Yvens Charles

Reminder Today, October 3, 2026, marks 89 years since the 1937 massacre of Haitians and people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, one of the darkest episodes in the history of Hispaniola. The killings, remembered in Haiti as Kout Kouto and widely known in English as the Parsley Massacre, were carried out by Dominican military and state forces under the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. The main wave of violence is generally dated from October 2 to October 8, although historical research indicates that killings had already begun in parts of the northern border region by September 29. The exact number of victims will probably never be known. Estimates vary substantially, but historians commonly place the death toll in the tens of thousands, with scholarly estimates often ranging around 10,000–20,000. The victims were not only recent migrants from Haiti. They included families who had lived for years or generations in Dominican territory and Dominicans of Haitian descent who belonged to deeply interconnected communities along the border. Trujillo’s rise cannot be separated from the history of the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924. During the occupation, the United States created and trained the Dominican constabulary under the direction of U.S. Marine officers. Trujillo entered that force, rose rapidly through its ranks and eventually became commander of the country’s armed forces. The United States did not order the 1937 massacre, but the military institution through which Trujillo accumulated the power that eventually made his dictatorship possible was, in important respects, a product of the occupation. U.S. diplomatic records themselves describe the Guardia Nacional Dominicana as having been recruited and trained under Marine direction. By 1930, Trujillo had converted that military power into political power and established the dictatorship that would dominate the Dominican Republic until his assassination in 1961. In 1937, the country was nearly bankrupt, and sugar prices had plummeted. In late September, Trujillo accepted a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf and embraced its racial theories. As economic difficulties worsened and Europe’s turmoil echoed in the Dominican Republic, Trujillo's racist obsessions grew. Using this ideology, he aimed to distract Dominicans from their economic struggles by turning their frustrations toward Haitian migrants. His regime increasingly sought to impose centralized state control over a border region where Haitians and Dominicans had long lived, traded, married and formed communities across national lines. Historians have therefore cautioned against reducing the massacre to a sudden eruption of popular hatred. It was organized state violence, carried out within a broader project of racialization, border control and authoritarian nation-building. Between 10000 and 20000+ killed and No high-ranking Dominican officials were ever held accountable for the massacre.