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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-15/us-president-grant-sm.webp" alt="US President Ulysses S. Grant" loading="lazy" />
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(Ulysses S. Grant writing his memoirs, Mount McGregor, June 27, 1885)
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The political climate of the United States beginning in the late 1860s was rife with questions about what was next for Black Americans. In the early 1860s, before the end of the Civil War, politicians in Washington, DC, were concerned with how white people would treat newly emancipated Black Americans. One idea that some politicians considered was urging Black Americans to move away from the mainland entirely.
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Some politicians and activists, including Frederick Douglass, supported efforts to annex the Dominican Republic, seeing it as a place where Black Americans could own property and live freely. Douglass saw it as an opportunity to grow the Black American population. Other politicians also had an expansionist mindset for the US.
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Upon hearing about the US's desire to expand, leaders of the Dominican Republic reached out to make a deal.
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Lauren Hammond, an associate professor of history at Augustana College said:
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"I think it's kind of a really telling moment in US history in terms of how people thought not only about African Americans but also how they thought about Blacks in the diaspora. You could kind of use it almost as a comparative case and raise questions about Puerto Rico's status and statehood."
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A few years after the Civil War, it was becoming clear to those in Washington that Reconstruction efforts in the former Confederate-controlled Southern states were failing. President Ulysses S. Grant grew worried about the long-term future of Black Americans.
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Drawing on conversations in Washington, Grant came up with a solution. In a memo, he wrote that "prejudice to color" was the biggest conflict in the country and suggested moving Black Americans to the island.
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Grant wrote:
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"Caste has no foothold in San Domingo. It is capable of supporting the entire colored population of the United States, should it choose to emigrate. The colored man cannot be spared until his place is supplied, but with a refuge like San Domingo his worth here would soon be discovered."
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Despite being the last known American president to own an enslaved person, Grant grew up in an abolitionist household, and as a Union general he fought alongside Black soldiers, which may have affected his views on slavery. Grant was not the first US politician who considered sending freed Black people outside the mainland. Afraid that Black and white Americans could not peacefully coexist, President Abraham Lincoln had also proposed sending emancipated Black people to Liberia or Central America.
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Hammond said that while Grant was concerned with racism, he was also an expansionist who believed in the Monroe Doctrine, a policy from 1823 that urged European powers not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere. Grant was initially interested in acquiring Cuba, a Spanish territory, but as that was not realistic without war, he turned his interest to the Dominican Republic.
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While there is evidence that the US also considered annexing Panama or Brazil at the same time to serve the same purpose, Gerald Horne, a historian who holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, said that fell through because those countries were skeptical about why the US would send only its Black population there.
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Horn, the author of "Confronting Black Jacobins," which details the history of the Dominican Republic, said:
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"There was less concern in the Dominican Republic than in other Latin American nations about accepting what was considered to be a 'Trojan horse,'."
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After the War of Restoration against Spain, the Dominican Republic was looking for protection, Hammond said. It was in deep debt and susceptible to being reconquered by Spain, so President Buenaventura Báez reached out to the United States.
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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-15/buenaventura-baez.webp" alt="President Buenaventura Báez" loading="lazy" />
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(President of the Dominican Republic Buenaventura Báez)
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Báez was aware that Grant was looking to acquire territories off the mainland, so he asked if the Dominican Republic could be annexed.
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On February 16, 1870, a vote was held in the Dominican Republic: 15,695 residents voted for annexation, and only 11 voted against. With over 99% of the vote, the referendum passed in the Dominican Republic.
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Hammond said she doesn't trust those results:
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"There ended up being threats from Buenaventura Báez. "So it's actually very difficult to get a true pulse on what was happening in the Dominican Republic."
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In the US Senate, the annexation bill to acquire the Dominican Republic failed, by a vote of 28-28, on June 30, 1871. It needed two-thirds of the votes to pass.
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Ulysses S. Grant proposed to annex the Dominican Republic in 1871, suggested moving Black Americans to the island