Dominican Republic URBAN SOCIETY
View of the National Highway One (Duarte Highway) north
of Santo Domingo
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
The Elite
The last 200 years transformed the composition and the
configuration of the country's elite. Nonetheless, at the
end of
the 1980s, the Dominican Republic continued to be a
country where
a relatively small number of families controlled great
wealth,
while the majority of the population lived in poverty. The
middle
stratum struggled (at its lower end) to maintain economic
standing and to expand its political participation and (at
its
upper reaches) to gain greater social acceptance and
economic
prosperity. Hispanic-Mediterranean ideals about the proper
mode
of life and livelihood continued to be significant. The
primary
social division was between two polar groups: the elite
(la
gente buena or la gente culta) and the masses.
The first half of the nineteenth century had eliminated
many
of the noteworthy families of the colonial era. During the
period
of Haitian domination, many prominent landowners
liquidated their
holdings and left. The War of Restoration against Spain
permitted
some social and economic upward mobility to members of the
lower
classes who had enjoyed military success. An increase in
sugarcane production brought immigrants of European
extraction
who were assimilated rapidly. Poorer elite families saw a
chance
to improve their financial status through marriage to
recently
arrived and financially successful immigrants. Even more
well-to-
do families recognized the advantages of wedding their
lineage
and lands to the monied merchant-immigrant clans. Although
the
Chinese were generally excluded from this process, and the
Arabs
encountered resistance, virtually everyone else found
ready
acceptance.
This pattern has repeated itself over the years. Each
political or economic wave has brought new families into
the
elite as it imperilled the economic standing of others. By
the
end of the 1980s, this privileged segment of society was
hardly
monolithic. The interests of the older elite families,
whose
wealth was based mostly on land (and whose prosperity
diminished
during the Trujillo years), did not always match those of
families who had amassed their fortunes under Trujillo, or
the
interests of those whose money came from the expansion in
industry during the 1960s and the 1970s. The 1965 civil
war
further polarized and fragmented many segments of the
middle and
the upper classes
(see Dominican Republic - Civil War and United States Intervention, 1965
, ch. 1).
Although rural elite families were relatively
monolithic, in
Santo Domingo and Santiago there was a further distinction
between families of the first and the second ranks (la
gente
de primera and la gente de segunda). Those of
the
first rank could claim to be a part of the 100 families
referred
to locally as the tutumpote (totem pole--implying
family
worship and excessive concern with ancestry). Those of the
second
rank had less illustrious antecedents; they included the
descendants of successful immigrants and the nouveaux
riches who
had managed to intermarry with more established families.
Family loyalties were paramount, and the family
represented
the primary source of social identity. Elite families
relied on
an extensive network of kin to maintain their assets. In
difficult times, the family offered a haven; as the
situation
improved, it provided the vehicle whereby one secured
political
position and economic assets. Siblings, uncles, aunts,
cousins,
and in-laws comprised the pool from which one selected
trusted
business partners and loyal political allies. This process
of
networking pervaded every level of society. The elite,
however,
profited to a much greater degree from kinship-based
networking
than did members of the lower classes.
The number of potential kin grew as an individual's net
worth
increased. The successful were obliged, as a matter of
course, to
bestow favors on a widely extended group of kin and
confreres.
Individual success in the political arena brought with it
a host
of hangers-on whose fortunes rose and fell with those of
their
patron. The well-to-do tried to limit the demands of less
illustrious kin and to secure alliances with families of
equal or
greater status. These ties permitted the extended family
to
diversify its social and economic capital.
Data as of December 1989
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