Santo Domingo: A Country with a Future

by Otto Schoenrich

EXPORTS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

1913 1914 1915 1916
Sugar (raw) kilos[1] 78,849,465 101,428,847 102,800,551 122,642,514
value $3,650,556 $4,943,452 $7,676,383 $12,028,297
Cacao kilos 19,470,827 20,744,517 20,223,023 21,053,305
value $4,119,955 $3,896,489 $4,863,754 $5,958,669
Tobacco leaf kilos 9,790,398 3,705,549 6,235,409 7,925,151
value $1,121,775 $394,224 $972,896 $1,433,323
Coffee kilos 1,048,922 1,831,938 2,468,435 1,731,718
value $257,076 $345,579 $458,431 $316,827
Hides and kilos 541,154 685,042 638,020 616,446
skins value $241,072 $253,832 $270,356 $334,665
Sugar cane value — $62,585 $195,782 $295,622
Bananas bunches 592,804 114,142 327,169 348,560
value $296,368 $57,044 $166,432 $172,615
Beeswax and
honey value $206,749 $207,290 $144,579 $176,144
Molasses kilos 12,064,038 17,962,441 15,484,205 18,752,440
value $60,737 $93,787 $100,023 $120,738
Forest value $167,037 $66,464 $64,368 $57,250
products
Cotton kilos 242,221 167,123 141,623 91,258
value $85,398 $67,830 $60,600 $31,759
All other value $263,224 $200,211 $240,457 $601,964
exports
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Total value $10,469,947 $10,588,787 $15,209,061 $21,527,873

[Footnote 1: 1 kilo = 2.2 pounds]

Sugar, the leading export, is the principal product of the southern portion of the Republic. In contrast with the cultivation of cacao, coffee and tobacco, sugar planting requires a large outlay of capital. The fields must be carefully prepared, extensive ditching must be done in order to provide irrigation during the dry season; the fields must be cleaned repeatedly while the cane is growing; and when the cane eventually matures, after fourteen to eighteen months of growth, it must upon cutting be immediately transported to the mill, where expensive machinery grinds it and fabricates sugar from the cane juice. The large sugar plantations of the country are all owned by foreigners, principally Americans and Italians, but dependent upon them are many small plots, planted under contract with the central factory by small native owners or contractors. Before the establishment of the first of these plantations near Macoris in the early eighties, the apparatus for making sugar was as crude as that employed by the first colonists, consisting of small presses turned by oxen, and large caldrons to boil the cane. The other West India Islands are dotted with the ruins of old sugar mills erected in the beginning and middle of the last century, but those days were not favorable to investment in Santo Domingo and such buildings and ruins are absolutely wanting in this island.

Most of the large plantations are located in the vicinity of San Pedro de Macoris, and to them the city owes its rapid development. These represent a value of millions of dollars, are equipped with plantation railroads and modern mills and extend over thousands of acres of the plains behind the city. The great Consuelo estate, the Santa Fé plantation, the Porvenir and the Puerto Rico estates are owned by American capital, and two others, the Quisqueya and Cristobal Colon plantations are owned by Americans and Cubans. The Angelina estate is an Italian investment, but its owners hold it in the name of the General Industrial Company, a corporation organized by them under the laws of New Jersey, apparently with a view to claiming American protection in case of disturbances. The principal owners of this estate as well as of other Italian sugar estates on the south coast are heirs of J.B. Vicini, who was a wealthy Italian merchant of Santo Domingo City.

One of the largest sugar estates of the Republic is the Central Romana, which controls some 40,000 acres near the port of La Romana, and is owned by the South Porto Rico Sugar Company. Since the first crop in 1911 the cane has been shipped to the mill at Guanica, Porto Rico, for grinding, but a huge fifteen-roller mill, which will be the largest on the island, is now in course of erection at La Romana.

Two plantations near Santo Domingo City, San Isidro and La Fé, belong to Americans. The Italia sugar estate at Yaguate, near the Nizao River, the Ocoa estate and the Central Azuano, on the outskirts of Azua all belong to the Vicini heirs. At Azua there is another plantation, the Ansonia estate, which is the property of Americans. The plantations at Azua and Ocoa are watered by irrigation, those of Azua deriving their water from artesian wells. American capital is also establishing sugar plantations near Barahona. On the north coast there are only two small sugar plantations near Puerto Plata, in which German and Spanish capital is interested, but another is being established at Sosua.

So rich are the Dominican lands that cane will grow from the same root for ten and even twenty years, while in Porto Rico and the lesser Antilles long cultivation has exhausted the soil and replanting is necessary every three years. Near Macoris the planters have had so much land available that instead of replanting they have often abandoned their old fields and taken up virgin lands instead. The busiest time in Macoris is the crop season from November to May. Many laborers are then required, and as native labor is not abundant, large numbers of negroes come from the British West Indies to work on the plantations, returning to their homes when the cane has been cut.

Most of the Dominican sugar goes to the United States and a large portion is eventually sold in Canada and England. When the amount of sugar produced in little Porto Rico is compared with that grown in Santo Domingo, it is evident that the Dominican production might easily be increased to twenty times its present figure.

While sugar attracts the foreigner, the Dominican's favorite staple has been cacao. The cacao or chocolate tree grows in a number of the West India Islands, but in none of them is it cultivated to such an extent as in Santo Domingo. Cacao is peculiarly fitted to be a "poor man's crop," as little land and labor are required and, while the trees are growing, corn, bananas and other crops can be raised on the same field. Most of the cacao is raised on small plantations, producing from fifty to one hundred barrels, a barrel being worth about eight dollars. For the preparation and planting of the field of a poor man the whole family turns out and neighbors often come to help, regular planting bees being organized. The larger landowner makes contracts for the preparation of his lands, paying at the rate of $2 or $2.50 a tarea.

The best months for planting cacao are the wet months, which in the Cibao are May and October. Small holes are dug in the earth about three yards apart and three beans placed in each. When the sprouts grow into young trees, two of the three should be cut off, and the best developed allowed to remain; but the countrymen generally permit all three to grow, with resulting dwarfed trees and poor crops. To protect the small plants from the hot sun a yuca or cassava plant is set out next to each one. While the trees are growing, corn is planted between the rows and three or even four crops are obtained in each year. After two years the cacao trees begin to bloom, after three years they begin to give fruit, and their production gradually increases until their eighth year when they reach mature growth. Each tree furnishes about two pounds of cacao per year. On the larger plantations less attention is paid to ancillary crops and the cacao plants are raised in seedbeds, the seedlings being transplanted to the field after six months or a year. When the pods containing the cacao beans are ripe the beans are extracted, soaked in water and then dried in the sun. During the crop season cacao beans are spread on mats before every native hut and in the streets of every town and village in the Cibao, and the sourish smell of the drying bean pervades the air.

The principal cacao region is the Cibao and the upper Seibo plain, and the largest plantation, belonging to the well-known Swiss chocolate manufacturer, Suchard, is situated near Sabana la Mar, on the south side of Samana Bay. The cacao here produced is not of the finest grade, such as that grown in Ecuador, but goes to make the cheaper grades of chocolate.

The ease with which cacao is planted and the profits to be derived from it often cause the small farmers to neglect everything else for cacao and purchase articles of food which they could themselves raise. The consequence is that when the cacao crop fails, there is widespread want and discontent.

Cacao has been exported since 1888, before which time it was grown for local consumption only. For years it led the country's exports, until sugar took first place in 1914. The greater portion of the cacao crop is exported through the port of Sanchez, on Samana Bay. Formerly almost the whole crop went to Europe, Havre being the chief market, but of late years the United States has become one of the principal buyers.

The cultivation of tobacco is confined to the Cibao region, where it was grown by the Indians when the Spaniards landed. It is a crop yielding rapid returns, but cacao has paid so much better that the progress of tobacco culture has been slow. The effort of the countrymen to produce quantity rather than quality has prevented the development of the finer grades and the price paid for Dominican tobacco is low. While the tobacco grown is of inferior quality, there is no reason why it should not be susceptible of improvement as the climatic and soil conditions of the interior valleys are very similar to those of the tobacco regions of Cuba and Porto Rico.

Tobacco is grown mostly by small planters and sold to the large commercial houses of Santiago and Puerto Plata. Practically the entire crop is exported through Puerto Plata. Before the European war the great market for Dominican tobacco was Hamburg. Up to 1907 tobacco was exported only in leaf, but since then a small cigarette industry has developed.

Coffee is another native crop the development of which has been checked by the popularity of cacao. It is also a crop which can be grown with profit on small tracts of land. The coffee bushes flourish in the mountains and are grown under the shade of larger trees. A clearing having been made in the forest, the small coffee trees are planted in rows or irregularly and near each a banana or plantain tree. The latter reach full height within six months and afford shade until guava and other shade trees planted on the field have attained sufficient size. A wait of five years is necessary before the coffee bushes begin to bear, but after that they continue indefinitely every year, the only labor required being that of keeping the plantation clear of brush and picking the berries when they are ripe. The trees grow to a height of six or eight feet; they bloom with a fragrant, white, star-like flower which on withering leaves the green embryo of the berry. When the berry has reached the size of a hazel-nut it turns red and is picked, much of the picking being done by women. The berries are poured into a simple machine which extracts the two coffee beans encased in each berry. The beans are dried in the sun, on the largest plantations in drying machines. They are then transported to the merchants in town, where they are polished in another machine, assorted and bagged for export. The town of Moca owes its name to the fact that the principal coffee plantations lie in its vicinity. Other important coffee districts are Santiago and Bani. About two-thirds of the coffee of the Republic is exported from Puerto Plata.

The coffee of Santo Domingo is of excellent quality. In normal times the greater portion was exported to France and Germany, but most of it now goes to the United States.

With one exception the limitless resources of Santo Domingo with reference to fruit culture have remained untouched. The single exception was the United Fruit Company's banana plantation at Sosua, about ten miles east of Puerto Plata, and even this estate is at present, in consequence of the greater attractiveness of sugar, being converted into a sugar plantation. Otherwise there has been no attempt to raise fruit for export, though the sweet and bitter orange, the lemon, the lime, the grapefruit and the paradoxical sweet lemon, grow wild. Pineapples are raised only for the small home consumption. An obstacle to the cultivation of such fruits at the present time would be the absence of rapid fruit steamers to the United States. The fruits peculiar to the torrid zone all grow in profusion and among them the native is fondest of the juicy mango, the guava, the aguacate or alligator pear, the anon or custard apple, the guanabana or soursop, the mamon or sweetsop, the mamey or marmalade fruit, the nispero or sapodilla and the tamarind. From the large palm-groves about Samana Bay cocoanuts and a little copra are exported, principally to the United States.

Small attempts have been made to cultivate other products to which the country is adapted. Growers of cotton and hemp are encouraged by results, but a rice plantation established in the swamp-lands near the head of Samana Bay proved a failure rather on account of errors of management than for other reasons.

In the forests which cover her mountains Santo Domingo has hardwoods, dyewoods and building timber of inestimable value. Only a generation ago mahogany trees grew all the way to the water's edge, but years of wasteful cutting have exhausted the nearer supplies and the more valuable woods must now be sought in the interior. In the mountains and on the high plateaus of the interior there are hundreds of square miles of Spanish cedar and longleaf pine. The principal woods exported are mahogany, guayacan, known to commerce as lignum vitae (one of the hardest woods and so heavy that when in loading the steamer a log drops into the sea it sinks to the bottom like iron), bera or bastard lignum vitae, espinillo or yellowwood, campeche or logwood (a famous dyeing material), sparwood and cedar. Other forest products exported are dividivi, a tanning bark, and resins. Most of these exports go to the United States and England. For the preparation of lumber for local needs there are sawmills in La Vega and Santiago de los Caballeros.

With regard to indigenous fauna Santo Domingo occupies a position midway between the diverse and abundant fauna of Cuba and the more limited species of the Leeward Islands. Insects abound and in all the coast towns it is necessary to sleep under a mosquito bar. Wild bees are found in many parts of the country and apiculture has met with much success. Of poisonous insects there are few. Those sometimes met with are the species of tarantula known as the hairy spider, the spider known as guava, and the blue spider, also the scorpion and the centipede. Their sting produces intense pain, inflammation and fever. They are found in crevices, under stones, in caves, and in rotten wood. The last two are often seen in old houses, but daily use of the broom and duster will make them appear but rarely. Some of these animals grow to a large size. On a ride on the Haitian border my horse shied at a tarantula in the trail, and in calling my Dominican companion's attention to it, I remarked that it was as large as a saucer. "That is nothing," he replied, "there are many around here as large as a soup plate."

There are few classes of reptiles. Santo Domingo is a paradise where serpents are at a discount, for they are few in number and although occasionally some are found of considerable size, they are all harmless. Lizards are plentiful in the forests, the largest class being known as iguana, which is eaten by some of the country people, as it was in former days by the Indians. The lizards are all inoffensive. A species of alligator is found in the lower waters of the Yaque del Norte and of the Yaque del Sur, and in the salt lakes on the Haitian border. Tortoises occur in such numbers that their shell forms an article of commerce.

Crustaceans and testaceans are abundant in number though few in species. A tiny oyster is found, not much larger than a thumb-nail, but very succulent. The marine fauna is the same as that of the neighboring Antilles, the sea and rivers teeming with edible fish, to which, however, but little attention is paid. Sharks infest the coasts and render bathing unsafe except behind protecting reefs. Occasionally, too, a manati, or sea-cow, is seen. This strange mammal has breasts which resemble those of a human being and emits cries that sound almost human. It was probably a party of manati gamboling about in the water which induced Columbus gravely to enter in his logbook that he had sighted mermaids near Monte Cristi.

Of birds there are over one hundred and fifty species, about ninety-five of which are residents and among these several peculiar to this island. The forests resound with the cries of parrots and other birds of beautiful plumage; from any point on the coast pelicans and other ichthyophagous birds can be observed darting into the waters after their prey; the lakes and rivers are the home of thousands of wild ducks; myriads of wild pigeons breed in the woods; and the number of insectivorous birds, including the sweet-singing nightingale, jilguero and turpial, the swallow and the small pitirre and colibri, is infinite. The caves are inhabited by swarms of bats, the guano of which, mingled with the calcareous detritus of the rocky walls, is found in great deposits and constitutes a good fertilizer.

At the time of the discovery the Spaniards found very few kinds of quadruped mammals. One was the agouti, looking like a large rat and inhabiting the forests; another the coati, similar to the squirrel and easily domesticated. Three other classes are mentioned, the quemi, mohui and perro mudo (dumb dog), but are not now to be found and as the description of two of them almost tallies with that of the others above mentioned, it is possible that different names were applied to the same animals. It is possible, too, that reference was made to the solenodon or almiqui, an animal long thought to be extinct but of which several specimens have recently been found in Santo Domingo. This animal is about two feet, long and resembles a rat, but having a long prehensile snout and the habits of an ant-eater, it is considered to be a remnant of the early zoölogical type from which diverged both the rodents and the insectivorous animals of the present.

The Spaniards introduced the European domestic animals, which immediately began to flourish. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century the principal and for a long time almost the only industry of the Spanish portion of the island was cattle-raising. Some of the cattle and pigs escaped to the woods and reverted to the wild state, and towards the middle and end of the seventeenth century great herds of wild cattle roamed over the island. Such herds no longer exist, but wild pigs have found their way to the most remote recesses of the mountains and are the plague of the fields. The equine species, sprung from the Andalusian horses brought by the Spaniards, has degenerated considerably and the best horses in the Republic today are of Porto Rican stock, but attention is at last being given to breeding. The largest herds of cattle roam about in the unfenced arid regions of the northwest. Hides are exported in large quantities, but there is little dairying. Of late years attention is being directed to improving the stock and several stock farms have been established near San Pedro de Macoris.

Sheep raising is followed to some extent in the arid regions of the southwest and northwest, but the wool is of coarse grade. An important industry in these regions, especially in the neighborhood of Azua, is goat-raising. My inquiry as to the population of Azua was answered by the purser of the Clyde line steamer: "About three thousand people and about three million goats." Though his estimate of the number of goats may have been somewhat exaggerated, the fact is that they are everywhere in evidence and charge through the streets in droves, and at the great Azua church I found a goat in the vestibule looking reverently in. Over nine-tenths of the goatskins exported from the Republic go to the United States.