1 Peso

The Comisión de Hacienda notes of 1844 are among the earliest paper currency issued following Dominican independence, declared in February of that year. The commission was a provisional financial body — not a central bank — hastily assembled to provide a circulating medium after the break from Haitian rule. Haiti had suppressed Dominican monetary institutions entirely, so there was no existing framework to build on.

Printed locally in Santo Domingo rather than through a European security printer, the production quality reflects those constraints. Local printing in 1844 meant limited press capacity and no intaglio engraving — these notes are typographically simple by any measure, and genuine examples show it.

Survival rate is extremely low. The new government's financial situation deteriorated quickly, and most of this issue was either worn out in rapid circulation or lost to the political instability that followed.