INTEGRATION AND IDENTITY IN THE CARIBBEAN ISLAND HISPANO: LA BACHATA URBANA EN L

A CULTURA DOMINICANA Alejandro Paulino Ramos (Historian and university professor

)
(Text of the c onference dictated by the historian Alejandro Paulino Ramos in th
e Dominican Congress XI History, devoted to Francisco Vásquez Henríquez, Hotel L
ina, 19-21 October 2007, sponsored by the American Institute of Geography and Hi
story Museum Geography and History, Dominican Academy of History, and the Archiv
o General de la Nación)
The Bachata has been considered by several researchers in the Dominican culture,
as a musical genre that has its base marginal instrumental in the Spanish guita
rs and instruments originating in Africa, associated with the diversion of the D
ominican neighborhoods and fields, but very few have seen this cultural phenomen
on as part of the integration process of the people who were formed in the Carib
bean islands and especially in the Hispanic Caribbean speaker.
This musical genre was invented "largely on the fly by popular musicians at part
ies in neighborhoods," and was long considered by Dominicans as "guaracha" or "D
ominican guaracha" but more recently it has also been known as music of bitterne
ss.
The bachata is its more distant roots in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the guaracha, Bol
ero and dance, and very reminiscent of the Cuban bolero-son, and as explained by
Enrique Deschamps in 1906, the "Puerto Rican dance" because of its hybridizatio
n with the "air and guaracha Mexican and Cuban Danzon."
So these Caribbean rhythms have become integrated with our rhythms, musical tast
e and adapting to the idiosyncrasies of our people, and providing musical syncre
tism has made it possible, that with the passage of time were dominicanizando, t
aking both characteristics interpretation as in dance, becoming indispensable fo
r their interpretation guitars, marimba instrument known as the calabash, bongos
, maracas, timbales and drums, the latter especially when it comes to meringue.
Throughout the process of its formation has been significant common history Cari
bbean, and the constant migration and economic and technological changes that im
pacted the Hispanic-speaking peoples of the region.
The word bachata seems to have originated in Cuba, from there he went to Puerto
Rico since the late nineteenth century they adopted the Dominican immigrants to
these islands. But before that term to Santa Domingo, here was the word fandango
, with the same or similar meaning.
The Martinique Moreau de Saint-Mery, describes the fandango in 1783 as a dance w
hich were accompanied by "guitar sound or pumpkin or maraca-waving", while Willi
am Walton in 1810 describes him as a national music, more upbeat than the bolero
and also comes with voice and guitar, and was considered repulsive by its obsce
nity. So the fandango and early nineteenth century, was seen as dance and music,
mainly from rural areas.
On the other hand, although it is said that of African origin, the term bachata'
s own speaker and the Hispanic Caribbean is evidence that both Cuba, Puerto Rico
and the Dominican Republic for at least the nineteenth century, is present in a
ctivities related with dancing and entertainment of "poor people", but in partic
ular those related to poor urban marginality. According to the "Cuban Vocabulary
, 14th supplement. Edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Language, b
y Constantino Suárez, Bachata is the same as "partying" "feast", "binge" and som
etimes "joke." For Suárez, "bachata" means something of little use, have fun and
joke.
But also said that Augustus Malaret bachata is fun Santo Domingo and Cuba and Pu
erto Rico partying, fun, and bachata is fun. For its part, Patin Maceo "Dominica
n Americanisms in language", brings the term bachata dances relating it to the s
lums. "And in 1938, Enrique Aguiar defined as having fun dancing with ordinary p
eople. There is also a definition bachata, not quite curious: Esteban Rodriguez
explains that the word was used in Puerto Rico, and Santamaria, author of Lexico
n Cuban, Bachata says is "the name given to the direction of the country or part
ying with women in gay life, and in Puerto Rico is "kind of country dancing:" In
sular Caribbean Cultural Unit Hispanic Cuban historian Hernán Venegas Delgado An
tillean Confederation: reality and hope, "review the economic process, adaptatio
n and hybridization Antilles, where the plantation" settled in the same location
, with a common climate and physiographic characteristics very similar. She left
, "he says,€the same historical process of genocide against the original indigen
ous population and reached the same mixing process .. "And referring to the danc
es and music of the Caribbean, referred the hybridisation process that became ma
nifest early in the culture of the West Indies "They're just the music and dance
one of the essential forms of expression of this mixture, as is commonly recogn
ized that the guaracha and son, rumba and merengue, cumbia, calypso, reggae and
zouk intermingle to give rise to highly debated even rhythms like salsa. "
For the Puerto Rican poet Pales Matos, West Indies were the forum for a "delicio
us mix" racial and cultural personality had founded a new national and regional
levels. For him, talking about West Indian poetry was not
speak of a white or black poetry, European or African, but a new cultural expres
sion born of the harmony of man and the landscape and represented in the racial
melting mulatería ". White impose its law and its culture, black tolerated and t
he black suits ... expands and unfolds like at home. " In Santo Domingo, Cuba an
d Puerto Rico are repeating history and is embodied in the integration through t
he development of Spanish colonial model, the prohibitions and penalties. The ta
m-tam brought from Africa became more then drum and bass drum that resembled the
characteristics of African bomb .... The Andalusian guitar, the tam-tam Indian
gourd muzzle and are the holy trinity of Puerto Rican music, fused to the same e
xtent they have been cast races. "Migrations and Cultural Unity in the Caribbean
islands extermination of indigenous Caribbean migration activities of the Spani
sh colonizers who came to Santo Domingo in the sixteenth century, while gold was
running out of the mines, forced economic change and transition to the use of A
frican slave labor as a fundamental force of the sugar industry. At the rate we
are producing these changes were initiated conflicts faced by European powers. C
orsairs, pirates, smuggling and devastation in the early seventeenth century, im
pacted the population of Santo Domingo and as a result of such depletion of the
people, dependence on a set that never came and a prolonged economic crisis that
will force an important part of the Spanish who lived on the island to migrate
in search of a better life. In this regard, said Antonio Sanchez and Valverde "
idea of the value of the Spanish island "(1785):" After demolished the place, wh
ich was the year of 606, gradually emerging from the Spanish, or entire families
or individuals who were still to some flow before drinking bit by bit, hoping t
o overtake (....) Executed so many throughout the last century and the beginning
of ours. The same trans invite and provoke others so that just stayed in the Sp
anish who by their very misery they were unable to shun them. "
This situation of crisis which deepened with the establishment in the western pa
rt of a French colony and the conflicts that this situation generated, will caus
e the permanent exodus of Dominicans Spanish to Caribbean territories, carrying
a part of the slave labor . For example, when France and Spain signed the Treaty
of Basel (1795), migrated between 15 and 25 000 people to Cuba, Puerto Rico and
Venezuela. -Spanish Dominicans who migrated from Santo Domingo were to reside i
n other Spanish possessions where they hoped to find better economic opportuniti
es, especially Cuba and Puerto Rico, in the territories of the settler presence
in Santo Domingo had cultural impact in the places where they settled. But at th
e same time, according to Herman Reichard, during the war of conquest between 18
08 and 1809 and in 1863, both times had battalions of Puerto Ricans in Santo Dom
ingo.
With those who emigrated from Santo Domingo are also expatriate customs and folk
lore of the Dominicans, but the trend began to reverse after the birth of the Do
minican Republic, leading to the presence of many Caribbean immigrants and the m
ainland, which will significantly affect the population growth and cultural chan
ges that will be recorded in the country was back, but transformed the culture t
hat had left many years ago, which was integrated and retrain the process of
formation of the Dominicans. Especially following the annexation to Spain in 186
1, will be entering the country with a significant contingent of Spanish and wit
h them thousands of Cubans and Puerto Ricans€yet after the war of the Restoratio
n many Dominican families emigrated annexation scheme partners primarily located
in Cuba: Juan J. Sanchez, in "Sugar cane in Santo Domingo" provides the data fo
r the presence of 27,000 españolescubanos during the Spanish annexation. And Rob
erto Mars traces the abrupt departure of Dominicans in 1865.
A migratory movement that we are obliged to study, to understand the cultural sy
ncretism of Dominicans is related to the Haitian revolution and the exodus of Fr
ench on the island of Cuba and Santo Domingo.. "The migratory movement in the Ca
ribbean region (including Haitian migration process after its antislavery revolu
tion), will cause shared features of an identity that is still waiting to be stu
died. Migration and Culture Caribbean Dominican Dominican migration process will
reverse from the changes that began to make in the Dominican economy in the sev
enties of the nineteenth century, and which are connected with the Cuban indepen
dence war of ten years (1868-1878), and "Little War" started in 1895, also with
the cry of Lares, 1868 Puerto Rican sugar crisis of the last quarter of the nine
teenth century: "From the seventies there is a considerable migratory movement f
rom Eastern Cuba jurisdictions. The devastating ferocity of the Ten Years' War p
ushed Santo Domingo five or six thousand Cubans who served in the course of year
s a positive influence of large proportions in the island's economy. "Before tho
usands had already arrived. In 1862, says Roberto Marte, Santo Domingo, there we
re some 4,000 Cubans. Twenty years later, Javier Angulo Guridi stands out as the
presence in the Caribbean was affecting population growth, especially in the pr
esence of Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Since the State's interest and group intelle
ctuals who dreamed of taking off from the country on the path of modernization,
the arrival of an immigration "wanted" was out to many of the problems affecting
the country historically, as Cuban immigration was encouraged by some media inf
ormation, highlighting El Porvenir "of Puerto Plata.
But other circumstances also pushed Puerto Ricans to emigrate to Santo Domingo.
On the one hand Cuba with its war of independence was not appealing to the migra
tion of Puerto Ricans and the process of sugar production in Borinquen was in cr
isis, and the conflicts generated by the fight for independence of Puerto Rico.
The heyday of the colonial sugar industry was neither too large nor last long. S
ince 1870, when he began to feel the negative effects of the sugar crisis, Puert
o Ricans began a stream of emigration to Cuba, Santo Domingo, St. Croix, St. Tho
mas and to Hawaii, a New York apart from bleeding.
What was happening in Cuba and Puerto Rico and the capital investment process th
at had begun in the Dominican Republic in the third quarter of the nineteenth ce
ntury, will result in the birth of an irreversible process that will produce sub
stantial economic changes and changes in the life of the Dominicans: the emergen
ce of industrial capitalism, disarticulation
Dominican peasantry, the emergence of the labor sector, the strengthening of urb
an development, changes in land ownership and the activation of both trade and t
he need to encourage the immigration of people from the Antilles.
As the sample is sufficient to note that already some 1.142 Macoris Puerto Rican
s, who number in the first two decades of the twentieth century, immigrated from
Puerto Rico in Grand Central Romana.
1899 lived in San Pedro was gradually increasing especially since 1910 amounts t
o work on
Harry Hoetink, referring to the impact caused by immigrant groups relate that si
tuation to rise and urban growth and the emergence of new neighborhoods where th
ese immigrants lived and by the way the appearance of the cabarets: "Prostitutio
n in the capital acquired in the nineties such forms, the authorities resorted t
o mandatory registration. Many of these prostitutes came from neighboring island
s, whose names were known neighborhoods in which they lived: "joyful women, youn
g, white, educated and beautiful, who came from Puerto Rico and Cuba. Some of th
ese girls had received good education, speak more than one language, had pleasan
t conversion, and played the piano wonderfully. " Like Enrique Deschamps approac
h makes his work published in The Dominican Republic 1907, when he says that a l
arge number of women promoted the vice of prostitution came from abroad,€which l
ed to many neighborhoods where these were known ironically lived under the name
of the cities or countries of origin. Is it relevant to the presence of Cuban an
d Puerto Rican prostitutes, and dancers are knowledgeable, boleros and guarachas
with the rise taken by this music in the cafes and cabarets of the early twenti
eth century and the social rejection that hit after the bachata, by tenérsele li
ke music that relates to these places of entertainment? Recall the aforementione
d definition of Bachata Santamaría that Cuba is "the name given to the direction
of the country or partying with women gay life" Sugar Industry and Social Chang
es Before the advent of the sugar industry, the Dominican Republic lived on the
cattle herd , wood cutting, operation of the mill and production conuqueros: The
"arrival of the 70s of last century Dominican society rested on an economy base
d on exports of precious woods and dyeing the exploration was taking place in th
e shops the band south and in certain coastal areas in the north as Monte Cristi
, in the production of snuff that had settled in the Cibao based on family farmi
ng units subject to a tiered network of dealers in Santiago had its principal pl
ace collection and Puerto Plata in their port of departure to Europe (...) in th
e operation of sugar mills and meladores family essentially nature geography swa
rmed in traditional sugarcane (...)., for the traditional cattle ranch establish
ed in the vast plains East, for production conuqueros oriented to supply the nut
ritional needs of the population.
The Dominican population in 1870 was nothing of 625.000 inhabitants, devoted mai
nly to grazing, timber cutting, agriculture and conuco also little experience in
industrial work the sugar: "The low rate of population (...) , was established,
"says Antonio Lluberes", the first factor
immigration promoter braceros. Already by 1882 there were in the country about 3
0 mills: "Between 1875 and 1882 were founded thirty 'sugar plantations' (...)..
In these thirty three mills were in the north, two in the District and one in Sa
maná District of Puerto Plata, these three were the first to be founded (in 1877
and 1978). " As part of the replacement of the Dominican labor as a foreigner,
who was taking place in this industry because of alleged in the country had not
enough hands, and political conflict triggered in Cuba and Puerto Rico in their
struggle for independence , it quickly generated a process of immigration from t
he British Isles, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Referring to the arrival of the cocolos,
said the British consul from a position that discriminates against these immigr
ants, those workers were not allowed "because of their race and because of their
inferior quality etiology. Moreover, the immigrants brought their" race , custo
ms, religion and language. "Although the population is discriminated cocola, it
gave further consideration to the Hispanic-speaking Caribbean, to be more compat
ible with the cultural tradition of Dominicans
In addition, economic modernization led to the development of major cities, the
establishment of railways in areas of the mills and tramways in the Capital and
Monte Cristi, rail Sanchez-La Vega and Santiago, Puerto Plata, telephone lines,
the first commercial bank, the first bridge over the River Ozama, the submarine
cable, the first daily newspapers, the establishment of the Normal School and th
e reopening of the University, but in particular the urgent need for immigrants
to work in the mills. Of all the localities with eligibility for immigrants in t
he late nineteenth century, Puerto Plata remained at the forefront of this proce
ss for some years, not only because of the economic movement, commercial and ind
ustrial, but also for the support and protection that the Blue Party gave the Ca
ribbean who fought against Spain at the time. Puerto Plata and Puerto Plata Cari
bbean immigration was icon of urban development during the last three decades of
the nineteenth century and one of the locations of the Dominican Republic more
preferred by Caribbean immigrants, especially the trade flow was between this an
d other islands West Indian mainland as well as immigration of Cubans and Puerto
Ricans was related to political and economic aspects. "."
Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi in "News from Puerto Plata records the flow of Cubans
and Puerto Ricans in the mid-Seventies: In 1875, the" civilian town of Isabel de
Torres was the most active center for Cuban and Puerto Rican patriots,€that in
accordance with freedom-loving Dominicans working resolutely towards the indepen
dence of Cuba, raised in arms, and the projected insurrection .(..). Puerto Rico
Thousands of Cubans were given to work in the city or in neighboring fields, wh
ile conspiring against Spain and also considering that the Dominicans and Cubans
united us culture: "Origin, language, customs and trends means a more desired t
his immigration than any other. "Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo and Santiago were t
he main reception centers for Cuban and Puerto Rican immigration that arrived in
the country following the war in Cuba 10 years (1868-1878 ). " And because Puer
to Plata things "went with bias in favor of the Cubans and so these were piled o
ver there to be a street that was called Cuba-free .." but in that city was also
a significant number of immigrants " cocolos. "
Syncretism in the Caribbean Music roots of Dominican culture are based on a sync
retism where different ethnic groups were integrated elements that allowed the e
mergence of a new town in the Americas. : Neither race nor aboriginal culture wa
s lost without trace. "Elements" Africans and Indians merged undoubtedly reduced
from the outset hybrid situations perpetuates the black man on the island of Sa
nto Domingo and other West Indies . The forced African immigrants "brought the p
atterns of their own cultures." In the case of music, sticks, tambourine and con
ga drum, bongos and timbales marked, along with the guitar and the tambourine of
Andalusia, the roots of Dominican bachata: in the Dominican party never missed
"the succulent chicken stew and rhythmical notes of four and the guitar.
For years, the dances of the poor were related to the fandango, as provided in t
he work of William Walton, published in 1810 and explaining that this was "much
more upbeat than the bolero and is accompanied by voice and Guitar (...). "lewd
well considering it .. One hundred and eight years after Schoenrich Otto in 1918
, said the preference of the Dominicans for the music of the Caribbean region in
its process of integration and adaptation gave way to the Dominican bachata: "T
he waltz music is very popular, but the favorite dance music is the beautiful "d
ance" Puerto Rican, which is a relative of the Mexican air and "guaracha" Cuban,
and can be compared to the flow of a stream, gliding serenely now, now running
waterfalls. "
For its part, July Arzeno, possibly the first student of Dominican popular music
, in 1927 provided an approach to defining the genre of bachata, who was born: "
There is no doubt that the foundation for the popular song, was the liturgical c
hant, and the only art form that enjoyed mainly our old society, which, with the
musical feelings of immigrants from either Spain, the Caribbean and Venezuela,
were amalgamated to the sound rudimentary Creole influence enough, until fully n
aturalized . Thus, the most used by urban people to externalize our passions and
feelings through song after Bolero, was the beautiful literary style of the son
g (...). Once, while in the fashionable circles, ceremonial dance the Gang, Fren
ch Contradanza, the Schottische, the gull, the Polka, the Mazurka and the Cotill
ion, introduced by the heavy mass of German and Spanish foreign, especially the
youth of the town is fun in its own way, making their armed Moorish dance partie
s or Spanish guitar, the maracas and tambourine, animated with joyful warmth, so
metimes accented with noisy tools. "
Citing Argeliers León, Helio said that the boleros Orovio emerged in the middle
of the nineteenth century in Santiago de Cuba, expanded rapidly in the Caribbean
, the heir of Hispanic ancestry, has undergone a Cubanization that linked it to
the dance and the habanera, "emerging in the last century a new style rhythm gui
tar accompaniment, a mix of strumming and points, no doubt, we came back on the
road to renewed contracts with Yucatecan sounds. The Spanish bolero incorporated
only the name and its structure is to quadruple time. " In this bolero makes rR
eference Enrique Deschamps in 1906, when he says that dance is a "piece of music
West Indian rhythms and lilting gentle
pleasantly movements slow and sensual rhythms "of peasant origin and belongs to"
the three great West Indies, "but that was defined on the island of Puerto Rico
as" Puerto Rican Dance "because of its hybridization with the" Mexican air and
guaracha and of Cuban Danzon. "€Possibly the Caribbean musical entrenchment was
that caught the Dominican bachata music, which undoubtedly finds its earliest ro
ots in the integration of the bolero, guaracha, son and merengue and other rhyth
ms, but with proper instruments of the parties neighborhoods, as happened with t
he Cuban bolero played by the septetos and trios in the twenties.
The Dominican bolero says Julio Alberto Hernández, very different from Spanish d
ance of the same name, is often love letters, and is one of the genres cultivate
d throughout the country. Entered the country by the guaracha by the city of Pue
rto Plata, as explained Arzeno July 1927: "In our beautiful and beloved northern
region, before we invaded the hilarious and vulgar Fox Trot, improvised and com
posed songs are more like and enthusiasm that we now hear, especially songs, and
above all, Boleros, whose origin can not try or is our purpose in this volume,
find out, but we can say that the Cuban immigrants in the 70 and 96, were the br
ought him here. " The same thing happened with the guaracha, some of which were
very popular in Puerto Plata in 1874: in the toilets of the city of Puerto Plata
, the orchestra played the Cuban guarachas known as "Los Mangos", The Black good
", The flower of the pumpkin, and guaracha "La Adela.
In a way, the insular Caribbean music, with varied shades, had the same roots an
d in the case of Santo Domingo was understood by many times as their own what ot
hers understand others. It is perhaps for this reason that in 1927 Enrique de Ma
rchena son said in the magazine Black and White, the "Dominican folklore will de
velop and move away because it considered the possibilities of typical compositi
ons, styles imported from Puerto Rico and Cuba, among They Dance and Havana. " I
n the triangle area Hispanic Caribbean, the bachata was a reality Cuban, Dominic
an and Puerto Rican in origin because they showed very similar cultural practice
s, as evidenced by the tenth of Puerto Virgilio Davila, written during the ninet
eenth century: "Disiembre! In the land mine / month that I know glory / Gualda m
onth in its history / Mary's. / Disiembre! Month joy / in the plain and the Sier
ra ./.../ is arriving day / time that remote / selebra the Christian world / the
Nabidae of Moesia / coyunta And to me, / that has a great dolama, / has pulled
the bed / pol dibeltilse toils, and the fun you want Dilsen, / because the dance
and the Nama. / A dance that no toy is / are there get ready / with a four well
templao / and the treble of the No calm her / it's like the ifDSSput dils pa /
on the wings of six chorriao. / A imagine it now / we are in the bachata / Wield
usté his mulatto, / and other goods and sei ba. " The Fandango and Bachata musi
c in Ramón Emilio Jiménez Dominican merengue referring to states, without elabor
ation, that at the end of the nineteenth century was disappearing the fandango "
And a new dance was born with the appearance of the accordion, the result of an
evolution of old dances. " July Arzeno Dominican explains musical Folklore (1927
), the "joy of the peasant for dancing or" fandango ", - who among us is not giv
en dance genre but generally peasant party-is evident in the diversity of styles
that have such as "Zapateo." These festivities gave way calls fandangos decades
later, the famous bachatas who had the same sense as the above: picnics, partie
s, fun where
sang, danced, and drank alcoholic beverages to the rhythm of the instruments and
music that were in vogue then, but with the difference that the former was fun
for the rural poor, while it was the second of urban marginality.
The word bachata appears in the Dominican Republic in the late nineteenth centur
y but emerges in several publications in the early twentieth century. In 1924 Au
gusto Ortega (Professor Santiago), wrote an essay on the rudimentary schools in
Santo Domingo, leaving bachata record that the word was in common use among the
peasants and meaning "ball, revelry and jest." The Dominican Rafael Brito P., pu
blished in San Francisco de Macoris his "Dictionary of criollismo" (1930), which
contains the word bachata and explains it as "Dance of neighborhoods."
For its part, Patin Maceo "Dominican Americanisms in language", brings the term
bachata dances relating it to the poor neighborhoods: "In Cuba and Puerto Rico,"
he says, revelry. In the Dominican people, dance a little more or less: "On Sun
day we went to the bachatas that was in poor neighborhoods in which we are a lot
of fun." In 1938 Enrique Aguiar bachata defined in the glossary of his book "Eu
sebio Sapote" (sic)€as "Dance of guitar, tambourine, guiro and having fun with t
he common people." During the colonial period, with a company related extremely
cattle herd and therefore it was the daily hunt, the fandango was the popular pa
rty of Dominicans as opposed to ballroom dancing of the lower cores ranchers, sl
avery and oligarchy colonial officials. While this was happening in the field of
peasants who were considered descendants of the Spanish in the market for slave
s and freedmen whose roots went back to Africa, the festival of drums sticks or
spread constrained by prohibitive laws trying to root out this important compone
nt Dominican ethnicity of the ancestral roots of a culture that survived not onl
y in Santo Domingo, but in the whole area of the West Indies. The word fandango,
to name a peasant party was definitely disappearing during the first twenty-fiv
e years of the twentieth century, and bachata it was replacing both the cities a
nd in the Dominican countryside. In this implicated a lot of economic changes ar
ising from the process of industrialization and the arrival of thousands of Puer
to Rican and Cuban immigrants since the late nineteenth century. At any rate, th
e country resisted and in many places in the Cibao, as expounded by Eulogio Cabr
al, including urban areas, preferring to call it fun fandango, a term that inclu
ded both the feast of fields such as block parties "As for the music drums or st
icks danced by slaves and freedmen, it was limited and marginalized since the ea
rly days of the colony. The prohibitions throughout history were constant but th
e indelible mark of shared identity and legacy, legislation and resolutions fail
ed disarticulate or severing of the Dominican people. In the festival of drums w
ere contained the earliest roots of the African contribution to Dominican music.
In "Letters to Avelina" (1941), Francisco Moscoso Puello certify that extended d
ance forms among Dominicans: "Then, at night, sometimes I can not
sleep (...). The suits come at that time in activity. (...). And my extension is
peopled with strange music and strange and monotonous and sad songs. Everywhere
sticks. And up the mountain seems to me that the songs are melancholy of Maboba
or the Mafia. And with his eyes hard, like stones, I guess there in the section
of Santa Maria, where it is known that the drums that brought the other African
grandfather, touch and anywhere, in the light of the jumeadoras or some Jacho o
f Cuaba, rushes in too lavagallos and danced to the most unlikely dislocation. "
African dances were not always allowed in Santo Domingo. The most severe penalti
es applied to those who were played with drums, dancing even if they were purely
recreational. Prohibitive provisions, 1862, 1874, 1878, 1881, 1924 and 1930 tes
tify to this. These dances were persecuted because they are considered as undesi
rable, messy and scandalous. edifying are the following examples: in 1924 the Ci
ty of Santo Domingo ordered a ban in urban areas known as balsié instrument, in
order to preserve "whatever suits the greater prosperity and culture of the muni
cipality, and to prevent the spread harmful customs "and because" the use of thi
s instrument was demoralizing effect, "disturbs the rest and annoys the neighbor
s," and starting the Trujillo dictatorship in 1930, were banned dances like the
SANCO and the Voodoo being harmful , undesirable and immoral and also because in
the holidays, "is danced in an immoral way." The Cuban Conga was widely critici
zed in 1941 by a journalist to understand the time that this "is not lounge musi
c circles or where should prevail aesthetics, culture and urban manners, but bla
ck music typical of Congolese who never saw the sun shine or the beauty or of ci
vilization. "
Returning to the training of bachata, which was first celebration and fun and th
en became musical genre taste in the marginalized urban areas, Federico García G
odoy "Rufinita" (1909), referring to the amusement of the Dominican contributes
following testimony: "The chapter of distractions, as expected, was relatively s
mall. The busy Cockfighting (...), excursions on horseback to nearby fields (...
), the nine days of celebrations, and some other dance fig figs carried out to y
outh and even some that she did not belong, with the music that was requested in
a timely manner to the neighboring city of Santiago, formed the repertoire of e
xpansions in the neighborhood. There was no shortage, either,€intimate meetings
that did the honors to succulent chicken stews are talking to the dozen and ofte
n sounded notes of four and rhythmical guitar. "
In "Alma Dominican (1911), Garcia Godoy insists on describing the amusements of
the people and uses to refer to parties using the term bachata, fandango and rus
tic revelry and parties and insists on passing the instrumentation used in them,
ignoring the typical accordion: "The orchestra, consisting of a treble, four, d
rum and guiro, popped the soft notes of a rhythmic merengue (...). While Tulio M
. Cestero, in" The Romantic City "(1911), shows the presence of music reminiscen
t of Africa in the festivities of the marginal part of the Dominican capital, as
distinct from the "party of society" that took place in the colonial or intramu
ral, where "the dance cast their voluptuous notes, hands oppress, bodies close,
but women's honesty and modesty of the gentleman watch the fire, giving it a cer
tain languor turns funny. But the picture is one in public dances
outskirts, where city councils drunken couples liquor and lust, and the bodies m
oving with rhythms wise brothel on the edge of the mountain, hill Galindo, India
n dance is adulterated imported ways, and are of four , and the accordion and dr
um made of a hollow tree trunk covered with the ends of a taut goatskin on which
expert hands hit; infamous atmosphere, which in the light of the African jungle
, the movements, couples are bound and separate, tapping on the concrete floor,
take the breasts of females and their bellies are swirling together in epileptic
shocks "
It is even more interesting, the data provided for the study of the formation of
bachata a novel about the "revolutions caudillo" of the early twentieth century
, published in 1916. Chapter II brings in curious title: "General Babieca says p
oliticians have failed, and tries to save from Patricio bachateros" and it refer
s to guarachas of the time: "As I was talking the General, Patrick shows up with
two more, at about eight o'clock at night, singing songs guarachas and the rhyt
hm of a guitar, but staggered so that they were so drunk that the General stood
up angrily, and went into the room, leaving his partner with those bohemians. Do
n Pepe Hernandez allowed to sit, and sang in minor and resolved in C major song:
"This love is so violent / that does not learn how to see, / I would not love ,
/ because it is much suffering. / When I see you at the time / I suffer a passi
on so strong, / really like death / to feel like I feel. / I know you can not lo
ve me, / I understand and despair, / but Lord God, why me? / If this love is rea
l / and you can not love me / and I love you. "And later you can read in this no
vel:" Patrick wanted to stay with his Dulcinea, saying it was unwise guarachas s
inging at nights so dark. "Call it attention, could it be that the guaracha was
badly taken or rejected and could be dangerous to sing? These guarachas, who acc
ording to Don Julio Alberto Hernandez were guarachas Dominican, were undoubtedly
the earliest stirrings of the Guarachita, music of bitterness or Dominican bach
ata, which began performing at parties in the barrios of Santo Domingo and Puert
o Plata: Eulogio C. Cabral in "Cachimbolas" (1922) brings in a poem he had compo
sed a description of bachata party Lilís time: "By the year eighty-nine, / I was
an unbridled colt, / As my pleasure greater / flirt with girls. / In a block pa
rty / Of those who then were, / With stews and songs / Y bebentinas noisy.
In "Eusebio Sapote: the story and the novel of a moron" published in 1938, its a
uthor Enrique Aguiar episodes of the life outside the walls of the capital city,
and defines what for him were held in Ciudad Nueva bachata: "Nights of calm, as
it was when they were not willing to fight, ran full of great enthusiasm: to en
ter the neighborhood you are, on either side of the street, groups of people sta
nding in the doorways where were held this is called bachata, a dance, guitar, g
uiro and tambourine in a small room where there were three couples poorly, but s
uch was the amount of bachata that everyone could dance with the greatest comfor
t..
Ramón Emilio Jiménez confirms what we have tried to explain in terms that it was
music and dancing bachata neighborhoods and highlights the instrumentation used
. For him the instruments of the orchestra are typical accordion€güira and drums
and sometimes the saxophone and they celebrated with dances called merengue, ca
ssava,
bug, tap and others, but when the meeting is a bachata, then the instruments are
guitars, Mongo, sticks or spoons and dancing bolero and guaracha. The same obse
rvation was done by Jose Medina Q. In its report about race, character, customs,
religion, people and Monción Sabaneta. in 1922. Referring to the cockpits, offe
rs the following definition of bachata: The cockpit is "are all that can gratify
their vices and appetites bad content: cockfighting, sweets and rum, but what h
e loves and is the festival attracts (if accordion), or if bachata guitar and si
nging or boleros .. " Porfirio equally Golibart remembers his adolescence and ba
chatas parties at the beginning of the twentieth century. Referring to the patio
sancochos "dinner alley bachata with the guitar, guiro and bongos (...). All my
life I feel rooted in the Dominican.
There are many data to verify our approach in relation to the bachata as a socia
l and musical related to marginal urban culture, as shown in the authors we have
cited and others have collected, but that we have available for other writings.
I will conclude with two statements: first, the musicologist Dominican Américo
Cruzado, taken from his musical "Songbook of yesterday and today" when he explai
ns that the generation of the fifties did not know a group of songs that were su
ng at the beginning of the twentieth century and that he learned while still a t
eenager, they were not under the rhythms songs, but is interpreted at the whim o
f the singer, "with accompaniment of arpeggios based, some with rhythm of waltz,
dance, bolero, in Creole, and guaracha call at the time, it was a kind of boler
o faster pace than the slow and soft Mexican bolero. " And the second copy taken
from the novel The Blue Ball, written by Victor M. Coradín in 1928: "It was 10:
45 pm when the youth group went into a cafe situated at the banks of the mighty
river Ozama, near the pier. Refuge pimps, dock workers, seamen and other charact
ers of low social class, was this disgusting establishment, where a lost youth i
ndulged in the most unrestrained vice.
It was long and spacious, divided into several apartments, where dirty whores ha
ve their respective bedrooms. There were young people equivocal, with the retina
of the eyes too red, excess of alcohol. Old English sailors, who in those days
visiting the city on an ocean liner, stood shivering with joy by waste liquor. O
thers, leaning at the bar, glasses of Brandy rushing lanes. In the first few guy
s playing pool hall, you hear the voices and the clatter of the balls. In anothe
r inner apartment, sitting on wooden benches while others were given to all kind
s of gambling.
And beyond that, to the beat of bachata music, some nearly naked women, were una
bashedly embracing men, surrendered to the wildest orgies, while the orchestra c
onsisted of guitar, guiro and drums, sang a song parodied in dirty obscene words
.
People of false face, brutal, vengeful and criminally, it was left there by his
side note suspicious and unpleasant. (...) A few scattered in the Ballroom, enjo
ying the joy of that fictitious party, delivered in the treacherous hands of tho
se unworthy women who sell their caresses the highest bidder. "Everything concer
ning this text is part of the book , in press, "BACHATA: Origins Caribbean Domin
ican musical genre.
Alejandro Paulino Ramos is a historian and documentary filmmaker, director of th
e library of the National Archives.