Los negros, los franceses y la invención de la nación hispana.

The article is a critical study of Antonio Sánchez Valverde’s work, Idea del valor de la Isla La Española, published in 1785. It attempts to show that the Sánchez Valverdean image of the native “Hispanic” informs historical discourse about the colony to this day, and that insofar as continuity between the colony and the Republic is assumed, it also informs Dominican historical self-understanding. To understand Sánchez Valverde’s work is to demythologize the Dominican state. At the same time, the author suggests that once Haitian historiography dares to question its own foundational myths, it will be possible for the inhabitants of this island of Haiti in the early 21st century to reinvent their future.