The Parsley Massacre was an act of genocide which started on 1937-10-02, in which the army of the Dominican Republic was ordered by Rafael Trujillo to exterminate Haitians living in the northwest Dominican Republic.
The Parsley Massacre (Spanish: El Corte “the cutting”; Creole: kout kouto-a “the stabbing”) was an act of genocide committed against Haitians living in the Dominican Republic’s northwestern frontier that began on this day in 1937. Estimates of the amount of Haitians murdered range from 12,000-35,000.
The massacre was carried out by the Dominican Army on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, who initiated the violence with this statement, given on Oct. 2nd, 1937:
“To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, ‘I will fix this.’ And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now dead in Bánica. This remedy will continue.”
In the following week, hundreds of Dominican troops poured into the region, killing Haitians with rifles, machetes, shovels, knives, and bayonets. Haitian children were reportedly thrown in the air and caught by soldiers’ bayonets, then thrown on their mothers’ corpses. Others were drowned in the sea, making identification and counting of the dead impossible.
The term “Parsley Massacre” for the genocide came from the method that Dominican soldiers would use to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Afro-Dominicans or immigrant Afro-Haitians - they would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask them what it was.
If the person could pronounce it the Spanish way (“perejil”), the soldiers considered them Dominican and let them live, however if they pronounced it with a French or Creole accent, they were considered Haitian and executed.[^1]