The Dominican Republic is annexed by the USA

[Gary Oswald]

Pretty obvious one this but I can't remember seeing it discussed in detail before.

In 1870, President Grant attempted to pass a bill in senate calling for the annexation of Santo Domingo. President Baez was on board, of course, because he literally only ever became President of the Dominican Republic so he could then try and get the country annexed by someone else, the USA being his third choice after France and Spain.

The London Times and the British Government seemed to think it was a good idea so there was no significant foreign opposition and the New York Times indicated there was decent Public support in the USA for the idea. The Presidents of both countries were for it and they claimed that it had popualr support as an idea in the Dominican Republic too.

But Grant needed it to pass by a 2/3rds vote in the US senate and he could only get a tie. So it never happened.

The opposition was partly because nobody liked Grant and partly because the republicans didn't trust Baez, they thought Grant was overstepping his powers and that the US would end with huge commitments in Hispaniola, fighting rebels, maintaing order and guarding the border with Haiti and they really didn't like that. It would be expensive and it would open up the USA to become a colonial power. And in the treaty, Santo Domingo could ask to become a state which was not a popular move for racists given Santo Domingo was largely mixed race.

But if Grant had been a stronger president and had won over his own senate leader and his own party, it would have passed.

So a) Sumner and the radical republicans don't break with Grant and b) the annexation goes ahead.

Would Sumner be right to fear this leading to an American Empire in the Carribean or does it go south and discourage american expansion in that direction?

 

[Alex Richards]

I think it's one of those ones that works fine until the Dominicanos start expecting to be treated as equals in [insert job/political system/legal system here]

 

[RyanF]

I've thought that without any substantive change in the US it might be a territory until the present day. That or secession might be more likely unless there are some major butterflies for the US.

 

[Creekmench]

Wasn't it only backed by the Dominican President for his own financial gain and IIRC, Spain tried re-annexing the DR and it went as well as getting kicked in the groin for the Spanish.

 

[Gary Oswald]

Wasn't it only backed by the Dominican President for his own financial gain and IIRC, Spain tried re-annexing the DR and it went as well as getting kicked in the groin for the Spanish.

Baez was an utter crook. He'd been a colaborator of the Haitian occupation, a colaborator of the Spanish occupation and attempted to encourage both France and the USA to take over.

The reason was whenever he tried to rule without foreign backing he was inevitably overthrown in a coup and he wanted foreign protection against revolution from below. It's like some of the Indian princly rulers.

According to Grant's survey, the people were largely in favour of the move, just because they needed some stability, after two wars of independence and countless coups, though the accuracy of that survey is debateable and like Alex said it might not have survived reality.

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

America doesn't have a great track record with how it treats its colonies (but who does). Look at Puerto Rico today.

 

[Indicus]

Isn't the biggest issue with this scenario is the fact that Baez didn't control much of the Dominican Republic?

 

[Gary Oswald]

Isn't the biggest issue with this scenario is the fact that Baez didn't control much of the Dominican Republic?

Yes, Grant tried to sell it as a peaceful annexation but it would have to be an essential conquest. There was bandits everywhere, political exiles crossing backwards and forwards from haiti, areas with no effective government control. 50 military revolts and 21 coups in a 20 year timescale.

Like I said in the first post, you'd need huge commitment in hispaniola which is why I positied the two options of a) it becomes the start of an american empire in the carribean like Sumner feared or b) it goes so badly that it discredits expansion in that direction for a generation.

But well that doesn't mean the USA won't think it will be an easy annexation and try it anyway.

 

[Charles EP M.]

This does seem like something that, if a costly slog after all, will put America off foreign action later - and as Alex says, once the Dominicans say "yeah we'd like to be a state and have some equality", wuh oh!

 

[Coiler]

If it goes ahead, it probably ends up like Puerto Rico in the long run. Short term, it will be very unpleasant for all involved.

 

[Indicus]

Like I said in the first post, you'd need huge commitment in hispaniola which is why I positied the two options of a) it becomes the start of an american empire in the carribean like Sumner feared or b) it goes so badly that it discredits expansion in that direction for a generation.

I imagine the latter. It will likely result in a stronger Liberal Republican result in 1872, and if the result is a majority in the EC, the death of Horace Greeley would make things...interesting.

If the Spanish-American War occurs, I think both the Philippines and Cuba would be given independence and the US would probably abandon both of them.

 

[Dan1988]

If it goes ahead, it probably ends up like Puerto Rico in the long run. Short term, it will be very unpleasant for all involved.

That is unless the Dominicans decided they had enough of US rule and want to become independent. Then things would get interesting because unlike what Báez would think, AFAICT most Dominicans preferred to remain independent (after already having undergone Haitian occupation, which Báez initially supported [a 19th century version of a Remain spokesman, if you will], the last thing much of the populace wanted was to be under occupation yet again). So in effect I'd see the US occupation, if successful, unfurl in the following way:
>In the beginning, you'd get something like the Restoration War all over again, at first, then shifting to something like the OTL US intervention
>If the US doesn't withdraw as per OTL, then and only then would we get a Puerto Rico-like situation overlapping with something akin to the US intervention. One big issue early on would be the development of a public school system in Santo Domingo (as, like OTL, I'm sure the place would be renamed by the US), which would provoke outrage among the Dominican intelligentsia for fears of "cultural genocide" - because that was part of the whole thrust of assimilationist policy.
>Eventually, probably more so than OTL and probably more similar to the Philippines, I'm sure the American public would be tired of running the place, and so as part of the Good Neighbor Policy Santo Domingo (with or without Puerto Rico) gets put on the pathway to independence via a Commonwealth arrangement. It also helped that the US was also winding down the Banana Wars at around this time (especially the drawdown in Nicaragua and Haiti), which helped things quite a bit on this front. Once the Dominican Republic regains independence, we might get the first CoFA in US history. (In the meantime, though, the place could benefit from the New Deal, though if Puerto Rico is the model then it would be a limited form of it, not the whole thing.) So independence around the time WWII concludes.

From there - who knows?

 

[Gary Oswald]

Something noone has bought up but we probably should have done is Grant wanted it primarily because his attempts to protect the rights of southern blacks were stimied by a political system working against him.

And he'd give up on black minorites having rights in a white majority state so he was planning on just shipping them all to hispaniola and having a black majority state there.

There seems a lot of issues with that plan to me, like. @Nofix do you actually know how Grant saw it happeneing, or was it just a pipe dream by a man in despair?

 

[Nofix]

Something noone has bought up but we probably should have done is Grant wanted it primarily because his attempts to protect the rights of southern blacks were stimied by a political system working against him.

And he'd give up on black minorites having rights in a white majority state so he was planning on just shipping them all to hispaniola and having a black majority state there.

There seems a lot of issues with that plan to me, like. @Nofix do you actually know how Grant saw it happeneing, or was it just a pipe dream by a man in despair?

According to George Sinkler, it was driven largely out of desperation. He had hoped that "Santo Dominigo" (as it was known them) would function as a safety valve, giving the black man a place to go, and make his own state; while also serving as a warning to the southern whites. IE, "treat them well or all of your workers will leave you."

Remember, this was after the war, after Johnson's disastrous term, after several years of guerrilla warfare, with seemingly no end in sight, no permanent improvement for the black man in sight, and no coalition of people willing or capable of coming up with a permanent solution.

 

[Gary Oswald]

According to George Sinkler, it was driven largely out of desperation. He had hoped that "Santo Dominigo" (as it was known them) would function as a safety valve, giving the black man a place to go, and make his own state; while also serving as a warning to the southern whites. IE, "treat them well or all of your workers will leave you."

Remember, this was after the war, after Johnson's disastrous term, after several years of guerrilla warfare, with seemingly no end in sight, no permanent improvement for the black man in sight, and no coalition of people willing or capable of coming up with a permanent solution.

Yes, but well the reality of Santo Domingo is presumably going to bite him hard. Because it was literally a lawless hellhole at the time with strong memories of the black haitian occupation.

Getting a) blacks to move there and b) the existing population to accept them is just going to complicate an already complicated enterprise.

The more I think about this, the luckier Grant was that Sumner went back on his word to support him in the senate over this.

 

[Nofix]

Yes, but well the reality of Santo Domingo is presumably going to bite him hard. Because it was literally a lawless hellhole at the time with strong memories of the black haitian occupation.

Getting a) blacks to move there and b) the existing population to accept them is just going to complicate an already complicated enterprise.

The more I think about this, the luckier Grant was that Sumner went back on his word to support him in the senate over this.

About two years ago (goodness has it been that long?) I wrote a small, contextless list on the other site that implied as much.

Spoiler

Governors of the Territory of Santo Domingo

1871-1871: Buenaventura Báez Méndez (Republican) (acting)
1871-1871: Tunis Gulic Campbell (Republican) (acting)
1871-1872: Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs (Republican) ✞
1872-1875: James D. Lynch (Republican) (acting, then appointed)

Governors of the State of Santo Domingo

1875-1876: Robert Smalls (Republican)
1876-1880: Ignacio María González Santín (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana)
1880-1882: Robert Smalls (Republican)
1882-1888: Gaspar Polanco Bourbon (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana)
1888-1888: Alonzo Jacob Ransier (Republican) (Overthrown)

President of the Third Dominican Republic

1888-1889: Máximo Gómez y Báez/Furcy Fondeur Lajeunesse (Partido Revolucionario) (unrecognized)

Navy Governors of Santo Domingo

1889-1891: Alfred Thayer Mahan (Independent)
1891-1895: Edward David Taussig (Independent)
1895-1896: Charles Stewart Farnsworth (Independent)
1896-1899: Hilary Pollard Jones, Jr. (Independent)
1899-1900: Sumner Ely Wetmore Kittelle (Independent)

 

[Soverihn]

The problem with the notion of a successful US occupation of Santo Domingo is that roughly 40% of the male Dominican Population has military training and weaponry of some sort, however outdated and/or spotty that might be. This is all out of a 400,000 strong armed population with a large amount of foreign connections everywhere from Spain to Denmark to Russia (no seriously, Baez used Danish banks to store his cash at several points; Luperon for some strange reason wrote to the Russian Tsar multiple times). Combined with rough geography, disease, and the difficulty of wooing civilians, I can't see this working out to well.

Added on to this is that most of the American army is for obvious reasons going to be stuck securing the Southern states at this time leading to the difficult proposition of A) moving troops from the south and potentially encouraging more resistance, B) increasing the size of the army to send them abroad on a poor foreign trip C) convincing Freedmen to leave, and/or D) conscription to fight a foreign war in some tropical hellhole.

Even in the occupation 50 years later, the US troops faced significant resistance and setbacks in disarming and quelling the population, down to having to build a road network from scratch that would bypass towns; resettle people at gunpoint, building a new local army and its associated institutions and constantly begging the State department for more funds since everything was a massive sinkhole (and then trying to foot the bill to the Dominican Government, costing around 20 million dollars in total IIRC)

At best I'd see the US government last a few years trying to put down insurgents and wasting a ton of money linking together towns in the south where new sugar plantations are built in between cycling troops in patrols before the bill racks up and independents is quietly given under a presumably friendly government. Trying the settler colony path would likely end with new immigrants going native more than anything else; Dominican elites and middle classes were ridiculously multilingual alongside most would be immigrants sticking to coastal cities where they'd face heavy informal pressure to try to enter the social circle of the elite as was the case historically, and many a middle class person would be more than happy to arrange marriages with new Americans to gain access to wealth. Such a thing has a habit of making the resulting kids go native.

 

[d32123]

I just can't imagine the US elites being interested enough in holding Santo Domingo long term. The conquests following the Spanish-American War were controversial enough. Expanding into the Caribbean ~30 years earlier? This is a US elite that had only begun seriously investing in Mexico, yet alone engaging in serious overseas colonialism. They'd bump up against all sorts of European interests as well.