ABSTRACT
Quisqueyanos everywhere, whether on the island or in New York City’s Washington Heights district, or in Miami, Philadelphia, or Barcelona, jubilantly celebrate February 27 as their Día de Independencia. On that triumphant date in 1844, the trinitarios and their loyal followers, although minus their founder Duarte because he lay seriously ill in Curaçao, were successful in overtaking the fortress of the Puerta del Conde in the city of Santo Domingo, forcing the Haitian commander to surrender. In a very short time, the other major towns around the island held by the occupying Haitian army capitulated. La República Dominicana was officially born and subsequently separated from Haiti. But even after independence was proclaimed, there were still some lingering and more than merely vexing internal problems and issues facing the now liberated Dominican citizenry. The new nation was still haunted by several of its earlier, weightier liabilities: a lack of firm national cohesiveness and unity of purpose, a deficit in national loyalty, an unusual dispersion of population over much broader areas of the country, a totally uncomfortable and unacceptable level of educational, political, and religious turmoil.
