Tea at Trianon: Slavery in Santo Domingo

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, December 4, 2020

Slavery in Santo Domingo

From The BBC:

Few people realise that the Dominican Republic was home to the first black people in the Americas, who were initially brought here from present-day Senegal and The Gambia in the 1490s by Christopher Columbus. It was also where the Atlantic slave trade began in 1503 – 116 years before the first slaves arrived in the US Colonies. And, after Haiti, next door, it was the next nation to abolish African slavery in 1801.

The story of the country’s colonial past began where I stood that morning, and where the women were dancing in remembrance of their ancestor. In an effort to boost tourism, in 2014 the Colonial City experienced more than $100m in renovations over a three-year period. Building facades were repainted and restored, transforming into bistros, art galleries and shops. Yet, to this day, however, la Zona Colonial, as locals call it, reveals little about its African past. Visitors who flock here leave after learning a single version of the Dominican Republic’s history: that of Spain.

Touted as “a city of firsts”, the Colonial City is the oldest, permanent European urban settlement in the Americas, and there’s no doubt that this 10-block neighbourhood is a historical and architectural gem. The former walled city – its original fortified entrances remain standing – boasts the first paved roads and the first military fort, cathedral, convent and university built in the New World. Its narrow cobblestone streets are lined with Spanish-style colonial architecture, including pink, green and yellow pastel-coloured stone buildings, many of which retain their original metal doors, arched entrances and windows, stucco walls and wrought-iron balconies. Sprawling plazas remain punctuated with statues and busts of Spanish colonialists. (Read more.)