The Dictator’s Games: Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Centenary, and Antillean Solidarity during the 1944 Inter-Antillean Games

Abstract

This project analyzes the Inter-Antillean Games held in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo) in 1944. That tournament was part of the official celebrations of the Dominican Republic’s Centennial celebrations and featured the three Spanish speaking Caribbean countries: Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Among the Games’ objectives was fostering Spanish Caribbean confraternity and goodwill. However, the Games’ message of peace and goodwill that the official discourse promoted contrasts with the dictatorship of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. This article argues that the Inter-Antillean Games served as another hegemonic tool of the regime and complemented the trujillato’s brutal repression. It also served as a way to further establish the Dominican Republic as a “Spanish” Caribbean nation, different and better than their nonHispanic Caribbean neighbor, especially to Haiti.