Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Power from the North
With no strong central government, the newly independent Dominican Republic was a frac-
tured nation, divided up among several dozen caudillos (military leaders) and their militias.
From 1865 until 1879 there were more than 50 military uprisings or coups and 21 changes
in government. In 1869, after Buenaventura Báez, the leader of a coalition of plantation
owners, mahogany exporters and a significant portion of residents of Santo Domingo, was
installed as president, he attempted to sell the country to the US for US$150,000. Even
though the treaty was signed by Báez and US president Ulysses S Grant, the agreement was
defeated in the US Senate.
The US was to involve itself once again in Dominican affairs, this time at the invitation
of General Ulises Heureaux, who stabilized the musical chairs of political and military
leadership from 1882 until his assassination in 1899. The general, known as Lilí, borrowed
heavily from American and European banks to finance the army, infrastructure and sugar
industry. But after a sharp drop-off in world sugar prices, Lilí essentially mortgaged the
country to the US-owned and -operated San Domingo Improvement Company just before
his death. Because the Dominican government was bankrupt, the US government inter-
vened in 1905 by taking control of the customs houses and guaranteeing repayment of all
loans, stopping just short of ratifying President Theodore Roosevelt's plan to establish a
protectorate over the DR.
Between 1844 and 1916, the Dominican Republic had 40 different governments.
Despite some economic growth, after the assassination of another president in 1911,
Dominican politics mostly remained chaotic, corrupt and bloody. In 1916, under the dual
pretext of quelling yet another coup as well as guarding the waters from German aggres-
sion during WWI, President Woodrow Wilson sent US marines to the DR - they remained
for the next eight years. (Similarly, Wilson sent the marines into Haiti in 1915, claiming,
ironically, that unrest there made it vulnerable to a German invasion - the occupation lasted
20 years.) Though deeply imperialistic, the US occupation did succeed in stabilizing
Dominican politics and the economy. Once the DR's strategic value to the US had dropped,
and a new strain of isolationism had entered American discourse, the occupation ended and
the troops were sent home.
