ORDER OF BATTLE // March 19, 1844
Battle of Azua
Estimated force strength by side, with confidence labels per surviving record.
Forces engaged
2 sides catalogued · combined 12,200 estimated
Dominican Republic
2,200
Medium-confidence figure
Haiti
10,000
Medium-confidence figure
Battle context
The Battle of Azua on 19 March 1844 was the first major engagement of the Dominican War of Independence and established early that Dominican forces could hold against substantially larger Haitian armies. A Dominican force of approximately 2,200 troops from the Army of the South, under Generals Pedro Santana and Antonio Duvergé, defeated a Haitian column of around 10,000 men, inflicting an estimated 1,000 casualties. Coming within weeks of the declaration of independence, the outcome demonstrated that the newly formed Dominican military was capable of defending its territory against the Haitian state it had just broken from, lending credibility to the independence project at its most vulnerable moment.
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