Impact of the Dominican Republic as a US State *Domestically*

During the negotiation of the Dominican Republic's annexation to the US, President Grant was fairly insistent that the Dominican Republic be made a state rather than a territory.

What would be the implications of the US having a mostly black/mulatto spanish-speaking state domestically?

It'd be guaranteed electoral votes for the Republicans, two Republican Senators, and more Republican House Members. Who would be the state's Senators and Congressmen? How could they affect the policy and dialogue of national politics?

Part of the goal of annexing the DR was resettlement of Black Americans in the place (and this OTL happened a little bit in Samana bay). I would think that there'd be a certain amount of anglo-black movement to the state.

There might be more of a fight over linguistic freedom in US politics. Towards the end of the 19th century there were some fights over German and Polish and Norweigan language schools in a number of states. I believe there were issues with the linguistic rights of Cajuns as well.



Also, can we keep the focus of this conversation on domestic politics? I've seen in a number of threads like this that the conversation trends towards international implications.
 
I don't know that it would stay Spanish-speaking. It could be a safe GOP state in 1876 though. Might prevent the election dispute and the end of reconstruction. Realistically, most black Americans aren't gong to get up and leave to go to whatever the state would be called.
 
I don't know that it would stay Spanish-speaking. It could be a safe GOP state in 1876 though. Might prevent the election dispute and the end of reconstruction. Realistically, most black Americans aren't gong to get up and leave to go to whatever the state would be called.

The US had Puerto Rico for over a hundred years and they're still speaking spanish, so I just sort of assumed.

I don't think most blacks will go to the DR. I just think some will.

1876 is a good point. What would be the effect of continued military presence in FL, LA, and SC? No loss of black rights?
 
The US had Puerto Rico for over a hundred years and they're still speaking spanish, so I just sort of assumed.

I don't think most blacks will go to the DR. I just think some will.

1876 is a good point. What would be the effect of continued military presence in FL, LA, and SC? No loss of black rights?
The status of Puerto Rico is also different. It's not a part of the U.S. while still in association with it and dependent on it. Hawaii today is predominantly anglophone.

Presumably, if this state really does send people of African descent to Congress, it could help to improve the fortunes of blacks in the U.S. South. Maybe the Logan Act or something like it gets passed.
 
The status of Puerto Rico is also different. It's not a part of the U.S. while still in association with it and dependent on it. Hawaii today is predominantly anglophone.

Presumably, if this state really does send people of African descent to Congress, it could help to improve the fortunes of blacks in the U.S. South. Maybe the Logan Act or something like it gets passed.

Hawaii is only some 10% however.
 
Should we take it for granted that that this state would be strongly Republican? Yes, black people and multiracial people comprise a majority of the island’s population together (at least, they do today - I do not know the demographic situation of this country in the 1870s), but whites of Spanish descent have been the economic and social elite of the island for centuries. Also, keep in mind that African Americans were the majority in several Deep South states immediately after the Civil War. This did not prevent the establishment of Jim Crow and Democratic one-party rule for generations.

Also, keep in mind that the ruling class of the country was and is largely Catholic. Catholics were firmly part of the Democratic coalition at this time, while anti-Catholicism was rampant in the WASP-dominated Republican Party.

Now, given that race is more of a fluid concept in Latin America, I do not think that there would be too many political similarities between this state and the Deep South... but I think that it is very possible that it would have become a de facto minority rule state that votes overwhelmingly Democratic all the same.
 
The status of Puerto Rico is also different. It's not a part of the U.S. while still in association with it and dependent on it. Hawaii today is predominantly anglophone.
Hawaii is a special case because, as Jackson Lennock points out, Native Hawaiians formed a minority of the population from roughly the mid-late 1800s onwards, with a variety of immigrant groups (Americans, Japanese, Filipinos) forming the bulk of the population. Just based on demographics you would expect Hawaii to be Japanese-speaking (Japanophonic?), but I suppose the economic and social influence of the ex-missionary class (all Americans) and the presence of fairly significant non-Japanese migrant groups precluded that and led to the adoption of English as the lingua franca (I believe this was the case before the annexation; if it wasn't, then you have another obvious factor pushing for English over Japanese).

I don't think the ex-Dominican Republic would see so much migration from the United States or other countries that you would have a similar situation of needing to find a common lingua franca for a highly diverse population, and the native population certainly wouldn't be suffering so much from outside diseases as the Hawaiians did. So I think there's certainly a strong probability for the ex-Republic to remain Spanish-speaking, though if there's a Great Migration south to the Republic instead of north to the Midwest and Northeast, that might change things up.
 

Deleted member 67076

During the negotiation of the Dominican Republic's annexation to the US, President Grant was fairly insistent that the Dominican Republic be made a state rather than a territory.

What would be the implications of the US having a mostly black/mulatto spanish-speaking state domestically?
Revolt and rebellion with the closest analogy I can make being the Philippines War several generations earlier. The Dominicans were fresh from the Restoration War against Spain, no one but then President Baez and his cronies wanted annexation, and Baez did not control much outside the capital. Annexation just means continuing the status quo revolt of a heavily militarized (i.e, 40% of men had military experience at some point in their lives) and hardened society while the vast bulk of the US army is stationed garrisoning the newly reconquered South.

Its just going to be a long, expensive, and unpopular guerrilla war with political implications. To secure this the US would have to do what the historical American occupation did (and this time on their own bill, rather than passing off to the Dominican treasury) and more: expand the army/navy and station several thousand troops, build a network of roads using imported or local labor (that has to be paid rather than corvee) to ensure troop movement in the countryside, build a new local government from scratch (good luck getting collaborators), expand the domestic industries to pay for all this, and increasingly give concessions to the middle and upper classes to maintain the barest minimum of support.

Historically in 1916-24 all this cost 10 million Dollars. Here I'd suspect it would cost more; the 1870s constituted what I can only call a warring states era of fiefdoms and caudillos rising and falling, with the poverty and ruggedness that'd imply.

But let me not be a spoilsport and try to answer your questions. Lets just assume there's enough will to finance an army expansion for a little bit, and the prospects of a strategic military base and profits from cash crops lead to better lobbying.

The implications of this lasting a state are pretty much a transition to an earlier sugar industrial economy funded by New York and New Orleans capital. Expect important numbers of businessmen to migrate south and try to register land, break up communal land, start a wage economy, and enforce positivism upon the population. This will not be popular at all and add to local grievances. This is probably going to have to be supplemented with immigration to get over the historical land shortages (Given the 1870s and 80s this will have to be Asian, Mexican, and European labor as Caribbean labor would be too expensive), and expanding large amounts of credit to the rancher and financier classes of the south and north respectively.

Sugar will soon give way to other prospectors, and so you'd soon get bananas, tobacco, cacao, mining, light industry, railroads, bankers, and so on. Things that need a ton of capital injection, are labor intensive, and generally lead to huge income inequality but thats everywhere in the time period so I can't say this is unique.

It'd be guaranteed electoral votes for the Republicans, two Republican Senators, and more Republican House Members. Who would be the state's Senators and Congressmen? How could they affect the policy and dialogue of national politics?
Initially a Baecista clique that quickly gets sidelined by the new, educated, and economically liberal sugar barons or mining magnates.

Sugar could actually make this state really rich in a short amount of time (alongside tobacco, spices, mining, and other industries) and Santo Domingo would start to compete with New Orleans in a few decades once the population takes off.

Part of the goal of annexing the DR was resettlement of Black Americans in the place (and this OTL happened a little bit in Samana bay). I would think that there'd be a certain amount of anglo-black movement to the state.
Very little honestly. In the immediate era of Reconstruction there were massive gains in the social position of freedmen, there's little incentive to move to a warzone with little official jobs. Later on the only people who could move to invest would be middle and upper class individuals that would have a stake in investing. Maybe then, a few decades after sugar has matured and reconstruction is rolled back that some waves of seasonal migrant workers come in to compete with immigrant labor. Depends on the cost and contracts.

There might be more of a fight over linguistic freedom in US politics. Towards the end of the 19th century there were some fights over German and Polish and Norweigan language schools in a number of states. I believe there were issues with the linguistic rights of Cajuns as well.
There would absolutely be more greater fights for linguistic freedoms. This state is not going to be swamped by Anglos, the entire elite would be universally multilingual, and I'm fairly confident the factors of US control would lead to a localist nationalism that would seek to preserve Spanish. That and honestly I think most Americans moving in, alongside immigrants would assimilate to the local culture rather than the other way around.

I don't know that it would stay Spanish-speaking.
Its staying Spanish speaking. There were over 400,000 Dominicans living in the country at the time, and new immigrants aggressively assimilated within a generation or two.

I Realistically, most black Americans aren't gong to get up and leave to go to whatever the state would be called.
I agree, there's little incentive when it seems things back home are improving until some sort of Great Migration happens.

Yes, black people and multiracial people comprise a majority of the island’s population together (at least, they do today - I do not know the demographic situation of this country in the 1870s), but whites of Spanish descent have been the economic and social elite of the island for centuries.
The elites of the Island were a lot more fluid than you think, and aside from the Gente de Primaria (the 200 or so old families that would trace their ancestry back to the early colonization) it was not uncommon to see people who Americans would consider nonwhite rise up the ranks and be mostly accepted. There never has been a strict planter/everyone else divide that you saw in the American South, and the concept of segregation was and still is anathema to the locals. The Republican Party, with its business focus and social liberalism represents the interests of far more individuals than the Democrats.
 
The elites of the Island were a lot more fluid than you think, and aside from the Gente de Primaria (the 200 or so old families that would trace their ancestry back to the early colonization) it was not uncommon to see people who Americans would consider nonwhite rise up the ranks and be mostly accepted. There never has been a strict planter/everyone else divide that you saw in the American South, and the concept of segregation was and still is anathema to the locals. The Republican Party, with its business focus and social liberalism represents the interests of far more individuals than the Democrats.

Would the fluidity of racial identity in the Dominican Republic impact US notions of racial identity? One interesting historical tidbit was that prior to Plessy v Ferguson, a much larger number of Americans identified as mixed-race. When the one-drop rule became legally codified, folks just started identifying as black since there was no legal difference anyway.

If there's a shortage of lands on the island, might Dominicans emigrate to the mainland? I can see business ties connecting Santo Domingo with New Orleans leading to stronger cultural ties. Louisiana in particular could be effected by an American DR (Santo Domingo? Quisqueya?) since it was the state with the most fluid racial-cultural boundaries.



A Catholic faction in the Republican party would be weird and spice up the politics.

The Dominican Insurgency will bolster anti-imperialists in US Foreign Policy. If the Spanish-American War goes as per OTL, Puerto Rico might not be annexed.



One knock-on for the locals on the island is going to be land titling. Land titling has generally been a positive for small landholders when implemented in underdeveloped countries, as it allows for people to be secure in investing in their own lands and makes it easier to get loans.
 
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Would this impact Puerto Rico getting statehood? It would be quite odd that Dominicans get statehood but not Puerto Ricans.
 

Deleted member 67076

Would the fluidity of racial identity in the Dominican Republic impact US notions of racial identity? One interesting historical tidbit was that prior to Plessy v Ferguson, a much larger number of Americans identified as mixed-race. When the one-drop rule became legally codified, folks just started identifying as black since there was no legal difference anyway.
I dunno. Maybe? I guess it would probably impact the views of many a northern businessman who comes in to visit and ends up living there for a few years. I don't know enough of 19th century racial politics to answer.

If there's a shortage of lands on the island, might Dominicans emigrate to the mainland? I can see business ties connecting Santo Domingo with New Orleans leading to stronger cultural ties. Louisiana in particular could be effected by an American DR (Santo Domingo? Quisqueya?) since it was the state with the most fluid racial-cultural boundaries.
In a few decades there would be migration. The issue is that led to historical migration into the US was not a shortage of land but a potential shortage of jobs. But for the first few decades the reverse would be happening since the country would have a shortage of labor.

The Dominican Insurgency will bolster anti-imperialists in US Foreign Policy. If the Spanish-American War goes as per OTL, Puerto Rico might not be annexed.
Would there even be a Spanish American War?

One knock-on for the locals on the island is going to be land titling. Land titling has generally been a positive for small landholders when implemented in underdeveloped countries, as it allows for people to be secure in investing in their own lands and makes it easier to get loans.
This actually is going to backfire, people were used to communal lands especially ranchers and those in small villages. The Southeast of the country is going to be hard hit by this because without proof of deeds sugar investors will buy up the land and displace the locals into cities or the sugar economy. Which, despite having the highest wages in the Caribbean for sugar cutting, still is demeaning and low wage work with large amounts of seasonal unemployment.
 
This actually is going to backfire, people were used to communal lands especially ranchers and those in small villages. The Southeast of the country is going to be hard hit by this because without proof of deeds sugar investors will buy up the land and displace the locals into cities or the sugar economy. Which, despite having the highest wages in the Caribbean for sugar cutting, still is demeaning and low wage work with large amounts of seasonal unemployment.

Would the Grant or Hayes administration (or the state government of the Dominican Republic) allow this though? Homesteaders out west were able to get title just by filling out the proper paperwork. Title could just be granted to the people living there in the same fashion. Who would sugar investors buy the land from if there is no other title? The state government?
 

Deleted member 67076

Would the Grant or Hayes administration (or the state government of the Dominican Republic) allow this though?
The Dominican government had no problem doing this under President Heureaux. It allowed a major source of income and was viewed in an ideologically positive manner as it would force a transition into a capitalist, modern economy.

Homesteaders out west were able to get title just by filling out the proper paperwork. Title could just be granted to the people living there in the same fashion. Who would sugar investors buy the land from if there is no other title? The state government?
Yes actually. They bought it, or bought the titles from locals, and pushed them out.
 
The Dominican government had no problem doing this under President Heureaux. It allowed a major source of income and was viewed in an ideologically positive manner as it would force a transition into a capitalist, modern economy.


Yes actually. They bought it, or bought the titles from locals, and pushed them out.

Ouch.

If it works out, what are the odds if there is still a war with Spain, it ends with Cuba and Puerto Rico as states?

In the 1890s, the House near-unanimously voted for the Teller Amendment opposing US annexation. Maybe Puerto Rico would immediately be a state.

But the OTL Spanish-American War was already pretty weird. It wasn't an inevitable conflict at all and could be easily avoided. In such a case, Cuba probably breaks away on its own (when the US got involved rebels already controlled 2/3 of the island) and Puerto Rico was an autonomy of Spain at the time and fairly content with that status.

If Germany buys the Philippines, which they wanted to do OTL, I could see the Americans freaking out and bullying Spain into selling Puerto Rico. The Dominican precedent could mean automatic statehood.
 
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The average Samana American that moves to the a major city will face colourism today. Why do you think so many black Americans would face discrimination in a new land by people who on abergae look much like them?

The political elite of the island were not interested in black upliftment, they had "mulatto escape hatches" for a reason, merely siphoning off the best and brightest to be assimilated into the established white/trigueno/Indio upper middle and upper class.
 
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