In the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, the mulattoes were an ever-growing majority group, and in essence they took over the entire Dominican Republic, with no organized black opposition. Many of its rulers and famous figures were mulattoes, such as Gregorio Luperón, Ulises Heureaux, José Joaquín Puello, Matías Ramón Mella, Buenaventura Báez, and Rafael Trujillo. The Dominican Republic has been described as the only true mulatto country in the world. Pervasive Dominican racism, based on rejection of African ancestry, has led to many assaults against the large Haitian immigrant community, the most lethal of which was the 1937 parsley massacre. Approximately 5,000–67,000 men, women, children, babies and elderly, who were selected by their skin color, were massacred with machetes, or were thrown to sharks.