The twenty-two year Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo is recalled by Dominicans as a period of brutal military rule, though the reality is more complex.

It leads to large-scale land expropriations and failed efforts to force production of export crops, impose military services, restrict the use of the Spanish language, and eliminate traditional customs such as cockfighting.

It reinforces Dominicans' perceptions of themselves as different from Haitians in "language, race, religion and domestic customs."

Yet, this is also a period that definitively ends slavery as an institution in the eastern part of the island.