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THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
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Transport of Goods, Samaná - Santiago Railroad 1907-1912
PRODUCT
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
CACAO
6,146
11,004
8,097
8,470
11,521
13,033
TOBACCO
1,665
968
1,550
1,210
637
1,342
COFFEE
48
80
117
148
348
305
TOTAL
7,859
12,052
9,764
9,828
12,406
14,680
SOURCE: BIA RG 350, SD 17987-8, Report on the Twenty-sixth Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Samaná and Santiago Railway Co.
Ltd., April 11, 1913. (From: Patrick Bryan, La Transformación Económica de la República Dominicana, 1870-1916, 99).
The sugar businessmen who invested in railroads along the length and breadth of their cane fields had the
financial support of the government, which took the form of tax and duty exemptions on imports for a range
of goods, including imported machinery, equipment, coal, iron, rolling stock, rails, and ties.
These railroads were used almost exclusively to transport cane from the field to the factory, and sugar
from the factory to the shipping ports, without any connection to the local market. As already mentioned,
Juan Bautista Vicini Cánepa was one of the first entrepreneurs to take the initiative to invest in railway lines
within the sugar cane fields, thereby accelerating and optimizing the transportation of raw materials from the
field to the factory and sugar from the factory to the port of Palenque.
In 1892-1893 Central Angelina had three miles of railways; Central Puerto Rico, seven; Cristóbal Colon,
four; Quisqueya, ten; Santa Fe, twelve; and Consuelo, three. Vicini Cánepa’s initiative was soon imitated by
other sugar producers, a joint move that greatly improved the productivity and competitiveness of the sugar
industry nationwide.
Although small mills in San Pedro de Macorís still kept ox-drawn carts in use during the 1890s, in 1892 the
capitalized power plants had already adopted the railway as a means of transporting raw materials (sugarcane)
and finished products. Railroad service was never universal in the 1890s, because the total length of the iron
roads did not exceed 30 miles, although this continued to increase in the twentieth century.
In sum, between 1866 and 1896, the investment in railways—which replaced the far slower oxen, carts,
and mules—not only reduced the cost of transporting agricultural products
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but the cost of transporting pas-
sengers as well. Ten concessions were granted to foreign investors who took advantage of the availability of
locomotives on the international market.
The growth of rail transportation required significant investments that, excluding those made by Vicini
Cánepa on his estates and those of other sugar producers, totaled US$2,795,000. The concession companies
included a) a Scottish company by the name of Baird that built 100 kilometers on the Samaná-Santiago routes;
b) a Scottish Company that built the railroad to Puerto de Sánchez; and c) the Shore Line Railroad company,
which covered the Santo Domingo-San Cristóbal line.
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This mode of transport competed with other railroad activities, which involved 64 freight cars and five
passenger cars at thirty miles per hour, owned by the Central Dominican railway and built with funds from the
sale of Dominican government sovereign bonds managed by the Westendorp company in the international
financial markets.
Although the train and rail systems were paid for with government loans, they were transferred to the
Santo Domingo Improvement Company in the mid-1890s, eventually being taken over by the government in
1908.