The Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo (Spanish: Reconquista Española de Santo Domingo) was a successful revolt against French rule in the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo which lasted from November 7, 1808, to July 9, 1809. In 1808, following Napoleon's invasion of Spain, the criollos of Santo Domingo revolted against the French, which caught the attention of British forces engaged in the Caribbean campaign of 1803–1810. The revolt culminated in 1809 with a return to the Spanish colonial rule for a period commonly termed España Boba.
The Treaty of Basel of 1795 stipulated that Spain would transfer Santo Domingo to France, which did not happen until 1801 when an army under Toussaint Louverture occupied the colony. In 1802, French forces intent on deposing Louverture occupied Santo Domingo. However, peninsular events that transpired in 1808 would shake the Dominican population to rise up in revolution against the French occupation. Conspiracies arose within that same year, some of which had been instigated by the governments of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti. Eventually, under the leadership of Juan Sánchez Ramírez, the Dominicans, with the help of a British fleet from Jamaica, would inflict a crushing defeat on the French forces, once again becoming part of the Spanish monarchy in 1809, ending the French period of Santo Domingo, and officially marking the end of French presence in Hispaniola.
Though not a war of independence, this conflict represented one of the early Dominican struggles against European imperialism. This would serve as a context of the many conflicts that gave rise to the independence of what would later become the Dominican Republic.
Background
Treaty of Basel
The war between Spain and the Convention ended with the cession of the eastern part of the island of Santo Domingo to France, in exchange for the return of the peninsular territories occupied by the French army, as stipulated in the Treaty of Basel, signed on July 22, 1795, between both countries. The situation of general chaos in which the French part of the island was immersed, due to the uprising of the slaves and the struggles unleashed between the various ethnic and social groups, caused the sine day postponement of the definitive handover of the colony by the Spanish authorities to the French ones. However, the consequences of the news were not long in coming, and a large number of Dominican families left the island bound for Puerto Rico, Cuba and Venezuela in a migration process that increased when soldiers commanded by Toussaint Louverture, a former slave who had become general of the French Republic, entered Santo Domingo almost without resistance, in 1801, to take possession of the territory that Spain had ceded to France. The expedition sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to the island in 1802, headed by General Charles Leclerc, did not manage to restore order, but rather lost control over the western part of the island, in which French rule was already more virtual than real, unlike what was happening in Santo Domingo, whose the population supported the new authorities as a safeguard against their neighbors to the west. After the proclamation of Haitian independence in 1804, the eastern part remained under the power of France.
French occupation
The French defeat at Saint-Domingue at the end of 1803 with the capitulation of General Donatien de Rochambeau, successor of Leclerc, provoked a crisis of authority for the French remnant on the island; particularly for the authority of Brigadier General François Kerverseau, chief for the former Spanish Santo Domingo, which was now in the hands of the French at that time by the Treaty of Basel of 1795. For some authors, Kerverseau's resignation was a matter of time. This explains the coup of command given by General Jean-Louis Ferrand, authority in the Department of Cibao, who with a hundred soldiers left from Monte Cristi, passing through Santiago and arrived in Santo Domingo, where on January 1, 1804, he displaced Kerverseau. Apparently, among Kerverseau's troops there was cause for discontent with their leader. On the contrary, the parties under Ferrand's command were faithful to him to the point of calling him an "affectionately father." All this facilitated the adhesion of the French in Santo Domingo to the project of maintaining French dominion over the eastern part of the island. But now, Ferrand had to find a way to support the French Government on the island and promote the Napoleonic project. Proclamations were sent to different parts of the Caribbean calling on the dispersed French soldiers to regroup in Santo Domingo. Around three hundred soldiers responded to this call, and about five hundred Spanish guards joined them.
Ferrand promoted wood cutting and the development of coffee and sugar plantations. Regarding the Treaty of Basel, Spain and France had established agreements through which French privateers in the Caribbean could make captures on Spanish properties, as well as call at their ports. These privateers had their interest focused on attacking British merchant shipping. Ferrand took full advantage of the profuse privateering activity, issuing patents for finance his army, as well as the administration of the Eastern Part. The French privateers not targeted British shipping but also American ships, which from 1804 onwards traded with Haiti. Efforts to attract back settlers who had left the island as a result of political instability had been unsuccessful. Changing strategy, by the decree of January 22, 1804, Ferrand determined that "all the properties of the inhabitants of the former Spanish Part who have embarked, or will embark without a passport, whether before either after the blockade of the city, will be confiscated by the government and will be a part of national assets for the entire duration of the kidnapping." This measure was highly unpopular among the emigrated elites. According to Utrera, he stated in regards to the new degree: "The embargo produced general disaffection towards the French, and disaffection caused, in fact, the Dominican uprising in 1808, which culminated in the French evacuation of Santo Domingo." Certainly, the embargo produced discontent in important sectors of Santo Domingo, but it also only affected a portion of the possessing population of seizable assets and that could migrate to other places.
Discontent with the French had other elements to take into account. Naturally, the French Government in Santo Domingo had deepened tensions with Haiti, prohibiting trade between both parties. The decree issued by Ferrand on January 6, 1805, not only ignored the existence of the neighboring State but also clearly established the need to "annihilate the rebellion of the blacks in the colony of Santo Domingo" through the reduction of its population, and particularly authorizing the capture of minors under 14 years of age to be sold as slaves. The French presence on the eastern side of the island represented a serious threat to the Haitians, which became the trigger for the failed invasion of Jean-Jacques Dessalines on February 22 of that same year. Another incursion was foreseeable if it had not been for the death of the emperor in October 1806 and the consequent division of Haiti into two States: In the North the regime of Henri Christophe and in the South the republic headed by Alexandre Pétion. The tensions between both sides relegated the problem of the French presence in the western part of the island to the background.
By prohibiting commercial exchange with the West, Ferrand was limiting the economic possibilities of the Dominicans from the Cibao and the South. These areas were already constrained by the difficulty of exporting wood, tobacco and sugar to the North American market due to the war between France and Britain, and the naval blockade that the latter had established on the island of Santo Domingo as a result of the breach of the Peace of Amiens in July 1803. Unlike the rest of the former Spanish Part, in Santo Domingo and its surroundings the French found their stronghold support. An important commercial dynamic was deployed there that favored the export of wood. Ferrand also developed a series of infrastructure projects, such as fortifications and repairs of existing works, which provided work and trade to an important group of artisans and specialized workers.
The French Government on the island applied a series of social policies that responded to the intention of Napoleon Bonaparte's regime to reestablish slavery, or, failing that, the subjugation of the population of Santo Domingo, to promote the plantation as a productive model. These measures were aimed especially at people of color, freedmen or slaves, for whom were very unpopular and threatening. On December 31, 1807, Ferrand ordered that all people of color show a "title of freedom" that proved their status as freedmen. Thousands of freedmen, recent and old, did not have these documents and had to appear before a notary in search of a title of freedom. French documents show these efforts to prove free status. Racial politics extended to other aspects of daily life such as trying to prevent marriages between whites and blacks or preventing the schooling of infants French blacks. French rule showed a contradiction. On one hand, it represented the establishment of a republican socio-political organization, with its institutions, its egalitarian discourse and the figure of the citizen as a subject of law. On the other hand, it intensified the long colonial tradition of the slave plantation as an axis of economic development. Another source of tension came from the influential men of the Church. The French imposed a secular State that led them to confront the practices traditional Spanish. Not only were there expropriations of rural property and ecclesiastical income, but they were also encouraged to ignore the payment of the tithe, which found sympathy in sectors of the property-owning class, but rejection in the priests, figures with great leadership among a population of deep-rooted Catholics. Throughout the anti-French conspiracy, religious figures appear assuming relevant roles. Added to this internal panorama was the international context and particularly the expansive plans of Napoleon Bonaparte.
French invasion of Spain
On May 2, 1808, the people of Madrid revolted against the French authority that had been established in Spain since the end of 1807. Through the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed in October 1807, Spain and France had reached an agreement that allowed Napoleon to cross Spanish territory to reach Portugal, an ally of the British. The crossing of Napoleonic troops ended in an occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The spirit of rebellion was strengthened by the Bayonne abdications on May 5, the day on which King Charles IV successively renounced the throne, and who was to be his successor, Fernando VII, to give way to the reign of Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The riot stimulated the formation of provincial government boards that claimed loyalty to the Spanish Crown. These boards allowed the creation, in turn, of a Central Board as a form of autonomous government, but faithful to the Iberian monarchy, awaiting the return to power of Ferdinand VII. The events in Spain had its resonance in the American colonial world, in which the boards were replicated. From Spain the Central Board sent proclamations to all the territories in North America, and they arrived in Puerto Rico and Cuba in the month of July 1808, where the governors Toribio Montes, Salvador José de Muro (Marqués de Someruelos), respectively, assumed and disseminated them, so it only took days to reach Santo Domingo.
Although Ferrand made great efforts to maintain the best possible relations with the authorities of Cuba and Puerto Rico, there was tension between Ferrand and Toribio Montes from the beginning. This tension had to do with the accusations of corruption that the former made about the management of the latter. Ferrand denounced what he considered "intolerable abuses." Toribio Montes' unreceptive attitude made sense when in July 1808, he rebelled against the French authorities in Madrid and joined the Junta of Seville. Furthermore, Montes seized a French privateer ship that was in Puerto Rico. Its officers were sent on a ship under the command of Captain Bracetti, who took advantage of the trip to deliver anti-French propaganda and spoke publicly about the state of rebellion on the neighboring island. Bracetti called on Dominicans to take up arms "against the enemy you have in your homes." Among the papers that circulated in Santo Domingo were the proclamations of Montes himself and the Marquis of Someruelos, as well as the Gazette of the Government of Puerto Rico, newspapers from Havana and a proclamation by Henri Christophe, instigating the rebellion against the French, but also to the reestablishment of commercial relations with the Cape.