|
The Annexation of Santo Domingo was an attempted treaty during the later Reconstruction Era, initiated by United States President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869, to annex “Santo Domingo” (as the Dominican Republic was then commonly known) as a United States territory, with the promise of eventual statehood. President Grant feared some European power would take the island in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. He privately thought annexation would be a safety valve for African Americans who were suffering persecution in the US, but he did not include this in his official messages. Grant speculated that the acquisition of Santo Domingo would help bring about the end of slavery in Cuba and elsewhere. Militarily he wanted a US naval port in the Dominican Republic which would also serve as protection for a projected canal across Nicaragua. In 1869, Grant commissioned his private secretary Orville E. Babcock and Rufus Ingalls to negotiate the treaty of annexation with Dominican president Buenaventura Báez. The annexation process drew controversy: opponents Senator Charles Sumner and Senator Carl Schurz denounced the treaty vehemently, alleging it was made only to enrich private American and island interests and to politically protect Báez. Grant had authorized the US Navy to protect the Dominican Republic from invasion by neighbouring Haiti while the treaty annexation process took place in the US Senate. The movement for annexation appeared to have been widely supported by the inhabitants of the Dominican Republic, according to the plebiscite ordered by Báez, who believed the Dominican Republic had better odds of survival as a US protectorate and could sell a much wider range of goods to the US than could be sold in European markets. The country's unstable history was one of invasion, colonization, and civil strife. A treaty was drafted by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish that included the annexation of the country itself and the purchase of Samaná Bay for two million American dollars. Also included and supported by Grant was the provision that the Dominican Republic could apply for statehood. When debated in the Senate, Sumner staunchly opposed the treaty, believing the annexation process was corrupt and that the Dominican Republic was politically unstable, having a history of revolution. Sumner believed that Báez was a corrupt despot and that the use of the US Navy by Grant during the treaty negotiation to protect Santo Domingo was illegal. Sumner said that the annexationists wanted the whole island and would also absorb the independent black nation of Haiti. Schurz opposed acquisition because he did not favor mixed race people becoming US citizens.〔Mejías-López, p. 132〕 The treaty ultimately failed to reach the two-thirds vote needed (the vote was a tie). In order to vindicate the failed treaty annexation, Grant sent a committee, authorized by Congress and including African American Frederick Douglass, that investigated and produced a report favourable to annexation of the Dominican Republic into the United States. The annexation treaty failed because there was little support for it outside Grant's circle. The defeat of the treaty in the Senate directly contributed to the division of the Republican party into two opposing factions during the election of 1872: the Radical Republicans (composed of Grant and his loyalists) and the Liberal Republicans (composed of Schurz, Sumner, Horace Greeley as presidential candidate, and other opponents of Grant). ==Annexation proposal== In 1867, during President Andrew Johnson's Administration, the Dominican government, under threat of Haitian invasion, had asked to be annexed by the United States. However, Congress was unwilling to comply to any proposal made by Johnson.〔Smith, p. 449〕 In April 1869, Joseph W. Fabens, a New England businessman representing the Dominican Republic, asked Secretary of State Fish, that the Dominican Republic, then known as Santo Domingo, be annexed to the United States and able to apply for statehood.〔Smith, p. 500〕 President Grant, initially, did not have any interest in annexation. However, when Grant learned the US Navy had interest in acquiring Samaná Bay as a coaling station, he became interested. Fish appointed Benjamin P. Hunt with diplomatic authority to look into the Dominican Republic's debt and whether the people actually desired to join the United States. Hunt, however, fell ill and could not make the journey. Grant then sent his aide, Brevet Brigadier General Orville E. Babcock to gather information on the Dominican Republic. Rather than official diplomatic authority, President Grant personally gave Babcock special agent status with a personal introduction letter for Dominican President Buenaventura Báez.〔Smith, pp. 500–501〕 In addition to the coaling station, President Grant viewed that the Dominican Republic had immense resources and would give thousands of jobs to emigrant African American laborers; in addition to benefitting exports from Northern farms and manufacturers.〔McFeely, p. 350〕 Grant privately speculated that US control would help compel Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Cuba to abolish slavery.〔 Grant also speculated that if African Americans from the Southeastern United States had the option of emigration to the island, violent European American supremacist groups in the South, such as the Ku Klux Klan, would have to curb their use of violence against African Americans or lose their cheaper labour. Grant, however, was cautious in directly advocating African American emigration to the Dominican Republic.〔 Fearing Britain might take control, Grant also mentioned the need to maintain the Monroe Doctrine.〔Grant〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Annexation of Santo Domingo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|