Parsley massacre

Parsley massacre
LocationDominican Republic
Coordinates19°37′52″N 70°17′24″W / 19.631°N 70.290°W / 19.631; -70.290
Date2 October 1937 (1937-10-02) –
8 October 1937 (1937-10-08)
TargetHaitians in the Dominican Republic
Attack type
Massacre, genocide[1]
WeaponsKrag rifles, machetes and bayonets
Deaths17,000–35,000[2][3][4]
Injured2,419
VictimsPotentially up to 23%-60% of the Haitian population of the Dominican Republic killed
PerpetratorsDominican Army under the orders of Rafael Trujillo
MotiveAnti-black racism
Antihaitianismo

The Parsley massacre (Spanish: el corte "the cutting";[5] Creole: kout kouto-a "the stabbing"[6]) (French: Massacre du Persil; Spanish: Masacre del Perejil; Haitian Creole: Masak nan Pèsil) was a mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern frontier and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops from different areas of the country[7] carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.[8]

As a result of the massacre, virtually the entire Haitian population in the Dominican frontier was either killed or forced to flee across the border.[9] Many died while trying to flee to Haiti across the Dajabón River that divides the two countries on the island;[10] the troops followed them into the river to cut them down, causing the river to run with blood and corpses for several days. The massacre claimed the lives of an estimated 14,000 to 40,000 Haitian men, women, and children,[11] out of 60,517 "foreign" members of the black population in 1935[12] meaning one to three fifths of the Haitian population of the country or more may have been killed in the massacre. Dominican troops interrogated thousands of civilians demanding that each victim say the word "parsley" (perejil). If the accused could not pronounce the word to the interrogators' satisfaction, they were deemed to be Haitians and killed.

  1. ^
    • Turits 2002, pp. 589–635
    • Paulino, Edward (Fall 2013). "Bearing Witness to Genocide: The 1937 Haitian Massacre and Border of Lights". Afro-Hispanic Review. 32 (2): 111–118. JSTOR 24585148.
    • Garcia, Juan Manuel (1983). La matanza de los haitianos: genocidio de Trujillo, 1937. Editorial Alfa & Omega. pp. 59, 69–71.
    • Roorda, Eric Paul (July 1996). "Genocide Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy, the Trujillo Regime, and the Haitian Massacre of 1937". Diplomatic History. 20 (3): 301–319. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1996.tb00269.x.
    • Karczewska, Anna Maria. Reconstructing and (De)constructing Borderlands: The Parsley Massacre: Genocide on the Borderlands of Hispaniola in the Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat. pp. 149–165.
    • Pena, Julissa. "'Yo soy negro, pero negro blanco:' Hispanicity, Antihaitianism and Genocide in the Dominican Republic". Wesleyan University. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  2. ^ Wucker, Michele (2014). Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 51. ISBN 978-1466867888. Archived from the original on 3 October 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  3. ^ Newman, Graeme R. (2010). Crime and Punishment around the World (4 volumes). ABC-CLIO. p. 133. ISBN 978-0313351341. Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  4. ^ Tunzelmann, Alex von (2012). Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean. Simon & Schuster. p. 1933. ISBN 978-1471114779. Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  5. ^ Wucker, Michele. "The River Massacre: The Real and Imagined Borders of Hispaniola". Windows on Haiti. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 16 December 2007.
  6. ^ Lauro Capdevila, La dictature de Trujillo : République dominicaine, 1930–1961, Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998
  7. ^ Turits 2004, p. 161.
  8. ^ Cadeau, Sabine F. (2022). More than a Massacre: Racial Violence and Citizenship in the Haitian–Dominican Borderlands. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108942508. ISBN 978-1108942508. S2CID 249325622.
  9. ^ Turits 2002, p. 630.
  10. ^ Turits 2002, p. 590.
  11. ^ Fumagalli, Maria Cristina (2015). On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Liverpool University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-78138-757-3.
  12. ^ "English: 1935 Dominican Republic census . 1935 63 Censo-de-poblacion-1935". alamy. Archived from the original on 29 June 2024.