During Haitian rule, from 1822 to 1844, a different policy prevailed. President Boyer was desirous of seeing every part of the island populated by blacks and accordingly settled Haitian negroes in various parts of Santo Domingo and encouraged negro immigration from the United States by premiums to ship captains bringing such immigrants. The American negroes were distributed in Haiti and in Santo Domingo, particularly near Puerto Plata and in the Samana peninsula. The Puerto Plata settlers have mingled with the rest of the population, but around the town of Samana, where the largest settlement, consisting of some sixty families, was made, the descendants of the American immigrants still form a distinct class. Large portions of the peninsula are taken up by their well kept farms, and one of the sections or districts into which the commune of Samana is divided, is officially named "Sección de los Americanos." The people still preserve the English language and proudly proclaim that they are "of American abstraction."
They have kept considerably aloof and only in recent years have there been marriages between them and their Spanish-speaking neighbors. Their exclusiveness has more than once been criticised by Dominicans. Of the original settlers all have passed away, their surviving children are advanced in age and the third generation is in its prime. The Methodist preacher of the district, a kindly black man, presented me to the oldest person of the American colony, a woman of about eighty years of age who was born only a few years after her parents arrived from Virginia. As the old woman stood smiling in the door of her little cabin, the walls of which were covered with leafy creepers, she looked the picture of an old Southern mammy. Her dialect was typical; when I said: "I am glad to meet you, Mrs. Sheppard," she answered, beaming, "Me likewise, I'se always glad to meet Americans, I is." Several of the American negroes have distinguished themselves in military matters, one of the most noted being General Anderson who grew gray in many revolutions.
Between the coast towns and the ports of the surrounding countries, particularly Porto Rico, there is considerable coming and going. This was called to my attention the first time I set foot on Dominican soil, when a large negro darted out from a group of loungers on the wharf and seized my suit-case, crying: "Let me carry your baggage, Judge." Surprised, I inquired how he knew me, whereupon he asked reproachfully: "Don't you remember you sent me to jail in Mayaguez for shampooing a saucy stevedore's head with a brick?"