Parsley Massacre
| Parsley massacre | |
|---|---|
| Location | Dominican Republic |
| Date | 2 October 1937 – 8 October 1937 |
| Target | Haitian population |
|
Attack type
|
Genocide, massacre, mass murder, ethnic cleansing |
| Deaths | 537–12,166 |
| Perpetrators | Dominican Republic government led by President Rafael Trujillo |
The Parsley massacre, also referred to as El Corte (the cutting) in Spanish and as Kout kouto a (the knife blow) in Creole, was a genocidal massacre carried out in fall of 1937 against the Haitian population living in the borderlands of the Dominican Republic with Haiti at the direct order of Dominican President Rafael Trujillo. Estimates of the total number of deaths vary considerably and range from a low of 547 to a high of 12,166 (see table below).
The popular name for the massacre came from the shibboleth that the dictatorial Trujillo had his soldiers apply to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Afro-Dominicans or immigrant Afro-Haitians. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask what it was. How the person pronounced the Spanish word for parsley (perejil) determined their fate. The Haitian languages, French and Haitian Creole, pronounce the r as a uvular approximant or a voiced velar fricative, respectively so their speakers can have difficulty pronouncing the alveolar tap or the alveolar trill of Spanish, the language of the Dominican Republic. Also, only Spanish but not French or Haitian Creole pronounces the j as the voiceless velar fricative. If they could pronounce it the Spanish way the soldiers considered them Dominican and let them live, but if they pronounced it the French or Creole way they considered them Haitian and executed them.
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Wikipedia