WI US annexed Dominican Republic in 1870

What would be an interesting time-line would be one where the U.S. annexes Dominican Republic, and uses it instead on Liberia to resettle former slaves.

With the new state, or commonwealth similar to Porto Rico (sp?) so close to the U.S., and having the history with slavery that it does I wonder how it would develop.

I could see the native Dominican population being overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of colonists.

Also as I recall, the North was beginning to tire of it's efforts to reconstruct the South, so as a way to alleviate the racial tensions in the South annexation and colonization of Dominican, the idea seems....interesting.
 
Yes, tens of thousands of black americans would look at the newly conquered land and think "I want in on this shit, fuck Liberia and the South!" Because half of an island with endemic revolts, a lack of well developed infrastructure, religious and cultural barriers (they speak Spanish? Naw, they'd drop it for English in a heartbeat), outbreaks of diseases, and some other issues wouldn't stop freedmen in their tracks. Marcus Garvey would ITTL be all about a "To that half of an Island D.C. stole" movement, fuck you Africa!

Sounds like accepting the political cry of a leader who was continually bent on fattening his wallet and not the well being of his erstwhile people would leave the Yanquis with less racial problems. Maybe they'd make their own Sun City ITTL like Boers in OTL so there would be resorts for the tired and overworked Americans. :cool:
 
hehehe well Novak I do believe that a little propaganda and goading would be needed, but I was just looking at a possible timeline not actually endorsing it.

hehe That would make a rather interesting timeline. :)
 
I always thought that 28-28 number was an interesting one. I'm in the camp that it would be getting an early Philippines-equivalent as much as an early Puerto Rico.

That said, once Congress has decided it's American, I can't see getting out of that. No one in Europe will be backing up the probable insurgency; at best Haiti will. So that means it's a tiny population trying to push out an adjacent proto-superpower. Poor odds, no matter how well they handle themselves.

No one is going to want to be in the party that gave up American territory, and in relative terms the forces and cost required to hold the place are quite small. Obviously neither Haiti and Spain could ever say that. Comparing the US to those two is comparing apples and raisins.

Probably it ends up in a similar status to Puerto Rico and stays there forever, or is stuck with a territorial status that ends with statehood sometime after 1950.

As others mentioned, I absolutely believe someone would suggest shoving black people to the place. I don't expect that it would go much of anywhere. In the long run I could see some migration by choice though, after the first quarter of the 20th century or so.
 
At the very least, it would be very interesting to see how the Dominicans would be forcibly classified as blacks and whether they would embrace it and become a sub-category within the African American community or reject it.
 
At the very least, it would be very interesting to see how the Dominicans would be forcibly classified as blacks and whether they would embrace it and become a sub-category within the African American community or reject it.

Who knows, they might well be classified as just a kind of "colored" (as mixed race people usually were at the time). Which, of course, wouldn't really change their status at all in terms of race laws, but still.
 
Who knows, they might well be classified as just a kind of "colored" (as mixed race people usually were at the time). Which, of course, wouldn't really change their status at all in terms of race laws, but still.

Ehhh.... Colored wasn't really so much an American thing though. Except of course when it was used as a synonym for black. We're not Brazil or Mexico or South Africa. For blacks it was the one drop rule.

Bet you anything the country treats them all as black excepting those that can pass, who are sometimes "Dominicans." To themselves, however, the old categories will remain, gradually fading in the face of a broader sense of Dominican-ness. Then sometime in the 20th century the nation will start to accept their view of themselves as non-black or not-just-black.
 
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At the very least, it would be very interesting to see how the Dominicans would be forcibly classified as blacks and whether they would embrace it and become a sub-category within the African American community or reject it.
They'd reject it vehemently. Anti-Haitianism had already seeped in and with it the racist association that black = Haitian.

You're going to see the Dominicans make up new categories for themselves, or conversely categorize American blacks separate yet of a higher social status than from Haitians. (IOTL they did the latter with West Indian people like Jamaicans). Which accent you carry will be an important factor in how you get treated.
 
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