History & Heritage

See the dark side of Dominican history at Museo de La Resistencia

Museo de La Resistencia, Santo Domingo

Photo: Anton Lau

This powerful, emotionally-charged museum bears witness to a brutal chapter of Dominican history (in the hopes that it will never be repeated). Learn about the brave men and women who resisted Trujillo’s 31-year dictatorship.

Rafael Trujillo’s violent dictatorship

Rafael Trujillo made such an impact on the Dominican Republic that locally, the modern history of the nation is separated into pre-Trujillo and post-Trujillo eras.

 

Modern Dominican history begins in the late 1400s with European colonisation and exploitation of “the Indies”. The first centuries of colonialism were characterised by appalling racism, imperialism, brutality and brigandry, as noble “explorers” and unsanctioned pirates alike plundered and murdered to get their hands on the riches of Hispaniola - first the gold found in its rivers, then cash crops like sugarcane, coffee and cocoa.

 

Some 500 years after Europeans first colonized Hispaniola, Rafael Trujillo set himself up as something of a modern-day colonizer. Although Dominican-born, Trujillo’s plunder of the country, massacres of its people and cruel silencing of all political opposition bears much resemblance to sixteenth-century viceroys like Christopher Columbus.

 

The Dominican Resistance Memorial Museum (Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana) is dedicated to the more than 40,000 Dominicans and Haitians slain during his rule, especially those who resisted. The resistencia is the movement that countered Trujillo for ten of those years, risking abduction, torture and imprisonment.

Courtyard at the Museo de La Resistencia, Santo Domingo

Photo: Anton Lau

Trujillo’s rise and fall

According to two of Rafael Trujillo's biographers, Eric Roorda and Bernard Diederich, the dictator was a humble cattle thief and check forger before he set his sights on politics. His first act of leadership was starting a street gang of violent thieves called 42, and for many who survived it, Trujillo's entire rule had a flavor of criminality, characterised by the silencing of opponents using physical and psychological tactics.

 

Trujillo later joined the army, mysteriously skyrocketing from cadet to commander in chief in just nine years. From this point, it wasn't far to being the head of the police and then, after a coup d'etat, on to the presidency itself.

 

Trujillo was eventually assassinated in 1962 and subsequently buried in Spain. In contrast, hundreds of Dominican families were never able to bury loved ones who disappeared while fighting Trujillo as part of La Resistencia - “the resistance”.

Inside historic exhibition at the Museum of the Resistance.

Exhibition at the Museo de La Resistencia, Santo Domingo

Photo: Anton Lau

What you’ll see on display at the Museum

Steel yourself before entering the museum, because it isn't easy to get through - especially the room that highlights the methods of torture used during Trujillo's 30-year rule.

 

The first exhibit at the museum talks about the myths created during the Trujillo era, particularly the myths that the government functioned more efficiently and the Dominican economy improved during Trujillo’s dictatorship.

 

The majority of exhibits are about the clandestine movements that opposed Trujillo’s oppression, and the fates suffered by group members and their families. Highlights include the leftist “14th of June Movement”, made up of over 300 rebels working together, including the famous Mirabal Sisters.

 

Visitors can learn how the three Mirabal Sisters - now cultural icons of the Dominican Republic - assisted the resistance before they were cruelly executed by Trujillo. If you want to learn about the Mirabal sisters before you visit, check out our article on the top five books you should read before you visit the DR.

 

A room is also dedicated to the 12,000 Haitians killed (some estimate as many as 35,000) as part of Trujillo’s ethnic cleansing of the Dominican Republic.

 

The museum hopes "to cultivate civic virtues in responsible citizens to avoid abuse and violence on the part of the state and groups in power" so that atrocities like those carried out under Trujillo’s regime can never happen again.

Getting there

The Dominican Resistance Memorial Museum is located in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo on #21 Calle Arzobispo Noel, and is open Tuesday - Sunday, 9:30 AM - 6:00 PM.

 

Admission is 150 pesos (roughly US $3). For groups of more than five, a guide is available for an extra 500 pesos (roughly US $10), and audio guides can be loaned for 40 pesos (roughly US $1).

 

*Note that all indicative costs in US dollars were accurate at the time of writing based on an exchange rate of US $1 = 53.14 DR pesos


Written by G. Abdullah.

 

Published July 2020



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