People of the Dominican Republic

Dominicans () are inhabitants or citizens of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is a multi-ethnic country in the Caribbean basin which is home to people of many different racial, ethnic, national and cultural backgrounds which has often become a great pride for many Dominicans.

The people and the race
It is estimated that some 894,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Dominican Republic between 1717 and 1870 (and more before 1717). The slaves came from various West African regions, but the majority came from primarily the Congo region (present-day Angola, Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon) and the gold coast/Guinean (present-day Ghana and Guinea).

In addition, many immigrants arrived from other places around the world. After the last smuggled slave ship that arrived in 1898, many Chinese people came to the island due to the Chinese Revolution, along with the Arabs of North Africa (Morocco or Algeria) and Indians. Immigration from Europe, most notably Spaniards, Italians and Germans occurred during the later parts of the nineteenth century into the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly settling in Santo Domingo and in rural areas in the Cibao valley alike. During World War II, the Dominican Republic became the only nation to take in Jewish refugees by orders from then president Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Nearly 800 German and Austrian Jews settled in the town of Sosua, Puerto Plata.

Today, much of the contemporary Dominican population is largely Black and Mulatto. The Dominican Republic itself is 45% Mulatto,  40% Black, and 15% White. Studies have indicated that up to 15% of all Dominicans carry maternal Taino-Arawak lineage, figures which are higher in rural areas. Other studies often indicate that the average Dominican is 60% African , 35% European (Mostly Spanish) and 5% Taino-Arawak, but these figures also vary by region as the purest Blacks is lives mostly in the Coastal lowland  regions of the country.

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