the histories I've read about it don't make mention of Spain's desire to do such a thing(though there is a historical record alluding to rumors that such a thing was being planned..but that's all it seems it was:rumors). In any event a reintroduction of slavery wouldn't have meant that free blacks and mulattoes would've had there freedom taken away per se. One never reads contemporary accounts of free men of color being re-enslaved in the other spanish parts of the caribbean and I doubt very much that spain had such a foolish agenda in mind, especially when one takes into account that the vast majority of the Dominican population was indeed mulatto by the 1860s.

Well, mr. jabao, sadly, he's telling the truth. The only thing that he left out was that that measure would be only a temporary one, in order for the Pentagon to get rid of the masses of citizens that fought in the revolutionary war of April 65', the same applied to the military sectors that participated on the constitutionalist or "communist" side. There you have your "prefered" people.

Not only am I not joking...it's part of U.S. immigration quota law. There are schedules for the numbers of immigrants allowed to enter the U.S. from any specific country. That's the reason why the Republicans want immigration reform. Under those scheduled quotas certain countries enjoy higher percentages than most. One of those is the D.R. El Salvador is another. So is Colombia.

The reason why Dominicans are risking life and limb to get to the U.S. is because of two reasons. They have seen the moderate success of those who have left and they want it for themselves, too. And those percentages are NOT enough to accomodate every Dominican that wants to leave. The quotas were designed during the Cold War to relieve the population pressure on the economies of allied countries who the U.S. feared could be ripe for communist agitation. By drawing a percentage of the population it gave those governements a way to diffuse the horrible economic conditions. It worked. Many Dominicans came to U.S. My parents were among them. This had a two-fold effect...it relieved the population burden back home...neither my parents, nor I or my siblings are in the D.R. It also allowed my folks to take care of both of their families by sending money back on a monthly basis.

But...it has also spurred a version of "gold fever" among many poor Dominicans because they see what gets off those planes in Aeropuerto de Las Americas and they want it too. The U.S. can't take EVERY Dominican that wants to leave. And frankly...looking at many that have arrived since the late 1970s...sometimes I wonder if it should continue taking any at all. No dis intended, but some of the more recent arrivals really embarrass the hell out of those of us who either came before 1970, or in my case, were born here from parents that came here in the early 1960s.

One interesting aspect of this whole Haitian-Dominican thing is that the other day I was talking to my mother. We had just come in from shopping in a largely Hispanic area of NYC. She was horrified at the way one younger Dominican woman was literally shrieking at the top of her lungs. I commented to her that her accent didn't even sound "Dominican". It sounded like something closer to kreyol. My mom gave me a history lesson on the regional accents of the Dominican Republic during her youth. The accent of the capital was very similar to that of Cuba and the Canary Island...after all...Canarians immigrated to the D.R. in larg numbers. She told me that ever since the death of Trujillo the accent of the capital has changed dramatically. What used to be a soft, Andalusian sounding accent has become a machine gun staccato that has little relation to the accent she remembers. She travels back and forth every year and accordiing to her it's the kreyol influence from the large Haitian population.

I believe her. I know how my mother sounds. No one ever thinks she's Dominican when she speaks Spanish. They think she's probably Puerto Rican...maybe from Venezuela (another heavily Canarian-influenced dia lect).

Bueno, Jabao, este muchacho no esta fácil. LOL