Did you know that bullfights still take place in the Dominican Republic? For hundreds of years, this tradition was a fundamental part of the country’s cultural life, from Santo Domingo to Santiago and from La Vega to the eastern part of the island. Dominicans were obsessed with bullfighting spectacles, and these public contests were one of the few major forms of entertainment during the colonial era and the first half of the 20th century. But at some point, almost everyone forgot that this practice had once been so important. Today, that memory remains alive in only one very specific corner: the province of El Seibo, where bullfighting has become the Caribbean’s last bullfighting tradition.
Origins of Bullfighting Enthusiasm in the Caribbean
Human fascination with bulls dates back to ancient cultures. In civilizations such as Minoan Crete, rituals already existed in which people leaped over bulls’ backs as a demonstration of courage and agility, transforming danger into spectacle. The Romans later magnified this idea in the circus, where conflict between humans and animals became mass public entertainment.
On the Iberian Peninsula, especially in Spain and Portugal, these traditions evolved and crystallized into “tauromachy,” the art of bullfighting. According to some historians, Muslim influence on the peninsula played a key role: the “juego de cañas,” a ceremonial horseback tournament, became both military training and public choreography. Alongside it, bullfights matured as a symbol of power and social class and, for some, of cultural and religious victory over the Islamic world.
Bulls Arrive in Santo Domingo
When the Spanish arrived in Hispaniola, they brought not only masses and walls, but also cattle and ranching traditions. The island became a deeply cattle-based society, and bulls became part of everyday life—not only as a source of meat and labor, but also as a symbol of power and status. Soon afterward, bullfighting entertainment crossed the Atlantic: the first bullfights in Santo Domingo became public spectacles held in improvised arenas, where spectators paid admission and crowded behind wooden barriers to watch the confrontation between bull and man.
In the 16th century, the enthusiasm took root in the Cibao, Santiago, and other urban centers, where rustic rings were built for bullfights. But the arrival of the papal ban in 1567, through a bull issued by Pius V, nearly brought the tradition to an end by labeling the killing of bulls a “demonic act.” However, the Spanish King Philip II blocked enforcement of the prohibition throughout the empire, including Santo Domingo, because he feared revolts among the nobility. The bull, as a symbol of aristocratic status, was too popular to disappear in practice.
Economic Crisis and the Decline of Bullfights Elsewhere in the Country
As the colony’s economy entered decline, the costs of maintaining aristocratic bullfights became unsustainable. During the period of the “Osorio Devastations,” enormous cattle-raising areas in the north and west of the island were destroyed, numerous communities were displaced, and the colony’s initial prosperity faded. Building bullrings, maintaining horses, and acquiring bulls became luxuries the country could no longer afford.
In the 20th century, bullfights survived only as a marginal form of entertainment and then nearly disappeared from the popular landscape. In Santiago, for example, there was a bullfighting circus where bullfights were held until the beginning of the 20th century. But after an incident in 1905, when a bull escaped into the streets and caused panic, the record of new bullfights stops. By then, baseball had already become the Dominican Republic’s “new spectacle,” taking over the space once occupied by bulls and improvised arenas.
El Seibo, the Last Stronghold of the Living Bull
In the Caribbean, where Spain established the bullfighting tradition, most Spanish-speaking countries eventually adopted bullfighting as it is practiced in Spain: ritualized, formal, and ending with the matador killing the animal. But in the eastern Dominican Republic, in El Seibo, that evolution never fully took place. Here, bulls were always too valuable to be sacrificed: they were ranch livestock, not candidates for death in an arena.
For that reason, El Seibo’s tradition revolved around “not killing the bull,” but confronting it, dodging it, and mastering it. In the 17th century, in the eastern region, bullfights were held in rings made of wooden posts, and the practice was passed down from generation to generation. The figure of the bullfighter developed alongside ranching life, and the ring became central to patron-saint festivals. Over time, wooden barriers gave way to sturdier structures until, in the 21st century, El Seibo’s municipal government built a “multipurpose bullring”—the only facility of its kind in the entire Caribbean, designed to host not only bullfights but also sporting, cultural, and religious events.
The El Seibo Bullfight: Chaos, Adrenaline, and Tradition
Today, bullfighting in El Seibo is not a spectacle of academic precision or classical protocol, but a community ritual filled with adrenaline, humor, and chaos. The afternoon begins with the entry of the first bulls, while professional bullfighters, dressed in outfits inspired by Spanish fashion, demonstrate their skill by dodging, redirecting, and playing with the animal. The main rule is clear: the bull is not killed or tortured; no participant may throw sand at the animal, and practices considered abusive are not tolerated.
The objective is not to injure the bull, but to demonstrate control. A bullfighter may kneel in front of the bull or briefly turn his back to it as proof that he has “won the round.” The audience, arranged in the stands, becomes an implicit judge: it applauds, criticizes, and shouts encouragement. In the middle of the afternoon, the atmosphere in the arena changes: children enter competitions with pigs, and prizes are offered to those willing to run alongside—or even climb onto—a bull for a few seconds. The energy becomes almost comical, a mixture of courage, recklessness, and collective play.
At the end of the session, the last bulls enter the arena, and at that point anyone in the audience may go down and face the animal. The scene becomes controlled chaos: the bull often appears more confused than aggressive, and although some people end up injured, according to records from El Seibo, no one has ever died in the arena. The key is that the bull is not angry, but intrigued; it does not feel that it is going to die, and its behavior therefore resembles that of an animal at play more than that of a raging beast.
Between Controversy and Identity
The El Seibo tradition has been criticized by animal-rights groups, which question the use of animals in public spectacles even when the bull does not die. However, the community of El Seibo views the bullfight as a fundamental part of its identity: a symbol of rootedness, memory, and cultural resistance. The bullring becomes a meeting place across generations, where grandparents, parents, and children share the same excitement. The history of bullfighting in the Dominican Republic is not only the history of Spain, but also that of the Iberian Peninsula, Muslims, the colony, the Dominican cowboy, and, finally, a people who refuse to forget that there was a time when the bull ruled its streets.
The Dominican Republic, then, guards a secret: the country that almost everyone believes never had bullfights was one of the first places in the Americas to hold them. And that legacy is preserved, in the flesh, in the rings of El Seibo, where the bull remains a vibrant presence rather than merely a forgotten memory.
Sources and References Used for This Video
— Juego de Cañas and Colonial Santo Domingo —
• “El Juego de Caña: herencia ecuestre, ocio y desafío eclesial en la colonia de Santo Domingo” — Acento
https://acento.com.do/cultura/el-juego-de-cana-herencia-ecuestre-ocio-y-desafio-eclesial-en-la-colonia-de-santo-domingo-9635933/
— History of Bullfighting —
• Fundación del Toro de Lidia — Historia de la Tauromaquia
https://fundaciontorodelidia.org/
• Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla — History of Bullfighting
https://realmaestranza.com/
• Britannica — Bullfighting
https://www.britannica.com/sports/bullfighting
— Reconquista, Al-Andalus, and Equestrian Games —
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Al-Andalus
https://www.britannica.com/place/Al-Andalus
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Reconquista
https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconquista
• Historical research on the Juego de Cañas and medieval Spanish cavalry.
— Papal Bull Against Bullfighting —
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Pope Pius V
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Pius-V
• Historical reference to the bull “De Salute Gregis Dominici” (1567).
— Dominican and Colonial History —
• Frank Moya Pons — Historia Colonial Dominicana
https://catalogo.bnphu.gob.do/
• Roberto Cassá — Historia Social y Económica de la República Dominicana
https://agn.gob.do/
• General Archive of the Dominican Nation
https://agn.gob.do/
— Osorio Devastations —
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Hispaniola History
https://www.britannica.com/place/Hispaniola
• Dominican historical studies on the Osorio Devastations and the colonial cattle economy.
— Modern Bullfighting Traditions —
• Course Camarguaise (France)
https://www.ffcc.info/
• History of Portuguese Bullfights
https://www.tauromundo.pt/
• San Fermín Running of the Bulls
https://www.sanfermin.com/
— The Trujillo Family and Bullfighting —
• Article about Lita Trujillo and Jaime Ostos
https://www.lavanguardia.com/gente/20220114/7986647/lita-trujillo-expareja-jaime-ostos-asegura-torero-pidio-matrimonio-2020-mmn.html
— Field Research —
• Interviews conducted in El Seibo
• Recordings during the patron-saint festivals
• Direct observation inside the El Seibo bullring
Thanks to all the historians, researchers, and people from El Seibo who helped with this documentary. 🇩🇴🐂
