Domincan Republic in 1870s

Life in the Dominican Republic, 1870s
Except from Samuel Hazard, "The Cradle of the New World," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 46: 275 (April 1873): 649-656. Hazard traveled throughout the Caribbean in the 1870s, describing various islands.

Puerto Plata, like the few towns still left in the island of Santo Domingo, is old only so far as its location is concerned; for the buildings were utterly destroyed by the Spaniards when they evacuated the island in 1865. The town, however, has been rebuilt after a fashion, with moderate-sized houses of wood, and in the outskirts with small cabins made of strips of the palm and withes, and roofed with thatch. That it had at one time been a place of very great importance and solid structures is evident from the ruins of many of the warehouses and buildings still standing, which are composed of stone and the material of the country known as mamposteria, a sort of concrete.
The town is finely situated at the foot of a high mountain, fronting a crescent-shaped bay, on the right of which a narrow peninsula projects itself into the harbor. On this strip of land stands an antiquated fortress, a straggling range of dilapidated stone buildings and works, built ages and ages ago for protection to the town. Now they are dismantled, crumbling ruins, overgrown with moss and vines and grass, and form as pretty a study of ruins as any artist could desire. Twelve men and one musket, and several rusty pieces of ordnance that cannot be fired, comprise the garrison and equipment of the post.
The town itself is irregularly built. Most of the houses are of wood, are generally two stories high, with balconies to the second floor. The streets are narrow and badly paved. The port is capable of being made into a safe and important harbor. The population of the town is variously estimated at from two to three thousand souls, chiefly "colored people," a phrase meaning any complexion not pure white, from the lightest shade to jet-black. The prevailing religion is the Roman Catholic; but freedom of worship exists there, and a Methodist church has been established in the town.
Labor is cheap, ranging from $1 to $3 per day, according to circumstances; by the month, all are willing to work for $10 and $12. The women earn their living chiefly by washing, and, as a rule, are more industrious than the men. Strolling outside the town, our author came upon a group of forty or fifty of these washerwomen standing in the river, hard at work. Some were entirely nude, some with only a cloth about the waist; but all were busy, and chattering away like parrots.
From Puerto Plata the party proceeded by sea to Samaná. The cape was rounded at daybreak. This bold headland is generally spoken of as the beginning of the bay shore, the southern point being at Cape Rafael; but Samaná Bay proper commences at that point of the peninsula known as Balandra Head. This is a remarkable red cliff, lying at the foot of Mount Diablo, which rises to the height of 1300 feet. Between the base of Balandra Head and the shore lies a most attractive sloping levee covered with vegetation, and which would be most charming sites for coffee and sugar estates, to say nothing of their beauty and value as places of marine residence for the inhabitants of the future city of Samaná.
A glance at the map of Samaná Bay will give the reader an idea of the form and extent of this superb sheet of water, the coveted prize of many governments. In imagination clothe the sides of this bay with bold, high hills, varying from 200 to 2000 feet high, from which slope gently to the sea charming valleys covered with trees and vegetation; indent the shore with coves, or here and there small harbors, whose white sandy shores glisten in the tropic sun, and you have some idea of this beautiful bay that Columbus himself has named the "Bay of Arrows," being the place, it is said, where the blood of the children of the New World was first shed by those of the Old. Here resided the subjects of the Cazique Cayacoa, whose widow was afterward baptized in the Catholic faith as Dona Inez Cayacoa.
The country around Samaná is comparatively unsettled. One sees here and there the simple huts of the natives, whose chief occupation appears to be "killing time." This is varied now and then by a little manual labor in the small gardens, where every thing seems to grow of its own accord. The women, with very scanty clothing, gain their livelihood by taking in washing; but the household expenses are very light, and they work only when it suits them. The climate is both hot and wet, there being the usual rainy season, with frequent showers in the dry season, while the thermometer ranges at mid-day as high as 90 degrees in the shade, though at night and early in the morning throughout the year it descends as low as 70 degrees. This temperature is, however, always rendered more bearable by the constantly prevailing breezes.
From Samaná, Mr. Hazard proceeded to the [capital] City of Santo Domingo. A queer old place it must be. [It should be—founded in 1496!] Bright colored walls, with dirty Negroes sunning themselves against them; narrow streets, with solid-built houses, whose immense doors and spacious windows contrast forcibly with their limited height of only one or two stories; horsemen with broad-rimmed hats on small, compact, quick-moving horses, contrast with the dusky urchin who, naked of every thing but a shirt, bestrides an immense straw saddle on the back of a very diminutive donkey—all serve, with hundreds of other noticeable things, to strike the stranger, and impress upon him the fact that he has exchanged his Saxon associations of order, cleanliness, and precision for the peculiarities of Spanish tropical life.
Knots of men and women, mostly colored, and busy in talk, are scattered about the quay, or in the small open places called "plazas;" odd-looking stores, with still more odd-looking assortments of goods, are entirely open to the gaze of the passer-by; while in the market-place are noticed the same peculiarities observed at Puerto Plata, only on a more extended scale. Go where one will, however, every one is cheerful, polite, and communicative, while the dusky "fair ones" presiding over piles of strange, unknown tropical productions are merry and obliging. Such are the sights that today first greet the traveler in the city that at one time was famous for its magnificence.
The outskirts of the city are composed of unattractive frame or clay huts; while in the interior of the town many of the houses are solid and imposing. They are built in the old Spanish style, usually one story in height, seldom over two. A wide entrance with immense folding doors opens into the hall, leading into the patio, or courtyard around which are the quarters and offices. The same lack of glass in the windows, and the use of iron bars, seen in Cuba are universal here; while the quietness of many of the old streets in the upper part of the town reminds one of a city of sleepers. In the streets leading up from the wharf, and in the vicinity of the marketplace, more life is seen, and the architecture of the stores and houses, if not so imposing, is more modem.