ABSTRACT

On the 13th of October 1946, flames engulfed the town of Samaná located on the northeastern portion of the Dominican Republic (DR). The flames spread from warehouse to warehouse, consuming the mahogany and cedar planks culled from the hillsides of Samaná. The townspeople watched as the fire devoured ninety-four of their homes. 1 The flames slowly spread beyond the commercial sector of town as the people scrambled, trying to find empty containers to fill with water to douse the flames. One of the few structures that remained—whether by celestial protection or its fortuitous hillside location— was the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Saint Peters Church, locally known as ‘La Churcha’. The materials for the church had been donated to the descendants of African Americans who lived in the region and had been brought from England in 1901. 2 In addition to all the structures, the ‘Great Fire of Samaná’, destroyed most of the documents related to land tenure, debt, mercantile exchanges, and records pertaining to the history of the community and its unique ethnic and cultural population.