'' For further reading : Dominican War of Independence '' In February 1844 a group of Dominican independence fighters moved to restore their freedom from military-enforced Haitian rule in the Spanish-speaking two-thirds of the island . Called the '' La Trinitaria '' ( " The Trinity " ) , this organization was composed of Spanish Creoles , mulattoes , and blacks , and led by Juan Pablo Duarte , Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Matías Ramón Mella . Independence was proclaimed in the city of Santo Domingo on 27 February 1844 , but on the following day a group of ex-slaves led by Santiago Basora , announced its opposition to the independentists . These men suspected that the rebels intended to reintroduce slavery ; if this was true , the blacks were ready to fight alongside the Haitians . '' Trinitaria '' leaders realized the explosive nature of this situation and moved rapidly to defuse it . The very next day , 28 February provisional President Tomás Bobadilla and Vice-President Manuel Jimenes conferred with Basora and his supporters , and on the following day slavery was again declared abolished . The war to expel Haiti from Dominican soil was a great success : This was the last time ever Haiti would dominate the Dominican nation . In the Dominican Republic Independence Day is celebrated as February 27 , the day of revolt against Haitian occupation . For the next ten years , Dominican military strongmen fought to preserve their country 's independence from their Haitian neighbors . In March 1844 , a 30,000-strong two-pronged attack was successfully repelled in both north and south . Four years later , it took a Dominican flotilla harassing Haitian coastal villages , land reinforcements in the south , and a British and French naval blockade to force the determined Haitian Emperor into a one-year truce . In the most thorough and intense encounter of all , Dominican irregulars armed with machetes sent Haitian troops into flight on all three fronts in 1855 . Nearly a century later , the Dominican despot Rafael Trujillo revived the old hatreds between the Hispaniolan neighbors by a sudden ruthless massacre of up to 40,000 Haitians
ruthless massacre
Parsley massacre
Unification of Hispaniola