The first sugarcane plantation rebellion took place in Nigua in 1522 in a mill owned by Christopher Columbus’ eldest son. While Boca de Nigua’s rebellion was inspired by Haiti’s revolution of 1791, history reveals that black resistance in the Americas actually began here in the Dominican Republic.
“There’s a muting they want to keep silencing what unfolded here.” “It’s paradoxical, for a country like the DR where tourism is fundamental,” he said. There’s no interpretive centre, no signs here – only ruins. An unflinching look at Mississippi's darkest momentsĪlthough Boca de Nigua is mentioned in Unesco’s Places of Memory on the Slave Route in the Latin Caribbean project, the site’s significance remains “relatively unknown” on a national level, according to Solano.
Nuñez revealed that the uprising’s leaders included a woman: Ana María, who was crowned “queen of the freed slaves” during the rebellion. Part of the strategic attack involved seizing the property’s ammunitions and burning the sugarcane fields and the plantation owner’s house. “ the first rebellion that had a political dimension, with the aim of abolishing slavery and creating a government representing the ethnic diversity that existed on the island.” “Boca De Nigua was the most significant expression of the African resistance to slavery in the Spanish part of the island,” said Dario Solano, an Afro-Dominican history expert and native of Nigua, who sits on the Unesco Slavery Route’s Dominican Republic Committee. Sprawling plazas remain punctuated with statues and busts of Spanish colonialists. Its narrow cobblestone streets are lined with Spanish-style colonial architecture, including pink, green and yellow pastel-coloured stone buildings, many of which retain their original metal doors, arched entrances and windows, stucco walls and wrought-iron balconies. The former walled city – its original fortified entrances remain standing – boasts the first paved roads and the first military fort, cathedral, convent and university built in the New World. Touted as “a city of firsts”, the Colonial City is the oldest, permanent European urban settlement in the Americas, and there’s no doubt that this 10-block neighbourhood is a historical and architectural gem. Visitors who flock here leave after learning a single version of the Dominican Republic’s history: that of Spain. Yet, to this day, however, la Zona Colonial, as locals call it, reveals little about its African past. Building facades were repainted and restored, transforming into bistros, art galleries and shops. In an effort to boost tourism, in 2014 the Colonial City experienced more than $100m in renovations over a three-year period. The story of the country’s colonial past began where I stood that morning, and where the women were dancing in remembrance of their ancestor.
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