In October 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina commanded his army to kill all “Haitians” living in the Dominican Republic’s northwestern frontier, which borders on Haiti, and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region. Between 2 October and 8 October, hundreds of Dominican troops poured into this vast region,1 and, with the assistance of alcaldes pedáneos (submunicipal political authorities) and some civilian reserves, rounded up and slaughtered with machete perhaps 15,000 ethnic Haitians.2 Those killed in this operation—still frequently referred to as el corte (the cutting) by Domini-cans and as kout kouto-a (the stabbing) by Haitians—were mostly small farmers, many of whom had been born in the Dominican Republic (and thus were Dominican citizens according to the Dominican constitution) and some whose families had lived in the Dominican Republic for generations.3 Haitians were slain even as they attempted to escape to Haiti while crossing the...
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