Santo Domingo (the Spanish side). Its inhabitants declare their separation from the Haitian Republic in the Manifesto of 16 January 1844.
On 29 February, at eight o’clock in the morning, Desgrottes, (*) in accordance with the capitulation, handed over to the Junta the Arsenal and the Force, in short the whole place, over which was raised the flag of the separation, red and blue with a white cross. And the Manifesto that follows, drawn up as early as 16 January 1844 and kept secret, as we have related, was solemnly published throughout the town.
Manifesto of the inhabitants of the eastern part of the island formerly Spanish, or Saint-Domingue, on the causes of their separation from the Haitian Republic:(z)
« The deference and respect owed to the opinion of all men and to that of civilized nations require that when a country which had united itself to another wishes to take back and reclaim its rights by breaking its political bonds, it should declare with frankness and good faith the motives that have led it to do so, so that none may think it moved by a spirit of novelty and ambition. We believe we have shown, by our heroic constancy, that evils at the hands of a Government ought to be borne so long as they are bearable, rather than redressed and escaped. But when a long train of injustices, violences and vexations at last proves the intention to reduce everything to despair and to the most absolute tyranny, it is then a sacred right of peoples, and even a duty, to throw off the yoke of such a government and to provide new guarantees that assure them their stability and their future prosperity.
« Since men have united in society for the sole purpose of working for their Preservation, and have received from nature the right to propose and to seek the means of obtaining that end, for that same reason these principles authorize them to stand on guard and to protect themselves against whatever may wrest that right from them when society finds itself threatened. That is why the inhabitants of the Eastern Part of the island formerly Spanish, or Saint-Domingue, using their rights, driven as they have been by twenty-two years of oppression, and hearing on every side the laments of the Fatherland, have taken the firm resolution to separate forever from the Haitian Republic and to constitute themselves a free and sovereign State.