1822, January–March: (The Occupation of Santo Domingo and the Keys to the Cathedral): Boyer’s answer to Bonnet’s warning was to mobilize the army in two colu…

1822, January–March: (The Occupation of Santo Domingo and the Keys to the Cathedral): Boyer’s answer to Bonnet’s warning was to mobilize the army in two columns — one commanded by himself concentrating at Lascahobas, the other under Bonnet’s reluctant command at Ouanaminthe — despite Bonnet’s blunt question: “Do our soldiers have enough discipline to occupy friendly territory without misbehaving?” which he answered himself in the negative. As the Haitians swarmed into Santiago, Bonnet’s fears were confirmed when soldiers began looting, but he brought up a battery onto the town square, ordered the cannoneers to load with grapeshot, and repeated his command — this time he was obeyed, the advance resumed, and the town was spared. On February 9, 1822, at the gates of Ciudad Santo Domingo, the oldest town of the New World, Cáceres presented Boyer with the keys to the city on a silver salver while cannon roared salutes and the Haitian flag floated over the ancient cathedral and the bones of Columbus. Inside the cathedral, Don Pedro Valera, Archbishop of Santo Domingo, chanted a Te Deum, while outside in what is now the Parque de Colón, Boyer planted a palm as a tree of liberty symbolizing Haitian abolition of slavery throughout the East — meanwhile, a Haitian officer slipped loose a gorgeous collar of votive pearls from the neck of a Madonna and gave it to his mistress. Before Boyer returned to Port-au-Prince on March 10, he proclaimed the Haitian constitution of 1816 as the supreme law of Santo Domingo, including Article 38 — Dessalines’s prescription that in a country some 40 percent white, all citizens were to be known as noirs and that no white man could own land or exercise domain.