Samana Americans

This short video is a useful introduction to the Samana Americans of the Dominican Republic. It's interesting as an example of how some older Samana Americans recall their origins. One can detect the influence of Dominican nationalism, assimilation, and schooling has shaped the history of their community in Hispaniola. For example, the older woman who speaks English refers to problems with Haitians as part of the reason many African Americans left the island, partly due to religious differences. She explicitly alludes to Roman Catholicism as one of the problems, despite most Dominicans of the era also being nominal Catholics. Indeed, unlike previous generations, these Dominicans lack the condescending attitude of their settler forebears, who saw Dominicans as lazy and had limited cultural contact with them. After hearing the two elderly Samana Americans speak, I am more inclined to believe the success of the Samana settlers may have had more to due with the isolated nature of their settlement. This allowed them a degree of community autonomy that may have been lacking in Haiti, which had a greater population density that probably impeded the forms of communal autonomy the Protestant African Americans desired. The fact that most also received land and did not have to sharecrop or sell their labor on estates probably helped. The successful African American emigration to Haiti proper, however, was urban. Their descendants were able to retain some degree of separate identity, but the urban experience likely weakened any isolationist community attempts.