Books & Articles
PUBLICATIONS & PROJECTS
Select list, with links.
Siblings of Soil:
Dominicans & Haitians in the
Age of Revolutions
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2022)
Lozano Long Series for Latin American Culture
2023 Honorable Mention, Duarte Book Prize
Amid long-simmering tensions, it may be surprising to learn that Dominicans and Haitians once unified Hispaniola. Built from research in over two dozen archives in multiple countries, Siblings of Soil presents the overlooked history of their shared imperial ends and national beginnings from the 1780s to 1822. Together, these two populations of majority African descent vanquished slavery and colonialism. Collaboration and familial rhetoric culminated in one of the most unique, liberatory, and inclusive forms of independence in Latin America. By popular demand, Dominican independence from Spain arrived by inviting unification with Haiti in 1822.
Siblings of Soil also explains how elite reactions to this era formed anti-Haitian narratives. Racial ideas tied not only to revolution, but spiritual competitions over Vodou, Catholicism, secularism, and even Deism. Some Dominicans reinforced Hispanic and Catholic traditions and cast Haitians as violent heretics who had invaded Dominican society, undermining the innovative, multicultural state. Two centuries later, distortions of their shared past of kinship have enabled generations of anti-Haitian policies, assumptions of irreconcilable differences, and human rights abuses.