Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic—a nation best known for its beach resorts—has a story of both brutality and resistance behind its romanticized Colonial Zone. Moraima Capellán Pichardo finds out what’s behind the façades on a decolonized city tour.
Ruth Pion speaks with the conviction and authority of a civil rights leader. “My work is not neutral, I am not objective,” she tells me. “To take on the myth of neutrality would lead to things staying much the same.” I also know, like many activists confronting the horrors of colonization, she has received death threats.
Pion is the founder and creator of AfrohistoriaRD, an educational project offering immersive experiences such as historical tours and workshops that have been designed to highlight the history of enslaved Africans in the island of La Española—today’s Dominican Republic and Haiti. An anthropologist with a Masters in Gender Equity as well as technical training in protection of cultural heritage and underwater archeology, Pion is also a co-founder of the women-led collective Junta de Prietas. She’s certainly not your average tour guide.
A couple of truths have been clear for some time now: The Dominican Republic is going through a period of expansion and yet, for all its economic growth, Dominican society has wounds threatening to spoil all of this potential.
After a brief stint working in tourism myself, I’ve been on the lookout for grassroots solutions that address systematic problems. Pion’s ‘Hidden History – A Decolonial Tour’’ is one example. It’s a journey through the Colonial City of Santo Domingo and encourages participants to critically examine why Dominican history continues to be whitewashed.
“We can’t talk about African resistance without talking about Indigenous resistance. The Taino people were not extinguished… Yes, they were decimated but many parts of the culture have survived.”
- Ruth Pion
Named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the Colonial Zone is the first European settlement in Abya Yala, the oldest Indigenous name for the American continents in the Indigenous Kuna language. Established in 1496, the Colonial Zone was a site of many firsts: The first cathedral, the first university, the first hospital. It’s essentially the headquarters of Spanish power. Traditional European beauty and architecture have been preserved, making it an important attraction for visitors.
But it’s in the Colonial Zone where the experiment of colonialism was developed and expanded throughout the new world. Currently, the preservation of the 15th-century infrastructure is prioritized and glosses over the dark history that made it so picturesque.
Walking with Pion through the familiar streets of La Zona (as Dominicans call it) is an enlightening experience that gives me plenty of opportunities for reflection. The tour begins at the Plaza de la Hispanidad (Hispanic Plaza), in front of the Palacio Virreinal de Diego Colón, now a museum, previously the residence of the son of Christopher Columbus, who became the first governor of Santo Domingo.
On my way to meet Pion, I was stopped by one of the tour guides from the syndicate of tourism. Pion later explained that a mandate of the Ministry of Tourism forces her to pay a fee to this association—and one of their tour guides must accompany the tour. While there was initial resistance to her work from the tour guide association, she has now found an ally, Mr. Ramon, who joined us during our walk. Both Ramon and Pion admitted that while the association runs the official tour promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, hers is a vastly different experience.
While both experiences take visitors to key spots such as Independence Park and the Museum of the Royal Houses, Pion details the history of each location as it relates to the lives of the African and Taino (Indigenous group of the Caribbean) population. Three locations in particular are prime examples of the erasure of the legacy of African resistance: Gate of Royal Shipyards, La Negreta and Columbus Park.
“The Puerta de las Atarazanas Reales [Gate of Royal Shipyards] is the other end of the Door of No Return,” Pion tells me. The Door of No Return refers to a location in the West African nation of Ghana that historians cite as the starting point in the journey of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. The government of Ghana has been widely applauded for its efforts to reconnect the African diaspora to their ancestry by offering pilgrimages that acknowledge the history of slavery in Ghana. There is no such acknowledgment in La Zona.
At the gate, Pion is bursting with information. All imported merchandise was brought into the city through these gates, including people. Enslaved Africans were considered property.
“We can’t talk about African resistance without talking about Indigenous resistance. The Taino people were not extinguished… Yes, they were decimated but many parts of the culture have survived,” says Pion, explaining that enslaved Africans were brought to the island after the Taino Indigenous populations were brutally reduced. Subsequently, African and Taino populations formed alliances, shared survival information and knowledge, and collaborated in rebellions.
“Why don’t we want to show the areas that deal with our Black history? Omitting is also lying. There is a lack of political willingness to talk about Black history. Yes, this city has beauty, but it is a city built on displacement.”
- Ruth Pion
“A strategy used by the Spaniards was to shave the hair off newly enslaved Africans,” Pion adds. “That erased their tribe identity because through their various hairstyles, they showcased their social position, their history and connections. It made it more challenging for the Africans to recognize their allies and organize rebellions.”
Thus began a rejection of Black hairstyles in the Dominican Republic. To this day, children are not allowed to wear braids, locs, and colorful styles in public schools.
There’s a surge of energy that comes with the realization that our African and Indigenous ancestors overcame immense violent efforts to oppress and control their identity. There were moments where I felt overwhelmed with sadness and grief while at other times, I felt empowered by the resilience and creativity of my ancestors. Fortunately, Ruth is mindful to create welcomed moments of silence but be warned; this is not a light-hearted activity and it may be triggering for abuse survivors.
We continue our walk through the walls of Santa Barbara, the first Black neighborhood inside the Colonial Zone and home to the street known as ‘La Negreta’. It feels like a drastic change in appearance from the rest of the Colonial Zone. There’s trash everywhere and abandoned cars. Pion notes that this neighborhood continues to be predominantly Black and of low income.
“La Negreta was the name given to this street for having the warehouse where the African Blacks were taken when they arrived on the island,” Pion tells me. “In a building that was on this street, they were put up for auction.” She explains that including this stop on her tour was a source of conflict with the official tour guide association and Mr. Ramon confirms that guides are prohibited from bringing tourists to La Negreta.
“Why don’t we want to show the areas that deal with our Black history?” asks Pion. “Omitting is also lying. There is a lack of political willingness to talk about Black history. Yes, this city has beauty, but it is a city built on displacement.”
Hidden History: A Decolonial Tour is part of a movement of tourism initiatives created to present a different perspective and often undertold history of a place. Colleagues of Pion include Batoto Yetu Portugal, a cultural association offering guided tours called ‘Discovering Lisbon’s African Heritage’, and Lua Ferreira who leads an experience called ‘Little Africa and Urban Quilombism’ about the importance and contribution of the Afro-diasporic population in the identity and cultural formation of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. Museum, archive center and library CIVA Brussels explores the traces of colonization in Ixelles and Brussels on its guided tours; Uncomfortable Oxford and Uncomfortable Cambridge tours engage with both cities’ complication relationship and past with empire, race, class and gender; while in Berlin, Decolonial Tours take you around the African Quarter on a journey through often-forgotten German colonial history.
Columbus Park is a glaring example of this erasure. During the 1700s, it housed La Picota, a public place of torture where enslaved people were flogged. Now, it’s home to a controversial statue honoring Christopher Columbus and displaying contempt for Indigenous heritage. Columbus is portrayed as larger than life, while Anacaona, a Taino cacique (leader/chief) who was assassinated for fighting Columbus, is depicted in a normal human size, looking up at him and writing his name in Latin.
“It is historically inaccurate to show her in submission, the representative of the massacre of her people,” Pion says. She also tells me that a growing number of activists protest every year about the existence of this monument. On October 12, 2022, her colleagues drew the attention of an extremist right-wing organization, Antigua Orden Dominicana, and were attacked at a demonstration meant to honor the memory of Anacaona at Columbus Park. It is these same groups that have harassed Pion’s work online and sent death threats to her group of colleagues.
The Hidden History Tour is decolonization in practice. It reminds us residents and visitors alike that we must question what information is presented to us about any place we are exploring. Demonstrating that we’re not interested in a watered-down version of history may help to guide areas that are resistant to showing the gritty truth. Pion has created an enriching experience that challenges our perception, confronts hierarchies of power and uncovers the wounds that Dominican society can no longer ignore.
With the world seemingly becoming more polarized by the minute, we need to support models of tourism that beyond sustainability, recover and affirm our collective history. I hope that more tour operators, locally and around the world, follow the example of Pion and move away from outdated forms of empty entertainment and embrace the past.
Hidden History: A Decolonial Tour takes approximately two hours, with the option of an extended version that includes a trip to Boca de Nigua in the city of San Cristobal, 25 kilometers from Santo Domingo, where one of the most important slave rebellions took place in 1796.
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Moraima Capellán Pichardo is a Dominican-born writer, visual creator, organizer, and yoga teacher. After living in Brooklyn, New York, Moraima returned home and is based in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. She has written for Oprah Daily, The Huffington Post, and La Galeria Magazine. Most recently, Moraima co-founded and is the Executive Director of Cabarete Sostenible.
