Haitians and Dominicans remember Parsley Massacre, 75 years later | Miami Herald

Haitians and Dominicans remember Parsley Massacre, 75 years later | Miami Herald

Seventy-five years ago, this border town, separated from Haiti by the ominously named Massacre River, was the center of a killing field.

On orders from dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, thousands of Haitians – many born in the Dominican Republic -- living in the area were rounded up and killed; hacked to death with machetes and stabbed with bayonets.

What became known as the Parsley Massacre — or simply el corte (the cutting) — forever altered Haitian-Dominican relations, which remain tense today. Despite its significance, the massacre became little more than a historical footnote.

Standing on the banks of the Massacre River, looking across its shallow waters to Haiti on Thursday night, hundreds of Dominicans, led by activists and scholars, sought to reclaim the forgotten tragedy.