# Parsley massacre

The Parsley massacre (Spanish: el corte "the cutting"; Creole: kout kouto-a "the stabbing") (French: Massacre du Persil; Spanish: Masacre del Perejil; Haitian Creole: Masak nan Pèsil) was a mass killing of Haitians living in illegal settlements and occupied land in the Dominican Republic's northwestern frontier and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops from different areas of the country carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
As a result of the massacre, virtually the entire Haitian population in the Dominican frontier was either killed or forced to flee across the border. Many died while trying to flee to Haiti across the Dajabón River that divides the two countries on the island; the troops followed them into the river to cut them down, causing the river to run with blood and corpses for several days. The massacre claimed the lives of an estimated 14,000 to 40,000 Haitian men, women, and children, out of 60,517 "foreign" members of the black population in 1935 meaning one to three fifths of the Haitian population of the country or more may have been killed in the massacre. Dominican troops interrogated thousands of civilians demanding that each victim say the word "parsley" (perejil). If the accused could not pronounce the word to the interrogators' satisfaction, they were deemed to be Haitians and killed.

## Massacre

Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, a strong proponent of anti-Haitianism, made his intentions towards the Haitian community clear in a short speech he gave on 2 October 1937 during a celebration in his honor in the province of Dajabón.
   For some months, I have traveled and traversed the border in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated, and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, 'I will fix this.' And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now dead in Bánica. This remedy will continue.
Trujillo reportedly acted in response to reports of Haitians stealing cattle and crops from Dominican borderland residents. Trujillo commanded his army to kill all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern frontier and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region.
Between 2 October and 8 October, hundreds of Dominican troops, who came mostly from other areas of the country, poured into the Cibao, and used rifles, machetes, shovels, knives, and bayonets to kill Haitians. Haitian babies were reportedly thrown in the air and caught by soldiers' bayonets, then thrown on their mothers' corpses. Dominican troops beheaded thousands of Haitians, and took others to the port of Montecristi, where they were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean to drown with their hands and feet bound, some with wounds inflicted by the soldiers in order to attract sharks. Survivors who managed to cross the border and return to Haiti told stories of family members being hacked with machetes and strangled by the soldiers, and children bashed against rocks and tree trunks.
The use of military units from outside the region was not always enough to expedite soldiers' killings of Haitians. U.S. legation informants reported that many soldiers "confessed that in order to perform such ghastly slaughter they had to get 'blind' drunk." Several months later, a barrage of killings and repatriations of Haitians occurred in the southern frontier.
Lauren Derby claims that a majority of those who died were born in the Dominican Republic and belonged to well-established Haitian communities in the borderlands.

## Contributing factors

Haitian-Dominican relations have long been strained by territorial disputes and competition for the resources of Hispaniola. Between the years of 1910–1930, there was an extensive migration of Haitians to their neighboring countries of the Dominican Republic and Cuba in search of work. The exact number of Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic is not readily available but it is more than the estimated 200,000 that emigrated to Cuba. Among several authors, the Haiti-Dominican Republic migration corridor is considered far more important than the Haiti-Cuba migration due to geographic proximity. On the other hand, the large influx of Haitians to the Dominican Republic further divided the complicated relationship between the two states. The Dominican Republic, formerly the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, is the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola and it occupies five-eighths of the land with a population of ten million inhabitants. In contrast, Haiti, the former French colony of Saint-Domingue, is on the western three-eighths of the island and has almost exactly the same population, with an estimated 200 people per square kilometre.
Due to inadequate roadways which connect the borderlands to major cities, "Communication with Dominican markets was so limited that the small commercial surplus of the frontier slowly moved toward Haiti."
Furthermore, the Dominican government saw the loose borderlands as a liability in terms of possible formation of revolutionary groups that could flee across the border with ease, while at the same time amassing weapons and followers.

## Aftermath

At first the Haitian president Sténio Vincent prohibited any discussion of the massacre and issued a statement on 15 October: "...it is declared that the good relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have not suffered any damage." Vincent's failure to initially press for justice for the slain workers prompted protests in Port-au-Prince after two years of relative silence. It was known that Vincent had a cooperative relationship and financial support from the Trujillo government. After a failed coup effort in December, the Haitian president was eventually forced to seek an international investigation and mediation. Unwilling to submit to an inquiry, Trujillo instead offered an indemnity to Haiti.
In the end, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Haitian president Sténio Vincent sought reparations of US$750,000, of which the Dominican government paid $525,000 (US $11,127,083.33 in 2023 dollars), or around $30 per victim. Due to the corruption deeply embedded within the Haitian bureaucracy however, survivors on average received only 2 cents each. In the agreement signed in Washington, D.C., on 31 January 1938, the Dominican government defended the massacre as a response to illegal immigration by "undesirable" Haitians, and recognized "no responsibility whatsoever" for the killings with Trujillo stating how the agreement established new laws prohibiting migration between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Trujillo's regime thus used a moment of international inquiry to legitimize his anti-Haitian policies.
Thereafter, Trujillo began to develop the borderlands to link them more closely with the main cities and urban areas of the Dominican Republic. These areas were modernized, with the addition of modern hospitals, schools, political headquarters, military barracks, and housing projects—as well as a highway to connect the borderlands to major cities. Additionally, after 1937, quotas restricted the number of Haitians permitted to enter the Dominican Republic, and a strict and often discriminatory border policy was enacted. Dominicans continued to deport and kill Haitians in southern frontier regions—as refugees died of exposure, malaria and influenza.
Despite attempts to blame Dominican civilians, it has been confirmed by U.S. sources that "bullets from Krag rifles were found in Haitian bodies, and only Dominican soldiers had access to this type of rifle." Therefore, the Haitian Massacre, which is still referred to as "el corte" (the cutting) by Dominicans and as "kouto-a" (the knife) by Haitians, was, "...a calculated action on the part of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo to homogenize the furthest stretches of the country in order to bring the region into the social, political and economic fold," and rid his republic of Haitians.
Condemnation of the massacres was not limited to international sources, as a number of Trujillo's exiled political opponents also publicly spoke out against the events. In November 1937, four anti-Trujillistas were declared "unworthy Dominicans" and "traitors to the Homeland" for their comments—Rafael Brache, José Manuel Jimenes, Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón, and Buenaventura Sánchez.

## Etymology

The popular name for the massacre came from the shibboleth that Trujillo reportedly had his soldiers apply to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Afro-Dominicans or immigrant Afro-Haitians. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask what it was. How the person pronounced the Spanish word for parsley (perejil) determined their fate. The Haitian languages, French and Haitian Creole, pronounce the r as a uvular approximant or a voiced velar fricative, respectively so their speakers can have difficulty pronouncing the alveolar tap or the alveolar trill of Spanish, the language of the Dominican Republic. Also, only Spanish but not French or Haitian Creole pronounces the j as the voiceless velar fricative. If they could pronounce it the Spanish way the soldiers considered them Dominican and let them live, but if they pronounced it the French or Creole way they considered them Haitian and murdered them.
The term parsley massacre was used frequently in the English-speaking media 75 years after the event, but most scholars recognize that it is a misconception, as research by Lauren Derby shows that the explanation is based more on myth than on personal accounts.

## Number of victims

According to some sources, the massacre killed an estimated 20,000 Haitians living in the northern frontier—clearly at Trujillo's direct order. However, the exact number of victims is impossible to calculate due to several reasons. The Dominican Army carried out most of the killings in isolated areas, often leaving no witnesses or few survivors. Furthermore, many bodies were either disposed of in the sea, where they were consumed by sharks, or buried in mass graves, where acidic soil degraded them, leaving nothing for forensic investigators to exhume.
Haitian President Élie Lescot put the death toll at 12,168; Haitian historian Jean Price-Mars cited 12,136 deaths and 2,419 injuries. The Dominican Republic's interim Foreign Minister put the number of dead at 17,000. Dominican historian Bernardo Vega estimated as many as 35,000.