Chapter 2 The Right to Nationality and Judgment TC/0168/13 of the Constitutional Court | 53 93. 94. 95. 86 87 88 reinforcement) of discrimination against African descendants. At the same time, slavery, in addition to sustaining the colonial economies for centuries in the Americas and Caribbean, was also at the source of various forms of discrimination and racism against persons of African descent. Attitudes of intolerance and racial discrimination were strengthened during the process of independence in the early nineteenth century, when the new authorities continued exclusion policies and deliberately stigmatized and subjected indigenous and persons of African descent. 86 Despite the deep historical roots of discrimination and racism against Afrodescendants and indigenous peoples in the Americas, these problems and their consequences and causes have been largely ignored, buried, and even denied in the majority of the States of the Americas. A number of factors have conspired to make discrimination and racism an invisible phenomenon in the Americas, one being the way in which racism became engrained, both historically and culturally, from the time of slavery and colonialism up to the present day. 87 In the Commission’s view, while many of the manifestations of discrimination and racism that Afrodescendants and indigenous peoples still encounter in the American hemisphere can be traced to the above-mentioned historical facts, they are also attributable to the fact that they were never acknowledged or addressed by the States that emerged from the independence movement and have to a large extent been rendered invisible until recent years. As the Commission has observed, the Afro‐descendant population in the Americas has endured a history of neglect, exclusion, and social and economic disadvantage that impairs the enjoyment of their fundamental rights. 88 Haiti gained its independence from France in 1804, thus becoming the second nation of the Americas to become independent, after the United State of America in 1776. The revolution that took place between 1791 and 1804 was aimed at abolishing slavery and achieved it. In addition to securing Haiti’s Independence this revolutionary process was the first and only one by black slaves. As a result of the above, Haiti underwent a period of international isolation promoted by the European powers, especially France, Great Britain, and the United States, which identified the existence of a nation governed by former slaves as a threat to its slave systems. These facts are closely related to the situation of disadvantage which has been affecting the Haitian people ever since. In addition to the above, historically, the bilateral ties between the Dominican Republic and Haiti have been characterized by many tensions between both States. After winning its independence from France, Haiti invaded the Dominican Republic in 1822, for the purpose of putting an end to slavery there. For the ensuing 22 years, See IACHR, Second Progress Report of the Special Rapporteur on Migrant Workers and Their Families in the Hemisphere. 2001, para. 81. United Nations Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, and the independent expert on minority issues, Gay McDougall, Addendum, Mission to Dominican Republic, March 18, 2008, A/HRC/7/19/Add.5, A/HRC/7/23/Add.3, p. 2.. IACHR, The situation of people of African descent in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc. 62, December 5, 2011, para. 21 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR