A LITTLE HISTORY ON PUERTO PLATA

A LITTLE HISTORY ON PUERTO PLATA (from Sosua news)

According to the more elderly residents of Puerto Plata, the dictator Rafael L. Trujillo Molina hated the harbour town, which was modern for its time.

http://www.sosuanews.com/news_pictur...21-7_pop_1.jpg Rafael L. Trujillo Molina


Around the turn of the century (1900) Puerto Plata was the most important harbour town in the Dominican Republic. Yes, even more important than Santo Domingo and Barahona. The rich sugar, coffee and tobacco farmers around Santiago used Puerto Plata as a transit harbour to ship their goods to the USA and Europe. They used a train line into the interior (to Moca) to transport their products to the coast. In 1871 the town had only 3100 inhabitants. But shortly thereafter the town was overrun with newcomers hoping to find work in and around the harbour town. These are the people that founded the Brugal rum factory, the match production plant, cacao factory and modernised the sugar cane production facilities. Most newcomers were not poor and were well educated, but had been forced to leave their country due to civil war (the Brugal family left Cuba due to a civil war) or the imminent threat of war (World War I in Europe).

A LITTLE HISTORY ON PUERTO PLATA (from Sosua news) .......CONTINUED


Club de Commercio


In addition to many Cubans, Puerto Plata also welcomed many Germans. The Bentz family is the most well known, particularly because they left the amber museum to the town. But there were also plenty of newcomers from a variety of other countries, e.g. photographer John Calm (who had a shop in Calle San Miguel) and Luis Henry Dick (headmaster of a school in Calle Beller).
Puerto Plata was also a popular meeting place for artists and poets. The harbour town was therefore often known as the Paris of the Caribbean. These international contacts ensured that Puerto Plata expanded into an internationally oriented trading post. There was plenty of construction going on at that time, and most Victorian-style houses and buildings in the town date from this period. Foreign companies also established offices in the town and of course a number of embassies were located in Puerto Plata. In the evening you could go to the Club de Commercio in central park, where balls and dances were organised regularly, and where orchestras entertained the crowds with classical music.


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Visitors to this high-society meeting point would usually arrive at 'the club' by horse-drawn carriage.
A coal-fired steamboat sailed regularly between Puerto Plata and Hamburg. It was therefore every easy for Puerto Plata residents to visit Europe, and this was a popular service. For example, Mr Pellegrin spent some time in Germany during the 1930s. But when Trujillo won the election in 1930 (by falsifying the election results), the atmosphere in Puerto Plata quickly changed for the worse.


TO BE CONTINUED

THE SAGA CONTINUES: TRUJILLO TAKES AN INTEREST IN PUERTO PLATA

(from Sosua news)

Johnny Abbes García


Firstly, Trujillo knew that nobody in Puerto Plata had voted for him. His spies also told him that residents has spoken condescendingly about him, and that 'society' considered him an ill-mannered lout that should be avoided at all costs. During a ball in Club de Commercio (held in his honour), Trujillo discovered that most of the town's respected citizens had reported sick - particularly those families that had teenage daughters were notabley absent. They had every reason to be careful, because it was no secret that Trujillo enjoyed the company of young girls. (Is this man the original monger from which all other mongers are decendants ????) Trujillo was very angry at such treatment, and decided to punish Puerto Plata for this behaviour.

http://www.sosuanews.com/news_pictur...21-7_pop_3.jpg Johnny Abbes García


He ordered that all embassies and trading companies must be moved to the capital, Santo Domingo (which was then known as Ciudad Trujillo). He had the train line to the interior dismantled, so that the farmers around Santiago were forced to sell their crops via Santo Domingo. Puerto Plata residents were not allowed to leave the country. He moved loyal supporters to key posts and the 'caliés' (secret police of Johnny Abbes García) took over the streets. Many residents of the harbour town were arrested and tortured by the secret police. Puerto Plata had the honour of exerting the most resistance to the dictator, but the town paid a high price, as many residents died during the struggle. When a small army of freedom fighters against Trujillo's regime landed on the beach at Luperon, Trujillo assumed that Puerto Plata was behind this. He had the rebellion put down quickly, but also took the opportunity to get rid of other pockets of resistance throughout the country.
But the residents of Puerto Plata were hit the hardest: Trujillo had a lot of residents arrested and tortured by the secret police until they died. The end result was that Puerto Plata changed from a flourishing metropolis into a poor and sleepy provincial town. There was little industrial activity, and the transit harbour became run down, now that the connection with the interior had been removed. The most prominent residents were either captured by Trujillo or had somehow fled the country. Trujillo's punishment of this flourishing town had thus missed its objective.


TO BE CONTINUED :

FINAL EPISODE : TRUJILLO - THE END


From Sosua News :
Antonio Imbert Barrera


On 30 May 1961 Rafael L. Trujillo Molina was killed by a group of conspirators - not surprisingly, at least one of these came from Puerto Plata. Antonio Imbert Barrera was one of the conspirators and, after an attack on the secret police, he managed to escape and live in a villa somewhere around Sosúa, as an elderly but very respected general.
During the 1970s the tourist industry discovered the Dominican Republic, and luckily Puerto Plata was able to profit from this popularity. But unfortunately it never regained its importance as a cultural metropolis, as it had been at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sources:
Heinz Meder, Karibische Geschichten
Germán Camarena, Historia de la ciudad de Puerto Plata
Johnny Méndez Gómez, Desde el Ocaso del Cumú
Margarita Noboa warden, Puerto Plata La Reina del océano Atlántico



http://www.sosuanews.com/news_pictur...21-7_pop_4.jpg Antonio Imbert Barrera

Frank Moya Pons, Manuel de historia Dominicana
Juan Luis Castaños Morales, Sosúa, origen, fundación y desarollo