eastern provinces were separating from the Dominican Republic. With great resentment, Dominican merchants complained that the cocolos took their money home with them rather than spending it in San Pedro. After some fifteen years of importing cocolos , newspapers started running articles about this “undesirable” immigration. In 1912, the legislature in Santo Domingo passed a law imposing restrictions on bringing in people who were not white. But in San Pedro both the sugar companies and the general population that was benefiting from the sugar boom ignored this legislation. Given the quantities of money they were generating, no one wanted to fight with the sugar companies.
The Dominicans wanted them to stay through the zafra . As early as the 1890s, sugar companies were advancing the cocolos their salaries in the form of credit at overpriced company stores. This kept them on the bateys , since they no longer had any money to spend elsewhere. Of course, such practices made sugar work even more unattractive to Dominicans and ensured that the sugar companies would have to import labor.
While by contract the sugar companies agreed to pay for foreign workers’ voyages home, a 1919 law made it illegal for them to receive their return fares until the harvest was done. At Angelina the company would not even return a worker who had been incapacitated by injury. Also in 1919 a law was decreed barring immigration to the Dominican Republic by anyone who was not Caucasian. Nonwhites who entered the country were required to register and get a permit within their first four months in the country.
Yet Eastern Caribbean cocolos kept coming until the late 1920s, when they were almost entirely replaced by Haitian workers, sometimes also referred to as cocolos . Because of the 1912 anti-immigration law, statistics started to be kept. Between 1912 and 1920, according to official records, 39,000 of these Eastern Caribbean people came to San Pedro.
During World War I, with U.S. troops occupying both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Haitians started replacing the Eastern Caribbeans as migrant workers. A total of 22,121 Haitians came for the zafra in 1921, and forty-three percent of them went to the mills of San Pedro. But by then thousands of Eastern Caribbean workers had come, many with women, and settled in San Pedro in mill communities such as Consuelo. By 1914, one in four legal immigrants was female.
All of these many thousands of foreign workers were to have an enormous impact on small, underpopulated San Pedro. Less and less Spanish was spoken in San Pedro. The Haitians spoke Creole, their own Africanized French, and the Eastern Caribbean people spoke English, except for the occasional French speaker from Saint Martin.
American mill owners liked English-speaking workers and gave them easier, better-paying jobs in the mills. They were upwardly mobile and were able to bring in relatives from their native islands and find them positions too. Some left the mill and got jobs in town at the bustling port on the Higuamo River. Almost all sugar loading at the ports was done by cocolos and the railroads that operated at the sugar mills were almost entirely operated by cocolos .
During the American occupation, Americans were less interested in race than money, and with Europe and its beet production destroyed, fortunes were being made on Caribbean sugar. At its peak in 1922, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic produced thirty-eight percent of the world’s cane sugar and twenty-seven percent of total world sugar. Cuban sugar alone sold that year for $1 billion.
Even though in the Dominican Republic a higher percentage of sugar production was American owned than in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Dominican producers did not receive the same preferential treatment as the other two islands. Puerto Rican sugar could enter the U.S. tariff-free, and Cuban sugar had a twenty-percent reduction in sugar tariff. This made it difficult for
The Dominicans wanted them to stay through the zafra . As early as the 1890s, sugar companies were advancing the cocolos their salaries in the form of credit at overpriced company stores. This kept them on the bateys , since they no longer had any money to spend elsewhere. Of course, such practices made sugar work even more unattractive to Dominicans and ensured that the sugar companies would have to import labor.
While by contract the sugar companies agreed to pay for foreign workers’ voyages home, a 1919 law made it illegal for them to receive their return fares until the harvest was done. At Angelina the company would not even return a worker who had been incapacitated by injury. Also in 1919 a law was decreed barring immigration to the Dominican Republic by anyone who was not Caucasian. Nonwhites who entered the country were required to register and get a permit within their first four months in the country.
Yet Eastern Caribbean cocolos kept coming until the late 1920s, when they were almost entirely replaced by Haitian workers, sometimes also referred to as cocolos . Because of the 1912 anti-immigration law, statistics started to be kept. Between 1912 and 1920, according to official records, 39,000 of these Eastern Caribbean people came to San Pedro.
During World War I, with U.S. troops occupying both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Haitians started replacing the Eastern Caribbeans as migrant workers. A total of 22,121 Haitians came for the zafra in 1921, and forty-three percent of them went to the mills of San Pedro. But by then thousands of Eastern Caribbean workers had come, many with women, and settled in San Pedro in mill communities such as Consuelo. By 1914, one in four legal immigrants was female.
All of these many thousands of foreign workers were to have an enormous impact on small, underpopulated San Pedro. Less and less Spanish was spoken in San Pedro. The Haitians spoke Creole, their own Africanized French, and the Eastern Caribbean people spoke English, except for the occasional French speaker from Saint Martin.
American mill owners liked English-speaking workers and gave them easier, better-paying jobs in the mills. They were upwardly mobile and were able to bring in relatives from their native islands and find them positions too. Some left the mill and got jobs in town at the bustling port on the Higuamo River. Almost all sugar loading at the ports was done by cocolos and the railroads that operated at the sugar mills were almost entirely operated by cocolos .
During the American occupation, Americans were less interested in race than money, and with Europe and its beet production destroyed, fortunes were being made on Caribbean sugar. At its peak in 1922, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic produced thirty-eight percent of the world’s cane sugar and twenty-seven percent of total world sugar. Cuban sugar alone sold that year for $1 billion.
Even though in the Dominican Republic a higher percentage of sugar production was American owned than in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Dominican producers did not receive the same preferential treatment as the other two islands. Puerto Rican sugar could enter the U.S. tariff-free, and Cuban sugar had a twenty-percent reduction in sugar tariff. This made it difficult for
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