Effects of a US Santo Domingo in Santo Domingo and in the US nowadays?

What would the culture (way of life, music) look like in the Dominican Republic which in this ATL would become the US state of Santo Domingo? And what impacts on America itself (music, politics) nowadays?
 
They’ll need an unusual postal abbreviation; South Dakota took the obvious one.


Would it even be called the State of Santo Domingo? Quisqueya might be more fitting given how having a Santo Domingo City and State of Santo Domingo could be confusing (pay no mind to NYC, Jersey City, Kansas City, etc).

Otherwise, SG might work. Or ST (Short for Saint, as in Santo Domingo).


Grant insisted on Santo Domingo being admitted to the Union as a full state. You'd have a state run by brown-skinned Catholics that'd likely be loyal to the Republican Party for the first half-century of its existence. There'd be Spanish-Speaking Hispanic Catholic Republic House and Senate members in 19th and 20th Century America. Weird.

If the US has SD, and likely had to fight an insurgency to keep it considering there were still lots of armed people around after the Spanish War, we might not see the annexation of Puerto Rico. On the other hand, the Grito de Lares in PR probably would flee to SD as well as NY (where they fled OTL) and that'd make Puerto Rico a bigger issue in US politics sooner than OTL.

If the US still annexes PR, they might be admitted as a state quickly.

There'd likely be resettlement of freedmen in Santo Domingo. Grant (and Frederick Douglass, among others) was for that, as he felt that it wasn't safe for many to remain in the south.

The US would have a big naval base in Samana Bay. I can see Santo Domingo becoming a significant city. Maybe it becomes the "Capital of Latin America" instead of Miami.
I can see a lot of the same forces that caused sunbelt migration to Florida OTL (and, briefly, the Isle of Pines in Cuba) to apply to Santo Domingo TTL.

Dominican Cowboy movies might be a thing. Ranching is big in the country.
 
Would it even be called the State of Santo Domingo? Quisqueya might be more fitting given how having a Santo Domingo City and State of Santo Domingo could be confusing (pay no mind to NYC, Jersey City, Kansas City, etc).

Either that or they simply call it the State of Dominica or even Hispaniola, though I imagine that last one would only be used if both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are merged into a single state.
 
Would this be English-speaking, or Spanish-speaking? The last seems most plausible if there is substantial black migration.

What becomes of Haiti?
 
is this timeline when we get it the early 1900's and we get Haiti also? This might mean the AVI's are made part of a state included with PR.
 
Santo Domingo could keep its name is having the abbreviation SA. We would probably have a mix of African-Americans, descendants of freedmen, and Hispanics, which would be a bit of a Puerto Rico 2.0. And if the US still gets Puerto Rico, America would have a wide hold in the Caribbean Sea. And the OTL equivalent of Guantanamo would be either in Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico ...
 
Oh my, that (the success of the 1870 vote) would be interesting!

I think we need to think more deeply on Haiti. Mexico isn't an island as is Hispaniola, this makes a difference.
 
The most interesting would be that in this TL, the French retake or keep Haiti and have a common border with the US in the Caribbean.
 
Either that or they simply call it the State of Dominica or even Hispaniola, though I imagine that last one would only be used if both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are merged into a single state.

I could see Hispaniola even if only the east half of the island is annexed; Louisiana started out as Orleans Territory and was renamed Louisiana in spite of the fact that it was only a small part of the Louisiana Purchase (though the rest of the Purchase was still American territory), I could also see the language/culture issue being analogous to Louisiana too how it started out French speaking but was overwhelmed by Anglo settlers (in the case of Santo Domingo it would be English-speaking freedmen).
 
And the OTL equivalent of Guantanamo would be either in Santo Domingo or Puerto Rico ...

The US uses Gitmo to keep military prisoners because it isn't US territory and thus (the government argues) the constitution doesn't apply so much. If SD is US territory, any prison there would be US territory.
 
"Dominica" just take away Republic and remove the "n". Dominica becomes even more economically strong than it is now. Ends up stronger than Hawaii's?
 
if Santo Domingo (most likely Haiti unites with SD and joins it in the USA) becomes the destination of choice for black Americans, it'd be interesting to see the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on this place. Lots of racial tension between a majority black population and a small minority of whites. It'd be awkward for a white government in Washington to attempt enforcing race-based segregation in a location so densely populated by blacks or Hispanics.
 
Why would the US be annexing Haiti? Concerns about annexing Haiti were one of the main arguments folks like Charles Sumner used against the US annexing Santo Domingo. Americans did not want to annex Haiti.

I'm not sure why there'd be a white minority government in Santo Domingo imposing itself upon the majority. The politics would be much more complex, with Black Anglo-Freedman probably as a community having their own interests that conflict with those of Spanish-speaking Dominicans black and white alike. I think it's more likely there'd be four groups: White Anglo businessmen, black freedmen, creole elites, and the dominican black and mixed-race majority (plurality?) of the state. If other immigrants come to DR, that'd be its own thing too.


If there were to be a Haitian annexation, it'd probably not be until the 20th Century when the US decides to occupy Haiti as the country becomes too German-influenced (which was the basis for occupying Haiti OTL).
 
if Santo Domingo (most likely Haiti unites with SD and joins it in the USA) becomes the destination of choice for black Americans, it'd be interesting to see the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on this place. Lots of racial tension between a majority black population and a small minority of whites. It'd be awkward for a white government in Washington to attempt enforcing race-based segregation in a location so densely populated by blacks or Hispanics.


I don't see it uniting. The differences are too great, different language, different culture, different history, even some differences in religion. People in the Dominican Republic see themselves very differently than their island neighbors.
 
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