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

Deleted member 67076

Why do you think so many black Americans would face discrimination in a new land by people who on abergae look much like them?
Pardon, is this in reference to African Americans moving to Santo Domingo or for Samana Americans moving to the United States?

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.
If anything this would spur the positivist clique of intelligentsia to further push for blanquimiento.
 
Would this impact Puerto Rico getting statehood? It would be quite odd that Dominicans get statehood but not Puerto Ricans.

In the 19th century the focus for Puerto Rico more was gaining some sort of status of autonomy within Spain. If the DR became a US state then the US would have no need for Puerto Rico; the Island would remain part of Spain, and ITTL would be one of Spain's 18 autonomous communities (if we're going by current OTL constitutional arrangements). With interesting knock-on effects if we're still having, say, Primo de Rivera, followed by the Second Republic and the following Civil War, and all that - not to mention a good chunk of modern Puerto Rican history butterflied - well, it's not Cuba, but for a Spain whose elites and army are still conscious of the loss of the remaining bits of the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico would have to do.
 
Pardon, is this in reference to African Americans moving to Santo Domingo or for Samana Americans moving to the United States?


If anything this would spur the positivist clique of intelligentsia to further push for blanquimiento.[/QUOTE
Additional black american migration away from Samana
 
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.

Actually the proposed treaty provided explicitly for admission as a territory, with the possibility of eventual statehood:

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Treaty celebrated between the United States of America and the Dominican Republic, for the incorporation of the second with the first.

The people of the Dominican Republic having, through their government, expressed their desire to be incorporated into the.United States as one of the Territories [my emphasis--DT] thereof, in order to provide more effectually for their security and prosperity; and the United States being desirous of meeting the wishes of the people and government of that republic, the high contracting parties have determined to accomplish by treaty an object so important to their mutual and permanent welfare.

For this purpose the President of the United States has given full powers to Mr. Raymond H. Perry, United States commercial agent in the city of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, and the Presi dent of the Dominican Republic has given full powers to Mr. Manuel Maria Gautier, secretary of state for foreign affairs of the said Dominican Republic; and the said plenipotentiaries, after having coinmnnicated to each other their respective full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles:


Article I.

The Dominican Republic, acting subject to the wishes of its people, to be expressed in the shortest possible time, renounces all rights of sovereignty as an independent sovereign nation, and cedes these rights to the United States to be incorporated by them as an integral portion of the Union, subject to the same constitutional provisions as their other Territories. [my emphasis--DT] It also cedes to the United States the absolute fee and property in all the custom-houses, fortifications, barracks, ports, harbors, navy and navy yards, magazines, arms, armaments, and accouterments, archives, and public documents of the said Dominican Republic, of which a schedule is annexed to this treaty; public lands and other property not specified excepted. *

Article II.

The citizens of the Dominican Republic shall be incorporated into the United States as citizens thereof, inhabiting one of its Territories, and shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property as such citizens, and may be admitted into the Union as a State, upon such terms and conditions and at such time as Congress shall provide by law. [my emphasis--DT]

https://books.google.com/books?id=aFP4UFhVv_wC&pg=PA98

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If the votes were not there for admission as a territory (either by treaty or joint resolution) they would certainly not be there for immediate admission as a state. It must be said, though, that the Dominicans under the treaty would fare better than the Puerto Ricans later would, in that they would immediately get US citizenship. Given racial prejudice, it would be hard to admit it as a state for a long time, yet maybe a Republican Congress would do so to get some safe new votes in Congress and the Electoral College.
 
In a post last year, I suggested this was how Frederick Douglass could become POTUS:

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After the successful (in this ATL) annexation of Santo Domingo, the state (as it eventually becomes) elects Douglass (who becomes a nominal resident of it even though he in fact lives in Anacostia most of the year) to the Senate as a reward for his supporting annexation. https://books.google.com/books?id=KXgrCH0bkHwC&pg=PA88 A Republican Senate eventually elects Douglass (as a reward for his party loyalty, and to appeal to African American voters) to the "mostly symbolic" office of President Pro Tempore. Then all you need (before the 1886 revised Presidential Succession Act) is a double vacancy in POTUS and VPOTUS. And indeed in 1881-5 there was no vice-president--and a president who had been diagnosed with Bright's Disease--which, let us say, in this ATL kills him sooner and more suddenly than anyone had expected...
 
Could the Republicans have "pulled a Taiwan" in Puerto Rico?

Within the existing parameters, that would be asking for a lot. Much of it would be contingent on what Puerto Rico's domestic political situation would be like in TTL and what exactly its relationship to Spain would be like. On top of that, don't forget that even under Spanish rule Puerto Rico would not be isolated from broad political trends elsewhere in Latin America - so if autonomy for Puerto Rico was settled early on, for example (for one possibility, for example, perhaps Juan Prim's term as Governor-Captain General of Puerto Rico leaves a deep impression on him which makes him an advocate for Puerto Rican autonomy - butterflying away the Grito de Lares in the process), you'd still have a positivist phase around the late 19th to early 20th centuries, followed by a brief transitional (and hence open) period that, despite Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, sees the flowering of different ideologies on the island, including Aprismo and early forms of Christian democracy in Latin America, and all that. Afterwards, one would need to figure out the exact relationship between the Second Republic and Puerto Rico and whether the former would recognize the latter's autonomous status (most likely they will). The weak link for "pulling a Taiwan" on Puerto Rico is during the Civil War period, because around the latter couple of years or so the Republican government was so disorganized and polarized against itself (munchas gracias, Sr. Negrín) that for all intents and purposes what you get is one not Republican government-in-exile but several that ultimately reconsolidate away from the leadership of the PSOE and Communists and towards the left-liberal grouping around Diego Martinez Barrio and company. If there's a piece of territory still in Republican control, then this process becomes more complicated (and don't forget, the first stop for the government-in-exile was Paris, because so many Spanish refugees ended up in France). Most likely, what would happen would be the government-in-exile remains in exile for a couple of years while Puerto Rico becomes de facto semi-independent with an unclear status, and then eventually the Republicans would settle down in San Juan pending some sort of agreement between the two as to clarification. Eventually, though, in consonant with broad trends in Latin America Puerto Ricans will want to have a say in how they are being governed by the Republic itself in the 1960s and 1970s, which would definitely complicate the Transition.

TL;DR - there's a lot of factors that would need to be at work, including what's actually going on in Puerto Rico itself ITTL, before we come to that conclusion.
 
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