The Dominican Republic's Contraband Economy

The Dominican Republic, a colony of Spain, operates on a smaller scale economy based on cattle ranching and tobacco growing. Spain struggles to govern beyond the city of Sandomaine, leaving the hinterland ungovernable and filled with a mix of freed and escaped slaves, indigenous people, and poor whites who form an ungovernable cowboy bandit subculture. This contraband economy is so successful that Spanish authorities resort to extreme measures to contain it. While the racial caste system and slavery still exist, Santa Domingo is less controlled and develops fewer preconditions for revolution compared to Sandomaine.