Stanford historian investigates the origins of Samaná as a doctoral thesis

PUCMM receives intellectuals from other countries to exhaust research stays. In three years, the academy's Center for Caribbean Studies alone has hosted 12 researchers.

Santo Domingo, RD. The young American historian Matthew Randolph is in the Dominican Republic investigating the ethnic origins of the city of Santa Bárbara de Samaná, as part of his doctoral thesis at Stanford University, one of the five best in the world.

Randolph has been carrying out this historical investigation for three years, which has led him to visit archives in France, Spain and the United States and is now in the country working on the archives of the Dominican Republic . It will be in January 2024 when he will return to the United States to close the final stage of writing and defending his doctoral thesis, to qualify for the degree of Doctor of History.

“In each archive that I visited (France, Spain and the United States) I was able to verify the geopolitical importance of this part of the island ( Samaná ) due to its privileged position on the Atlantic trade routes. It was a port that all the powers wanted to possess, both the Europeans and the North Americans. And it was also the destination of large groups of immigrants”, explains the doctoral candidate from Stanford University , when questioning the reason why he came specifically to investigate Samaná.

The title of his research " Housing freedom: geographies of the diaspora, Dominican sovereignty and the struggle for the bay of Samaná 1822-1898 " focuses his interest on the role that Samaná played as a destination for enslaved blacks who sought freedom on the island. fleeing the harsh living conditions of the southern United States. At the same time, he highlights the strategic importance that the Samaná peninsula had for international powers in their attempt to dominate the Caribbean.

After the abolition of slavery on our island in 1822, the Dominican territory became a desired destination for the children of enslaved Americans fleeing an inhumane regime of life. “The interesting thing about the history of Samaná is that the people came looking for freedom, because in the United States slavery lasted a long time, giving rise to a highly racist society. That is to say, at that time it was Afro-descendant North Americans who were looking for better destinations to live and this island, due to its non-existence of slavery, became a destination full of hope, both in the Spanish and French parts”, the researcher pointed out. 28 years old, who spends his stay as a scholarship holder of the prestigious Fulbright program in the United States.

His stay in the country takes place between the Santo Domingo campus of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra ( PUCMM ), the historic center of the Colonial City, the General Archive of the Nation and his repeated trips to Samaná, where he is holding meetings with the descendants of this migration of Afro-descendants who arrived on the island in 1824. "Today, there are still communities in Samaná that speak English, have English surnames, and what is interesting about them is that they maintain their North American heritage and roots, although being Dominicans at the same time,” he said.

Matthew Randolph carries out his research stay at the Center for Caribbean Studies of PUCMM , where he receives the accompaniment and advice of the historian Antonino Vidal Ortega, current director. In recent years, this research center has become an international benchmark for Caribbean studies and has managed to forge solid academic research networks with universities in the Caribbean, Europe, the United States and now also Africa.

Through external funding, this Center for Caribbean Studies has achieved various research projects that have culminated in the mobility of its researchers, international publications and the opening of various postgraduate programs, including the Doctorate in Caribbean History directed by the historian Mukien Sang Ben and fed by a network of international researchers.

In the last three years, this Center has received stays from a dozen researchers and this 2023, in addition to Matthew Randolph, it has researchers from the Catholic University of Milan, the Institute of History of Madrid and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).