Their descendants of the fourth or fifth generation are proud to this day of their “American” origin. They hail one in the streets of Samaná and lose no time in establishing their special identity, in a naïve, respectful manner that has all but disappeared among their brethren in our own land. Scattered over all the Samaná peninsula, some of them have been absorbed by the Dominicans, but a considerable colony has never inter-married with the natives and still retains the speech and customs their ancestors brought with them. The majority are farmers, moderately well-to-do, living miles out in the country and only now and then riding to town on horse- or ox-back. Unlike most of their neighbors they do not live in concubinage, but are married in their own churches. They are not liked by the Dominicans, who seem to resent their superior education and customs, though all admit that they are good citizens and good workers, though not fighters, as Americans on custom border control soon discovered. Bigger men both physically and mentally than the natives, they live in what seem real homes compared with the miserable dirt-floor huts of the Dominicans of the same color. Wherever a glimpse through a doorway shows comfort, cleanliness, and a shelf of books one is almost sure to find English spoken. It is a remarkably pure English, too, for a tongue that has been cut off from its source for nearly a century, far superior to that of the British West Indies, though with certain peculiarities of negro accent. With rare exceptions the “Americans” do not mix in politics, though they were frequently forced to fight on one side or the other during the revolutions, because neutrals, abhorred like a vacuum, lost both liberty and property no matter which side won. In such times no protection was given non-combatants, except to foreigners, and the “American” negroes of Samaná are legally Dominicans despite their protests. One cannot but be proud of the strength of American influence, of the compliment to our civilization which is implied by the insistence of these exiles on keeping a sort of separate nationality, by the strong tendency toward good citizenship they have maintained through all their generations.
In a little parsonage on the edge of town lives the Rev. James, pastor of the A. M. E. church, and temporarily in charge also of the Wesleyan place of worship, locally known as St. Peter’s. His bishop, curiously enough, lives in Detroit. Pastor James is a full-blooded negro whose male ancestors have been ministers for generations. Sent to the Northern States for his final schooling, like many children of the colony, he worked his way through Beloit College. His wide fund of information on all subjects would make many of our own ministers seem narrow by comparison; yet he has little of that curious mixture of humility and arrogance which is so common among educated negroes. Even in such minor details as refraining from the use of tobacco his personal habits are a contrast to the often licentious lives of Dominican priests. In his fairly voluminous library so rare in Santo Domingo, such books as “Up from Slavery,” “Negro Aspirations,” and many other tomes, magazines, and encyclopedias of a serious—and what is more, not merely religious—nature attract the eye.
Each of the churches has some three hundred members, many of whom ride in from miles around on Sundays. Inside the bullet-riddled edifices the un-Catholic pews, the mottoes in English over the pulpits, the old-fashioned organs all add to the American atmosphere. A third church is maintained in the region, and the colony has several schools of its own. Among the best American influences the colonists have retained is the un-Dominican tendency to help themselves and not depend upon the government in such matters. Complete segregation of sexes, from the youngest pupils to the teachers, has been adopted in these schools, where both Spanish and English are taught. Unlike Haiti, Santo Domingo grants such institutions no government aid. The pastor receives half his salary from mission funds from the United States, and the other half not at all, because local contributions are eaten up by educational requirements.
The Rev. James has a fund of stories, more amusing to the hearer than to the teller, for those who care to listen. During one of the last revolutions, for instance, the town was attacked during services, and the congregation, putting more faith in self-help than in supernatural aid, stopped in the middle of a prayer to cut a hole through the church floor, and remained on the ground beneath until Monday morning. The colony, in the opinion of its pastor, is eager to have American occupation continue, or at least to have the United States take possession of the bay of Samaná, as it has that of Guantánamo in Cuba, that forces may be close at hand to curb revolutions. Influential Dominicans, he is convinced, prefer the present status, with the exception, of course, of the politicians, and even the rank and file are beginning to see the error of their former ways and to wish peace, security, and no more destruction of their farms and herds more than complete national independence. On the whole it is remarkable how this colony has maintained its customs intact through all the long years since its establishment. Once given a good start the negro seems to endure the deteriorating influences of the tropics better than the white man. The Rev. James, four generations removed from the temperate zone, is far more of a credit to civilization than many a Caucasian who has lived a mere twenty years in equatorial lands.
Samaná has a French, or, more exactly, a Haitian colony dating back to the same period, hence many of its inhabitants speak English, Spanish, and “creole.” This portion of the population, living chiefly in the far outskirts, is as much inferior to the Dominicans as the latter are to the “Americans.” Neapolitans and “Turks” monopolize most of the commerce, and as usual do no productive labor. Coffee was formerly grown in some quantity on the peninsula, but cacao was planted in its place when the latter began to command high prices. Now that the blight has attacked this and there is hardly enough of the former produced for local use, exports are slight. Bananas could be grown in abundance; oranges are so plentiful that the town boys play marbles with them, but there is no market, or rather no transportation for such bulky products, which are sold only in small quantities to passing ships for their own use.
Among the sights of the town is a fine new cockpit as carefully planned as our metropolitan theaters. It resembles a tiny bull-ring, the fighting space surrounded by upright boards painted a bright red, a comfortable gallery rising about the outer circle, ringside boxes furnished with good cane chairs saving the élite the annoyance of mixing with the collarless rank and file. Cozy little dens for the fighting cocks open directly into the ring; a bright new thatched roof shades spectators and feathered gladiators alike; an outer wall of yagua rises just high enough to give the breeze free play, yet at the same time to prevent the tallest citizen from seeing the contest without paying his peseta at the neat little ticket window. The “American” residents roll pious eyes at the mention of this nefarious sport. Not merely do they consider it beneath them to attend such exhibitions, but look upon them as a particularly sinful way of losing caste, since they are always held on the “holy Sabbath.”
We sailed across the bay on the mailboat Nereida, a wretched little single-masted derelict no larger than an average lifeboat. Though its bottom was already heaped with broken rock ballast, an incredible load of American patent medicine, of flour, rum, soap, cigarettes, sprouted onions, cottonseed oil, and sundry odds and ends was tumbled into it before the mails finally put in an appearance an hour after sailing time. Nine passengers and a crew of two, all negroes except “Mac” and myself, crowded the frequently sea-washed deck. What our fate would have been had one of the sudden squalls for which West Indian waters are noted overtaken us it was all too easy to imagine.
A steady wind on the beam carried us diagonally across the gulf in the general direction of our destination without the necessity of tacking. The shore we were leaving was the scene of the first bloodshed between Columbus and the aborigines of the New World, the forerunner of countless massacres. The bay was once offered to the United States by a Dominican president, but a single congressman caused us to decline the honor. Tiny fishing boats with palm-leaf sails ventured a few miles out from the land, then abandoned to us the seascape, which remained unbroken until we neared the southern shore well on in the afternoon. Constant quarrels between the two halves of the crew on the advisability of tacking or not tacking enlivened all our snail-like, zigzag course along the face of the land, and black night had come before we climbed over the water-soaked cargo to the drunken pier of Jovero.
A gawky village of some six hundred inhabitants, boasting only one two-story house, this out-of-the-world place was quickly thrown into a furore of curiosity over its unexpected white visitors. Even the commander of the guardia detachment was a native lieutenant; the most nearly Caucasian resident was the town treasurer, a young “Turk” from Tripoli, in the back of whose more than general store we were finally served a much needed meal. With three thousand persons in the region only two copies of a weekly newspaper, according to the post master, brought them the world’s news, and that was a pathetic little sheet from across the bay. No wonder false rumors have a free field in such a community. Cattle, pigs, cacao, and an unseasoned tobacco sold in mouldy-scented rolls six feet long, called andullos, made up the scanty exports of the district. Barely one per cent. of its territory is under cultivation, for like all the province of Seibo bandits still harass it long after the rest of the republic has been pacified.