When Ulysses S. Grant Tried to Annex the Dominican Republic

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In his Tuesday article on Trump’s bizarre and immoral Palestine plan, Tom DiLorenzo connects the plan to President Lincoln’s obsession with deporting the black population of the United States to some “colony” in Africa or Central America.

There is an interesting postscript to all this in the form of the Grant administration’s attempt to annex Santo Domingo, what is today known as the Dominican Republic.

As DiLorenzo notes, Lincoln was personally obsessed with his colonization plan, and that he was “hard at work until his dying day counting how many ships it would take“ to carry out his plan. The idea did not totally die with Lincoln, however.

By the time Ulysses S. Grant was sworn in in 1869, he was already supporting an ongoing plan to annex Santo Domingo for several reasons. This attempt to annex Santo Domingo was the last of three. The US had made similar attempts in 1854 and 1866. In all three cases, chief among the political reasons for the attempts was political pressure from large business interests who believed that large American enterprises could more effectively exploit the mineral and agricultural resources of the island.

While cronyism and cynical imperialism appears to have been a major factor, the Grant administration needed other allies to bring about annexation. Many of Grant’s allies from other interest groups appear to have been motivated by other ideological motives, including expanding US military interests in the region. Historian Harold Pinkett writes:

From the beginning of his term in 1869 President Grant was surrounded by many persons who were interested in the annexation of Santo Domingo. Some of these individuals supported annexation for essentially patriotic reasons. Chief among this group of the President’s associates were Admiral Daniel Ammen and Senator Cornelius Cole of California who wished to strengthen the American navy and protect a proposed isthmian canal by acquiring Carib bean naval bases. The President himself was impressed with the idea that territorial expansion would increase the prestige of the United States.

In an apparent effort to beef up support from some former abolitionists, Grant also floated the idea that annexation of Santo Domingo would be useful in “aiding those persons who sought to provide a place of refuge for American Negroes in the West Indies.” It’s unclear that there were many volunteers for this.

In fact, there were likely very few volunteers since an earlier effort to ship former slaves to Santo Domingo had ended disastrously. Specifically, Lincoln had earlier attempted a “colony” in Santo Domingo as part of a pilot program for his broader deportation efforts. It is noteworthy that the plan, while designed to accomplish Lincoln’s goal of ethnic cleansing, also helped in making money for some speculators. In 1859, some investors were already buying land on the chance that Lincoln would be elected and implement policies that would “encourage” the migration of freed slaves to the island. The destination, of course, would be the lands already owned by American speculators. Pinkett continues:

In that year [1859] the two speculators became partners in a scheme to obtain a grant of land from the President of the Dominican Republic in return for a loan and the promotion of migration to the island. They realized the financial gain which could be reaped from the plan of President Lincoln aimed to aid the colonization of emancipated Negroes in the West Indies or Liberia. Thus, when in 1862 Congress appropriated funds for this purpose, [investors] and others organized a company known as the “American West India Company.” Upon an investment of about $4,000 in land, the promoters published a prospectus that they had acquired property valued at $2,000,000. Several Negroes were persuaded by these speculators to settle in Santo Domingo. Their settlement had tragic results. Most of them either succumbed to tropical fever and hunger or had to be repatriated by the American commercial agent. This colonization scheme provoked widespread condemnation.

Opposition to the 1868-1870 plan came from several corners of the country, and the annexation effort failed due to a lack of support in the US Senate. (This was back when the President couldn’t just do whatever he wanted regardless of Congressional support.)

Many opposed the idea based on older Jeffersonian, anti-imperialist notions that the United States should not be in the business of annexing existing sovereign states. Others opposed the idea because they did not see evidence that the Dominicans supported the idea.

Whatever the reasons given at the time, it is likely the US dodged a bullet by not annexing Santo Domingo at the time. For example, the Dominican Republic shares an island with Haiti, and it’s hard to imagine that the United States would benefit from sharing a land border with the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Similarly, the Dominicans had already been involved for years in conflicts with both Spain and Haiti. Santo Domingo was in many ways, a war-torn country. How much treasure was going to be spilt—and how many Dominicans would be murdered to “pacify” the Dominicans? The history of US imperialism in the Philippines provides a cautionary tale.

Read More: “Haiti: Why Open Borders Don’t Work in the Developing World“ by Ryan McMaken

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