“The Moral Miasma of the Tropics”- American Imperialism and the Failed Annexation of the Dominican Republic, 1869-1871”

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FIDEL TAVREZ

The Moral Miasma of the Tropics:

American Imperialism and the FailedAnnexation of the Dominican Republic,1869-1871[13/07/2011]

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Resmenes

Historians of American foreign relations have rarely paid attention to conceptual contestability in accounting for politicaldisputes over territorial expansion; often, concepts and ideologies are treated as mere self-interested rhetoric. This essayexamines an episode in the history of 19th century American imperial history from the perspective of an intellectual historykeenly aware of meaning and intention. It argues that the political conflict surrounding the ratification of the Santo DomingoAnnexation Treaty was defined by two contending conceptions regarding the influence that climate had on human morals.While some politicians argued that the tropics degenerated the Anglo-Saxon race, others dismissed this idea entirely.Moreover, the manifest concern with how territorial expansion affected the inner workings of the republic, suggests that thisepisode must be understood as part of the long republican tradition of the West. Lastly, although this paper primarily focuseson conceptual contestability, by combining some of the methodological insights of Reinhart Koselleck, Quentin Skinner andJ.G.A Pocock, it also proposes a way of reconciling the history of economic structures with the contextual history ofpolitical thought.

Entradas del ndice

Keywords : United States, Republicanism, Dominican Republic, Tropics, Annexation, ImperialismPalabras claves : Republicanismo, Estados Unidos, Repblica Dominicana, Trpico, Anexin, Imperialismo

Notas del autor

I want to give special thanks to Professor Gregory P. Downs, who provided me with a great deal of feedback, challenge,

insight and encouragement throughout the process of writing this article. His consistent support throughout my studies at the

City College of New York made my immersion in 19th century American history all the more enjoyable. I also want to

thank Professor Susan Besse, Michael Hattem and Will Hickox who commented on drafts of this paper.


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Texto integral

Introduction

Regarding the expansion of a republic, Machiavelli had construed a dilemma. While the expansion of a

republic leads to greatness, eventually the pursuit of greatness erodes the liberty of citizens, who would then

become consumed with ambition; liberty would disappear because the commitment to a robust civic culture thatinitially brought the republic to greatness would dwindle into the pursuit of luxury and self-enrichment[1]. Over

the course of the early modern period many sought to solve this dilemma either by accepting its tenets and

bringing new elements to the picture, or by seeking to contest the tension between greatness and libertyaltogether. And yet despite these efforts to solve Machiavellis problem the picture continued to frame how

theorists and politicians talked about territorial expansion. The question of expansion remained a problem that

affected the inner workings of the republic itself. In one regard then, the initial intellectual work required to

answer the question of territorial expansion had already been done for American politicians of the 19th century.In another, however, it was unfinished, for Americans had to adapt this framework to specific contexts.

1

In this essay I will explore how American politicians and legislators dealt with Machiavellis dilemma when

the Santo Domingo Annexation Treaty came up for debate in Congress between 1869 and 1871. The said treatywould have incorporated the Dominican Republic to the Union and its inhabitants would have become citizens

of the United States. Among the main supporters of this treaty was President Ulysses Grant, who argued that the

acquisition of Santo Domingo not only would have provided the United States with tremendous economic andstrategic benefits, but would have also ameliorated the racial problem in the United States; Grant believed that

Santo Domingo could function as a safe-haven for blacks who felt discriminated in the American mainland [2].

Not everybody shared Grants conviction about the benefits of incorporating a tropical territory to the Union.Senators Carl Schurz and Charles Sumner despised the idea of incorporating the tropics and in the end thwarted

Grants plans. Despite the failure of the annexation plan, this episode of American history constitutes a fertile

ground for investigating what kinds of dilemmas the United States faced when debating about expanding its

territory. What follows is a discussion of the intellectual origins of American territorial expansion, with aparticular focus on the case of Santo Domingo[3].

2

During the Congressional debates of 11 January 1871 Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri gave one of the most

powerful indictments against the ratification of the Santo Domingo Annexation Treaty. Schurz opposed the

treaty primarily because he deemed the tropical climate of Santo Domingo incommensurate with Americanvigor and democratic institutions. In reference to the North-American mainland, Schurz asserted, [h]ere the

genius of our race is fed by the very air we breathe [4]. When Senator Schurz alluded to the northern air, hemeant it quite literally. In his view, the temperate climate of the North provided Anglo-Saxons with vigor. Here

on our northern ground, we stand in our strength, he continued[5]. In opposition to annexing the Dominican

Republic, Schurz subsequently enjoined the Senate to beware of every addition in that quarter where the verysun hatches out the serpents eggs of danger to our republican institutions [6]. According to Schurz, the tropics

would powerfully and negatively affect the morals and democratic institutions of the United States. While

historians of science have studied how these kinds of ideas about the climate functioned in scientific circles, it

remains to be adequately explored how they infiltrated political discourse in the 19th century [7]. It will be one ofmy chief concerns in this essay to trace how some of these ideas infiltrated political discourse during the

debates for the ratification of the Santo Domingo Annexation Treaty[8].

3

This concern with the effects of climate was more than a simple rhetorical move, especially since Schurz

opposed the annexation of Santo Domingo despite acknowledging that in the tropics nature was bountiful.Schurz and his fellow Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts carried on the most arduous opposition to the

annexation treaty primarily on these grounds. Americans would not stop at Santo Domingo, but would continueannexing all the tropics and incorporating tropical peoples who had been driven to shiftlessness by the rays of

the sun. Even in reference to the American south, Schurz asserted that our country extends at present to a

region which is already in some degree infected by the moral miasma of the tropics [9]. Senator Schurz posited

that in the long run the acquisition of territory in the tropics would cause a descent to tyranny and the collapseof the United States[10].

4

For President Grant the picture looked different and more salutary indeed. Santo Domingo possessed the

richest soil, best and most capacious harbors, most salubrious climate, and the most valuable products,implicitly signaling its appropriateness and availability for Americans to exploit[11]. Because Grant and his

supporters in Congress did not posit that climate determined the nature of government institutions and the

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A Methodological Problem: Accounting forConceptual Contestability

nature of peoples willingness to work, the acquisition of the Dominican Republic could only offer tremendousrevenue opportunities to the United States[12]. Not only would annexation expand American markets, but it

would also furnish the most fertile land for the cultivation of commodities.

Nonetheless, Grant shared with Schurz a belief in American superiority in the Western Hemisphere. Grantargued that the acquisition of San Domingo is in adherence to the Monroe Doctrine it is asserting our just

claim to a controlling influence over the great commercial traffic soon to flow from the east to west by the way

of Isthmus of Darien[13]. He later concluded his annual message to Congress on 5 December , 1870 stating thatthe acquisition of Santo Domingo was a rapid stride toward that greatness which the intelligence, industry, and

enterprise of the citizens of the United States entitle this country to assume among nations [14]. Grant

legitimated his expansion plans by appealing to American exceptionalism. If both camps believed in thesuperiority of the citizens of the United States and the Anglo-Saxon race, how and why is it that they came tosuch diverging conclusions? To answer this question requires a departure from approaches that use normative

categories to explain American foreign policy. An inquiry into the forms of legitimation used by the historical

characters themselves promises a more historically accurate picture. Sumner and Schurz, recognized that naturewas bountiful in Santo Domingo, but for them this translated into shiftlessness. For Grant, the bountiful

nature of Santo Domingo could potentially increase American productivity and extend its markets. By closely

scrutinizing the language of the contending parties, one can see how different commitments about the effects ofclimate allowed both parties to come to different conclusions regarding the benefits of Santo Domingo.

6

On another level, there is no question that racial politics played a major role in the unfolding of this debate.

But, if indeed this episode was an extension of a homegrown Reconstruction debate regarding the place ofblacks in the United States as Nicholas Guyatt has argued [15], it also brought to the fore an old debate regarding

the expansion of a republic. Should the Republic choose greatness over liberty, or is liberty more important than

anything else? Machiavelli, Montesquieu, James Harrington and John Milton, to name a few, had all providedsolutions to this problem[16]. On one hand, Machiavelli believed greatness was the lesser evil, for anon-expansive republic that privileged the liberty of its citizens was bound to perish by the aggression of

conquering-states. In contrast, an expansive republic like Rome would achieve historical greatness despite its

eventual collapse. On the other hand, Harrington argued that Machiavelli had set-up a false dilemma. A republicdid not have to choose between greatness and liberty, but could achieve both; the key was moderation and

virtue. Schurz was not opposed to expansion entirely, but the tropics would erode the austere republican citizen

of the temperate climate[17]. Grant agreed with Machiavelli in that greatness represented a more worthy pursuit.This republican legacy suggests that ideological conventions played a more decisive role in American territorial

expansion than historians have acknowledged.

7

Historians of American Foreign Relations and imperialism have failed to study territorial expansion from theperspective of an intellectual history keenly aware of meaning and intention. According to this historiography,

whatever justifications Americans employed to justify expansion were mere rhetoric that veiled their interest in

exploiting foreign territories and peoples. This conviction has driven historians to search for the logic behindAmerican expansion and imperialism as a whole. Some have argued the United States has since its inception

entertained the idea of becoming an imperial power, but wasnt always as effective in doing so. Only after

accumulating experience did American imperial habits become effective[18]. Others have argued instead that

American exceptionalism provided the impetus for expansion. Under the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny andWhites Mans Burden, Americans sought to expand and control other territories to concretize their civilizing

mission and gain economic advantages[19]. But, this historiography takes economic benefits as a given, as

something that is self-evident trans-historically. In other words, they take for granted that an abundance ofnatural resources automatically translates into recognition of potential economic and political benefits. This was

not the case in the case of Santo Domingo. Whether the tropics and its natural resources could benefit the

American republic was one of the major ideological fault lines between the contending parties of the SantoDomingo Treaty.

8

Other historians have critiqued this historiography by discrediting the notion that American exceptionalism

provided the impetus for territorial expansion. Eric T. Love has forcefully has put forward this position by

reversing the insights of the previous historiography[20]. Love argues that imperialist politicians did not useracial rhetoric and American exceptionalism to justify their expansion schemes[21]. Instead, they reacted with

silences, disingenuous evasions, denials that race had anything to do with their expansionist projects. No

pragmatic politician or party would fix nonwhites at the center of its imperial policies. [22] The more serious

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problem with Loves argument is not that he reverses the previous historiography to the other extreme, but morefundamentally his willingness to introduce categories which could not have been available to the characters he

studies. Racism is such a category, which he defines as exclusionary relations of power based on race [23]. At

no point does he stop to interrogate what race meant to these characters, and whether the definitions of thecontending parties had different semantic alignments[24]. In introducing analytical categories exogenous to the

context he studies, Love uses his own univocal definition of racism to explain American imperial policy in the

19th century as a whole[25].This resort to analytical categories, hence, leaves Love at a street with no end when explaining President

Grants desire for annexing Santo Domingo. For Love, Grants behavior was an aberration consequence of

American investors entrepreneurial minds, who managed to lure the President. But if President Grant wasseduced by the economic benefits of Santo Domingo it was because the Dominican racial composition andclimate was not a hindrance. In seeing Grants desire for annexation as an aberration, Love conveniently

justifies his broader argument that racism prevented the United Sates from expanding. Although Loves

argument somewhat explains the ideals of Senator Schurz, who did not believe Dominicans could beincorporated to the union, the weakness of his argument is that whatever does not fit the equation is

subsequently categorized as an aberration.

10

An older historiography concerned more with economic developments and American industrialization inexplaining the United States turn to imperialism is the work of Walter LaFeber. According to LaFeber, during

this period instead of searching for farming, mineral, or grazing lands, Americans sought foreign markets for

agricultural staples or industrial goods[26]. In other words, the increasing productivity during the Americanindustrial revolution caused the United States to seek for markets outside its own borders. These two

factsthat by 1860 the industrial economy was already moving ahead rapidly and that the Civil War marked

the transference of power from planters to industrialists and financiersdo much to explain the dynamics of thenew empire[27]. Industrial development had increased productivity so much that the local American marketscould not maintain pace[28]. These structural transformations caused by a rapid industrialization certainly

explain why by the end of the 19th century, at the time of Spanish-American war, most American politicians no

longer saw the tropics as potentially threatening to American republican institutions, but ultimately leavesunanswered why the treaty for the annexation of the Dominican Republic was defeated in congress in 1870.

11

If by taking this broad approach we learn much about slow transformations in the economy and society, we

loose a sense of historical contingency. In other words, often broad approaches like these assume that first theUnited States was progressing towards some inevitable imperial end, and second that this transformation was a

natural and uncontested consequence of industrialization. This is precisely the kind of assumptions LaFeber

makes when he writes that the overseas empire that Americans controlled in 1900 was not a break in theirhistory, but a natural culmination[29]. This paper will show that this transformation was not at all a natural

culmination. Territorial expansion was a highly contested issue, and it was certainly not obvious or natural to

contemporaries of the latter half of the 19th century that the United States would later become an imperialpower.

12

This paper aims to redress the limitations of the existent historiography through a synchronic study of a

moment in the United Statesimperial history. A moment, as understood here, promises to show the contested

nature of territorial expansion. For all its difference, the existent historiography gives a level of coherence toAmerican policy, which is not sustainable after looking at the political debates that pervaded any given

policy. These characterizations obtain their heuristic capacity at the expense of obscuring a more complicated

and messy political process, which cannot always be reduced to coherence or structural transformations. TheCambridge schools contextual approach poses an important methodological insight for accounting for

contingency and conceptual contestability. One main contribution of Quentin Skinner and J.G.A Pocock has

been to alert historians to approach the past as a foreign country. The task of reproducing foreign contexts then

is one of meticulously studying what kinds of problems political thinkers sought to solve when makingstatements outlining or demanding political action[30]. To the extent possible, Skinner believes that intellectual

historians must endeavor to explain how particular enunciations were rational (though I would prefer to use

the word legitimate) to the historical characters who pronounced them, rather than seeking to expose theirfalsity or irrationality[31].

13

While Skinner provided a framework for historically reconstructing problems, one of Pococks contributions

was to provide a method for studying political conflict through the study of the solutions historical figuresprovided for these problems. In his vast historical production, Pocock consistently talks about political

languages, paradigms and discourses. What Pocock is hinting at here is particular semantic fields or ways of

talking and thinking about politics that can coexist in a given context and that function as frameworks forconceptualizing solutions to political problems[32]. If indeed a shared set of problems are the premise for a

coherent political debate, Pococks insights demonstrate that solutions can be proposed from different semantic

fields and vantage points; here rests an important way of accounting for conceptual contestability[33].

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Annexation Precedents

Nonetheless, it is no surprise that carefully constructed structural accounts can yield powerful insights aboutdominant positions and long term transformations. Thus, Reinhart Kosellecks insights can complement the

Cambridge Schools contextual approach by bringing conceptual transformation into the picture[34]. Koselleck

has sought for non-reductive ways of combining the insights of social and intellectual history [35]. Central to hisproject is a radical historicization of the categories by which people understand the world around them. Thus,

his proposals are fundamentally against a scientific social history that understands historical change by

pre-established categories. For Koselleck, social history must in some respect also be conceptual history.Koselleck does not dismiss social, political and economic structure in his methodology, but for him, concepts

not only influence the nature of the particular structure of a context but they function as a vehicle for

understanding them[36]. In what follows we shall see first, a synchronic study the case of Santo Domingo andsecond, a conclusion with a diachronic optic that gives some tentative suggestions about the relationshipbetween structural and conceptual change in the history of American imperialism.

15

The American desire to acquire Santo Domingo dates back to 1854, when the American agent William L.

Cazneau drafted a treaty for the cessation of the Bay of Saman, which was to serve as an American Naval

station. The treaty nearly succeeded, but was met with some resistance from anti-expansionists [37]. Owning land

in Santo Domingo, Cazneau did not entirely abandon his project, but by 1860 it became apparent to him that theDominican president Pedro Santana was shifting his attention towards Spain [38]. He was not mistaken as

Santana annexed the Dominican Republic to Spain in 1861. But Cazneau and his business associate Joseph W.

Fabens continued to devise new ways of making their business schemes work in the Dominican Republic. In1862 these entrepreneurs formed the American West India Company, with the purpose of luring American

Settlers to relocate to Santo Domingo[39]. Nonetheless, the Civil War significantly shifted the United States

attention to internal affairs, and it was not until 1866, after the Civil War and the Dominican Restoration warhad ended, that Secretary of State William H. Seward rekindled his interest in Santo Domingo and visited the

island[40]. Seward began the negotiations with President Jos Mara Cabral but could not manage to consolidate

support for annexation. Negotiations resumed once again in 1868, when Buenaventura Baez, now the president

in the Dominican Republic, expressed his interest not only in annexing the bay of Saman but the wholecountry[41].

16

Since its independence from Haiti in 1844, the Dominican Republic suffered from ubiquitous political and

economic instability. With presidents lasting very little, the country was constantly subjected to bitter politicalbattles. But, the unstable situation of the Dominican Republic was exacerbated when in 1861 president Pedro

Santana annexed the republic to Spain. Fearful of the consequences of a Spanish recolonization, peasants,

intellectuals and sections of the elite alike took arms and fiercely fought against the Spanish empire in a warknown as the Restoration. Spain had hoped to consolidate the hegemony they once had over the Spanish

speaking Caribbean, but the inhabitants of Santo Domingo stood their ground and defeated the Spanish armies.

Nonetheless, despite the triumph of the Dominican Republic in obtaining its independence in 1865, the fragilepolitical condition continued unabated. In fact, given that the war against Spain was conducted using guerilla

tactics, in 1865 the territory was dominated by several dozen military leaders, all of whom claimed their

prerogative for leading the country[42]. Fragmentation was especially acute between the political leaders of

the north, who exported tobacco and the leaders of the south, who had large cattle ranches. From 1865 to 1869,when the annexation treaty was redacted, the presidency of the Dominican Republic oscillated between General

Jos Mara Cabral and Buenaventura Bez.

17

In the economy the prospects seemed even worse given the virtual collapse of agricultural production duringthe years of Spanish rule. In the same token, the Dominican state also lacked infrastructure for generating

income, which the government needed primarily for military equipment to combat the opposition. Thus, inNovember 1866 General Cabral secretly began negotiating a treaty for selling the bay of Saman to the UnitedStates[43]. But Cabral could not maintain power and Bez assumed the presidency on 2 May 1868[44]. Not

withstanding, Bez also realized that he needed capital if he was to stay in power. A few days after assuming the

presidency he contacted the American Secretary of State William Seward and confessed that he was willing tosell the bay of Saman for a million dollars in gold and one hundred thousand dollars in arms and munitions [45].

But, despite Sewards and President Andrew Johnsons support for the purchase of Saman, the process was too

slow for Bez, who needed the money quickly to combat his opponents. In desperate need of money, President

Bez negotiated a high interest rate loan of approximately two million dollars with an English adventurernamed Edward Hartmont. Unfortunately for Bez, Hartmont was only able to procure a small portion of the

accorded amount.

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Debating the Annexation of Santo Domingo

Although the money obtained from Harmonts loan was enough for Bez to temporarily combat theopposition, he soon realized that he needed a more substantial amount of money. In 1869 he contacted President

Ulysses Grant informing him that he was willing to annex the entire island to the United States. Consequently,

President Grant sent his fellow military veteran of the Civil War General Orville Babcock in order to commencethe negotiations[46]. Concerned with the racial composition of the Dominican Republic, Secretary of State

Hamilton Fish ordered Babcock to collect surveys and statistics of the amount of whites, and mulattoes that

lived in Santo Domingo[47]. After a series of meetings with the Dominican president, Babcock returned toWashington on September 1869 with a preliminary sketch of an annexation treaty[48].

19

The Treaty was signed on November 1869, after Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, transformed Babcocks

preliminary sketch into a formal treaty. The said treaty stipulated that the Dominican Republic would give up itssovereignty in exchange for $1.5 million and the payment of the nations foreign debt. Moreover, the Treaty

also affirmed that if congress were to reject the treaty, the United States could, not withstanding, proceed to

purchase the bay of Saman alone. Had it been approved, the treaty would have also incorporated Dominicans

as American citizens, and Santo Domingo may have been admitted into the union.

20

On 10 January 1870, the treaty was submitted for evaluation to the Foreign Relations Committee where it sat

ignored until 15 March 1870. Senator Charles Sumner, who at the time led the committee, appears to have

purposely delayed the evaluation. But, on 15 March Sumner condemned the treaty and advised the Senateagainst ratification. On 14 March 1870, a day before Senator Sumner condemned the treaty, President Grant

unsuccessfully tried to persuade the senate with a notice reminding senators of the benefits that awaited the

United States would it approve the treaty[49]

. The debates about the annexation were resumed in the Senate on24 March 1870, but they reached no agreement and the treaty expired on 29 March. The Grant administration

refused to give-up, and secretary of state Hamilton Fish managed to sign and extension of the treaty[50]. The

senate vote was finally cast on 30 June; it ended in a tie and the treaty felt short of the two thirds needed for

ratification.

21

Although this treaty had become one of the preeminent issues of the Grant administration, its ratification was

barely discussed in congress. This lack of concern for the treaty was perhaps due to Senator Sumners efforts to

thwart Grants endeavors. Though Grant submitted the treaty for ratification on January 1870, as the chief of theCommittee on Foreign Relations, Sumner did not give any recommendation to congress until 16 March

1870[51]. The Committee on Foreign Relations issued a recommendation against the ratification of the treaty just

thirteen days before the treaty expired on 29 March. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish managed to get anextension on the treaty, but even then it was only discussed in late June shortly before it was defeated on

30 June[52].

22

President Grant had still not given up his hopes. Upon witnessing the rejection of the annexation treaty, Grantdecided to pursue the purchase of the bay of Saman instead. On 7 July, Grant sent a letter to the Dominican

President Baez expressing regrets for the rejection of the treaty and asking for a renewal treaty for the

occupancy of the Bay of Samana[53]. Months after the treaty was defeated, President Grant continued to insist

on the Annexation of Santo Domingo. On 17 October President Grant wrote to President Baez once againexpressing that his interest in extending the authority of the United States over the Territory, and people of San

Domingo is unabated[54]. Perhaps, Grant was waiting for the Congressional elections of November 1870 to

conclude.

23

On 5 December 1870 during his annual address President Grant still had hopes of acquiring Santo Domingo,

or at the very least the bay of Saman. In a draft of his annual address, Grant recommended for a commission to

be sent to the Dominican Republic to inquire about the status Santo Domingo in regards to annexation and thepotential benefits that the territory could provide to the United State. In the Draft, Grant wrote, so convinced

am I of the advantages to flow from the acquisition of San Domingo, and the great disadvantages, I might

almost say calamity, to flow from non acquisition, that I believe the subject has only to be investigated to beapproved[55]. Ultimately, this recommendation did not make it to the official annual message, perhaps because

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish told the President that he had the constitutional right to appoint such

commission and that he only had to ask congress for the expenses of such commission. [56]

24

In his official annual message of December 5, President Grant vehemently rearticulated the reasons for whichthe annexation of Santo Domingo would be favorable to the United States. For Grant, not only had the

Dominican people willingly agreed to annex their territory, but Santo Domingo possessed one the richest

territories under the sun, capable of supporting a population of ten millions of people, in luxury [57]. Not onlydid Santo Domingo posses the most salubrious climate, but it also commanded the entrance to the Caribbean

sea and the isthmus transit of commerce[58]. For President Grant, there was nothing to loose and much to gain

from the acquisition of Santo Domingo; it would certainly expand American markets and increase productivity.Annexation would not only give the people Santo Domingo remunerative wages, but also Porto Rico and

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Debating in Congress

Cuba will have to abolish slavery, as a measure of self-preservation, to retain their laborers[59].Also in December of 1870 Senator Sumner gave one of the most powerful condemnations of the Presidents

pursuits, critiquing Grants use of the American Navy for the protection of Buenaventura Bezs regime[60].

More importantly for this essay, Sumner argued that leaving the Dominican people to govern themselves was inaccordance with natural law. Sumner asserted that Santo Domingo is theirs [of the people of Santo Domingo]

by right of possession, by their sweat and blood mingling with the soil, by tropical position, by its burning sun,

and by the unalterable laws of climate. The independence of Santo Domingo is as sacred to them[Dominicans] as is ours to us, and it is placed under the safeguard of natural laws which we cannot violate with

impunity[61]. Sumners conception of natural law carried climactic deterministic undertones that were later

exalted by Senator Schurz.

26

Early in 1871 secretary of state Hamilton Fish drafted a resolution for a Santo Domingo commission that was

to investigate the state of the Caribbean country. President Grant intended to present the resolution to both, theHouse of Representatives and the Senate concurrently[62]. The resolution was approved on 10 January 1871 by

the House of Representatives, and on 15 January President informed President Bez that he had appointed three

men to visit the Dominican Republic in accordance with resolution approved by both houses of Congress.[63]

Congressional debates took place on January 10and 11, and then again on March 27, 28 th, and 29th. Some of themost acrimonious debates occurred on January 1871, where Senator Carl Schurz became one of the most ardent

critics of the annexation of Santo Domingo. Throughout the course of these debates Schurz was to expound

clearly his ideas about the negative influence about tropical climate of Santo Domingo.

27

During the debates of January 11, Senator Schurz passionately opposed the resolution for sending

commissioners to Santo Domingo to investigate the state of that republic. Senator Schurz articulated one the

most arduous and sharp criticisms against the Annexation Treaty. Some of the senators on Grants side atseveral points attempted to intervene and defend the annexation, but Schurz virtually monopolized the floor.

Schurz began his critique by posing the question: who needs that information?[64] Schurz continued by

asserting that the information was certainly not for the senators who supported the treaty as they had made their

minds up already, and even less for the president for he has told us in his message that it was that it was an actof folly to reject the annexation of San Domingo, and that it would be a great calamity to this country if that act

should be repeated[65]. Schurz continued by asking is it unreasonable, when making up a bill of the subjects

which are to be inquired into, that the desires of those who stand in need of that information should beconsulted?[66] According to Schurz, the resolution was unreasonable because those who most needed the

information had not been consulted. For instance, Schurz wanted to know whether it was true that the American

Navy had upheld the government of President Baez. For Schurz the only way to prove this was by withdrawingthe American Navy from Santo Domingo. If the Dominican people rebelled once the American naval power

had been removed, then this would prove that they did not want to be annexed to the United States all along [67].

With these denunciations Schurz established that he was firmly opposed to sending commissioners to SantoDomingo.

28

Nonetheless, the more interesting remarks deal with his concern with the nefarious climate of the tropics. For

Schurz, the commissioners must not solely be sent for a few weeks for they are to be sent off at once, and to

return before the hot season commences, so that they may have no unpleasant experiences of the climate of thatisland[68]. Schurz continued by asserting that if that commission were to inquire conscientiously into all the

subjects enumerated in the joint resolution it would require at least from three to five years to arrive at a result

of real value[69]. In other words, Schurz advocated for a longer investigation particularly because he wanted tosee the effects of the tropical weather. Schurz was convinced that the tropical climate had a negative effect on

people.

29

From our present perspective climactic determinism might seem odd; it certainly is difficult to think that apolitician in 19th-century United States would really believe in such a theory. Perhaps this explains why

historians of American foreign relations have seldom paid attention to the role of scientific beliefs in

politics[70]. But upon examining the works of some of the major political theorists of Western thought likeAristotle, Emmanuel Kant, David Hume, Montesquieu, Hegel, John Locke and many more, it becomes clear

that for much of Western history there has been a propensity for using moralistic idioms about the climate, to

use David N. Livingstones words[71]. As Dr. Livingstone has proven in his studies of geographical thought, this

moral economy of climate persisted in scientific circles well into the 20th century[72]. What was typical aboutthis climactic moral discourse was that it saw no problem with explaining differences in human qualities and

characteristics by resorting to geographical and climactic zones[73]. As a result, geography and climate on the

one hand, and phenotype and mental capacities/propensities on the other, were thought to be directly

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proportional. These climactic beliefs were not just silly concoctions, but essential parts of the legitimatingarsenal of American politicians and legislators.

Schurz dared other Senators to show him a single instance of the successful establishment and peaceable

maintenance for a respectable period of republican institutions, based upon popular self-government, under atropical sun[74]. Schurz subsequently summarized his argument when he affirmed that you cannot show me a

single tropical country on the face of the globe where labor, if left free, did not run into shiftlessness, and where

attempts were not made to establish or revive something akin to slavery [75]. Here Schurz identified his twomajor problems with tropical climate: first, it leads to shiftlessness and vagrancy, and second, this shiftlessness

causes governments to implement slavery.

31

Deeply concerned about the racial make-up of the tropics, Senator Schurz asserted that the question beforeus is one of the most momentous problems that has ever occupied the attention of the congress. The problemwas not strictly about the annexation of Santo Domingo, but about whether we should incorporate American

tropics in our political system[76]. Schurz was deeply worried about incorporating Santo Domingo, because the

result of such annexation would be a domino effect and the Anglo-Saxon race will not stop until we haveeverything down to isthmus of Darien[77].

32

To support his argument about the negative influence of tropical climate on people, Schurz utilized the

example of Haiti. There was Toussaint LOuverture, the great emancipator of the island of San Domingo heasserted[78]. According to Schurz, this great emancipator abolished slavery, yet even then could not avoid

implementing forced labor laws. He [Toussaint] issued ordinances and laws and instructions which

commanded every possessor of a landed estate to see to it that the laborers who had been working on that estatewere kept to work, if need be, by force[79]. Schurz did not condone this practice, but he believed that in

tropical climates such measures of forced labor were inevitable[80]. Even the Anglo-Saxon race has not been

able to escape the government of those laws, in spite of its native vigor, he continued [81]. According to Schurz,the problem with the tropics is that wherever nature is so bountiful as to render constant labor superfluous,there man has, as far as out observations go, always degenerated the tropical sun inflames the imagination to

inordinate activity and develops the government of the passions[82]. For Schurz, the tropics did not provide

people with enough struggle to make them efficient and hard-working.

33

Schurz believed that struggle was a prerequisite for a hard-working character and in turn democratic and free

government institutions. In the temperate zone man finds himself confronted by a nature not bountiful enough

to yield him sustenance without struggle, but fully bountiful enough to amply reward any strong and welldirected effort[83]. With the constant obstacles for survival in the north, Schurz believed that men of temperate

climates developed strong bodies and above all inventive faculties[84]. As opposed to tropical climates, in

temperate climates the exigencies of life render it necessary that the different elements and forms of societyshould cooperate together for common interests[85]. According to this view, in temperate climates cooperation

and strong social institutions are a requirement for survival. But yet more importantly, in temperate climates

the opinion of the few must, in the management of common affairs and for the good of society, yield to theopinion of the many, and constitutional government is the natural result[86]. Here Schurzs climaticdeterminism becomes apparent; in the temperate zones, strong societal institutions and hence constitutional

government are an inevitable prerequisite for survival, whereas in tropical zones people can survive without any

cooperation or constitutional government because nature is bountiful.

34

The Tropics hence, posed a threat to the innovative and hard-working nature of Anglo-Saxons since even

the Anglo-Saxon race has not been able to escape the government of those laws, in spite of its native vigor[87].

Whereas, Grant saw massive opportunities for economic development in Santo Domingo, Schurz posited that inthe long run the effects of the annexation would be the reverse; it would be the economic degeneration of the

United States since wherever nature is so bountiful as to render constant labor superfluous, there man has as

far as our observations go, always degenerated[88]. Schurz then gives a list of different countries of the tropics

and their failed attempts of progress.

35

In a counterintuitive passage Schurz affirms that even the southern portion of the United States has had to

deal with the perilous tropical climate. In the North the dignity of labor asserted itself, with its instincts and

impulses of enterprise, of enlightenment, of education, of social and political equality, of a progressivecivilization, of free government, the south developed the rule by force [89]. Schurz proceeded to proclaim that

the civil war was not a mere historical accident, but a conflict between two different currents of civilization

developed under different natural influences[90]. Institutions of slavery are rather symptoms than causes[91].With these words Schurz confirmed his propensity for resorting to moralistic idioms when talking about the

climate. Climate and currents of civilization, are thus rendered directly proportional.

36

There is no doubt that he thought the different races were marked by distinct essential qualities. Asopposed to Grant who posited that the Dominican people need the help and guidance of the United States,

Schurz thought that Dominicans were rather hopeless. You cannot exterminate them all, he remarked. You

must try to incorporate them with out political system [92]. The people of the tropics had nothing in common

37


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with Anglo-Saxons; they did not even posses a code of morals. Schurz reached the climax of hiscondemnation when he referred to the racial degeneration that the acquisition of the tropics would have

entailed. The Anglo-Saxon will lose more than the Africo-Indo-Latin mixture will gain. This will be

assimilation indeed, but it will be assimilation downward[93]. Schurz continued monopolizing the debate withhis long and vivacious remarks. Senators Oliver P. Morton (Indiana) and Willard Warner (Alabama) tried to

counteract Schurzs climatic deterministic arguments by pointing out that Great Britain managed to obtain

significant profit from India despite this territorys tropical climate. But, Schurz responded with his previousassertion; the tropics cause degeneracy. In India, Schurz stated with sarcasm, Great Britain has not failed in

starting and carrying on a rapacious tyranny[94].

In a worldview where democracy, morality, hard-working character, and inventive faculty are the inevitableconsequence of the temperate zones, then nothing can be more perfidious than a climate which producesopposite effects, such as the tropics. In essence, Schurz believed that American political and economic

greatness depended on Anglo-Saxons living in their natural habitat, the northern temperate territories.

Expanding to the tropics would ultimately degenerate Anglo-Saxon vigor and incessant drive towardsdemocratic institutions. The result would be the implementation of tyranny in the tropical islands.

38

Behind Schurzs fierce attacks of the tropical climate underlay a set of traditional republican anxieties. The

republican theory of government, dating back to antiquity and reignited during the renaissance and the earlymodern period, defended the liberty of citizens who participate in the process of making laws to avoid the

arbitrary particular will of tyrants. The rule of law was sacred for this theory of government because a citizen

was not free from the law but by the law. Moreover, to prevent the republic from loosing its liberty, citizenscould not be dependent on the will of others. Hence, a fair level of equality was often one of its main tenets.

Although the pursuit of wealth and power were not always in contradiction with republican government, it was

indeed in tension. The pursuit of individual wealth tended to deemphasize the active citizen who endeavors topreserve the common good. An unmediated desire for personal wealth threatened to make some citizensdependent on others, and as a consequence generate tyranny (a government without liberty governed by the

arbitrary will of a single or few individuals)[95].

39

Schurzs argument could be narrated in a typically republican fashion. A republican government requires thecommitment of austere citizens, who live in the temperate climate where nature is not bountiful. In the north of

the United States, citizens have to struggle and cooperate with each other to survive. In turn, this fosters a

robust civic culture that privileges the common good rather than the individual, and as consequence ensuresrepublican liberty. But, the republic has to consistently confront the danger of corruption. The expansion of the

republics territory is one such danger, for it can foment individual ambition and self-enrichment. If President

Grant were to succeed in annexing Santo Domingo, republican liberty would be lost, individuals would be luredby luxury and power, and the republic would not be able to contain its desire for expansion and greatness.

Tyranny would ensue, and like Rome the republic would collapse. There is no doubt that Schurz was

deliberately defending a version of classical republicanism to oppose the Annexation treaty. This suggests thatdespite recent rebuttals of the American republican synthesis generated by an earlier generation of scholars[96],republicanism continued to exercise a powerful influence 19th century American politics[97].

40

His defense of traditional republican principles not withstanding, Schurzs condemnation of expansion must

be contextualized in the Reconstruction debate for constructing a unified nation. It is clear that antebellumdebates surrounding American territorial expansion were centered on the issue of slavery, including whether it

was justifiable to expand the institution of slavery to newly acquired territories[98]. But, the Civil War and the

abolition of slavery significantly transformed the course of territorial expansion disputes. With slavery legallycondemned, the debates about American expansion shifted to whether any given territory could provide

economic benefits without threatening national cohesion[99]. Climate and race became central concerns in

determining the benefits of acquiring foreign territories. Put in Skinnerean terms, the question which President

Grant and Senator Schurz confronted was whether a multiracial republic spanning large territories and distinctclimates could maintain liberty and national cohesion. Guyatt is right in pointing out that the Santo Domingo

debate was an extension of a Reconstruction homegrown debate regarding black inclusion[100]. But, I would add

that it was also a debate about the workings of the republic and the maintenance of liberty. Schurz argued thatblacks could be incorporated, but only in temperate climates. In contrast, Grant argued that the Union could be

maintained only if sectional strife was reduced and economic prosperity accomplished. A territory in the

Caribbean would both foster cohesion by giving blacks the opportunity to flee discrimination, and contribute tothe economic development of the nation.

41

In contrast to Schurz, supporters of the treaty defended the greatness that would come from expanding and

the legitimacy of Americas civilizing mission. Previously on the joint resolution was presented to the House ofRepresentatives on 10 January 1871, William L. Stoughton (Michigan) did not withhold the opportunity to

commend the treaty, for its alleged judicious application of the Monroe Doctrine, and because it was

sanctioned by the practice of the Government for the last seventy years [101]. Stoughton proceeded to juxtapose

42


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Conclusion: A Diachronic Experiment

the prospective annexation of Santo Domingo to the incorporation of Lousianna, Florida, Texas, New Mexico,California, and Alaska. The representative of Michigan appealed to widespread notion that American expansion

was legitimate as long as it was a contiguous territory. The island of Santo Domingo is lying contiguous to our

coast, Stoughton suggested. By equating Santo Domingo to Alaska, Stoughton, much like Grant did not resortto moralistic idioms when talking about the climate. Indeed, Machiavelli had set a precedent regarding the

greatness of expanding, but these supporters seemed to have expounded a liberal argument of commerce,

security and civilization.The Representative from Michigan most certainly was aware of the racial composition of the Dominican

Republic but he nevertheless refrained from offering racial considerations. The only thing the representative had

to say about the Dominican people, was that if the people of San Domingo are desirous of annexation upon fairand reasonable terms, and if no causes exist rendering annexation unjust or inexpedient, the annexation wouldfurnish the people of that republic with what they greatly need and desire, a good stable Government, and

secure their future tranquility and happiness[102]. What is at work here is a paternalism predicated on the need

for the culturally advanced American to help and guide less developed people.

43

Stoughtons remarks were compatible with Grants line of thinking. On 31 May 1870, President Grant had

asserted that the cheap rate at which her citizens can be furnished with food will make it necessary that the

contiguous island should have the same advantages in order to compete in the production of sugar, coffee,tobacco, tropical fruits, etc.[103]. But, Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri would later suggest the opposite. For

Senator Schurz, the Caribbean islands were foreign waters; Santo Domingo was a strip of territory on our

frontier[104]. Schurz implied that Santo Domingo was in the frontier, emphasizing its separation and hostility.

44

For the senators who were on Grants side and favored the annexation treaty, the problem with Schurzs

argument was precisely his climatic determinism. Senator William Stewart (Nevada) for instance, asserted I

should like to inquire of the senator from Missouri if there was any better condition of government in Californiathan in any other part of Mexico while it was a portion of Mexico; and if change of allegiance has not entirelychanged the condition of the people greatly for the better? [105] Senator Stewart continued saying that he would

prove to the senator that it was not a question of climate that affected their condition, because there was an

illustration where they [Mexicans] had the finest climate in the world. Senator Stewart argued that whileMexicans had a fine climate in California, they had not established democratic institutions. Only when the

Unites States annexed California did that territory prosper in democratic institutions. Might not that occur in

San Domingo, or in Sonora; or in Sinalon if we were to annex it? Senator Stewart affirmed[106].

45

At another instance Senator Morton (Indiana), brought up the case of India to counteract Schurzs climatic

determinism. I might refer him to the possessions that England has in India, and from which she has drawn

countless millions, I might say billions of wealth, for the last one hundred and twenty five years. [107] TheAnglo-Saxon race have not failed in India. The vigor of the Anglo-Saxon race in that country is such that a

few thousand or a few hundred thousand govern two hundred and fifty millions of native Hindoos. [108] In

contrast to climatic determinists, Senator Morton did not espouse that climate had anything to with economicdevelopment, morality, hard-working character and democratic institutions

46

Despite President Grants effort, his plans to annex the Dominican Republic were not achieved. This conflict

over Santo Domingo ultimately stained President Grants reputation. By March 1871, when Santo Domingo

was brought up for debate again in the Senate, the topic was no longer about sending a commission or aboutratifying a treaty, but about Grants purported unconstitutional use of the American navy. Senator Sumner

accused President Grant of using American naval power to maintain Dominican president Buenaventura Baez

in power against the will of the Dominican people. Grant insisted that he had merely sent American naval shipsto the Dominican Republic to protect against attacks from Haitian aggressors and that he did not interfere with

the internal political affairs of that country[109]. Nonetheless, the issue of Santo Domingo continued to be a

matter of debate well into 1874, years after the Treaty was defeated in Congress. Thus, at stake in Santo

Domingo was not merely an opportunity for profit, but an intellectual dispute about the political form anddestiny of the republic.

47

Although at the turn of 19th century the resort to climactic determinism significantly diminished in political

discourse, it certainly continued to thrive in scientific circles, even if not univocally. As late as 1947, French

geographer Pierre Gourou, wrote that in physical and mental activity man is restricted in the tropics by

serious maladies whose existence is entirely due to the hot, damp climate [110]. Certainly not all of Gourousideas coincided with Schurzs, but what is important to note is their resort to a moral economy of the climate[111]. Despite this persistence of moralistic idioms of the climate in scientific discourse, it certainly did not go

unchallenged. In the 1890s Dr. Louis Westenra Sambon declared in the Royal Geographical society of London

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Notas

[1] Machiavelli painted this picture in his Discourses on Livy. For an analysis of Machiavellis dilemma see DavidArmitage, Empire and Liberty: A Republican Dilemma, in Republicanism: A Shared European History, vol. II, eds.,Martin Van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 29-46.

[2] The United States had previously attempted to relocate blacks to Liberia and Haiti to solve the racial problem.

[3] I adopt the phrase intellectual origins from David Armitage, who uses the term not to connote beginnings, but ratherideological conventions and debates. See Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000.

[4]Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 3d sess., app.: 33 (1871).

[5] Ibid.[6] Ibid.

[7] An exception to this is the work of Robert J. Mayhew, who has studied the connection between geography and politics inBritain from 1650-1850. In his book, Mayhew argues that before the nineteenth century writings in geography were notmeant to elucidate scientific knowledge in terms of how well data was gathered and how trustworthy data helped peoplemake predictions. Instead, he proposes that geography was embedded in a culture of civic humanism that subordinatedmany forms of knowledge to the political, a realm akin to what we would call today high politics. Thus, geography was ameans to an end that functioned as a tool for political disputes. It is no surprise to see that geography books includedsections on history, laws and constitutions of particular places along with topographical and environmental descriptions. SeeRobert J. Mayhew, Enlightenment Geography: The Political Languages of British Geography, 1650-1850, Great Britain,Macmillan Press Ltd, 2000. But, Mayhews book is concerned with something different than I am here.

[8] An interesting example of how moralistic idioms of the climate infiltrated politics in early America can be found inDavid N. Livingstone, Risen into Empire Moral Geographies of the American Republic, in Geography and Revolution,eds., David N. Livingstone and Chales W. J. Withers, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 304-335.

that the problem of the tropics was not one of climate, but of hygiene. Dr. Sambon even pointed out that inmany European urban centers life was more threatening than in the tropics. Behind this conviction underlay

Sambons desire to convince his European audience that the cause of disease, whether in the tropics or

anywhere else, was due to parasites rather than climate[112]. In Sambons view, the tropics had not to be fearedprovided that appropriate hygienic measures were taken.

Nonetheless, the support for American territorial expansion towards the end of the 19th century cannot only

be explained by the dwindling influence of moralistic idioms about the climate in Western thought. Even amongthose scientists who condoned the moral economy of the climate, acclimatization now seemed more like a

possibility. One of the most important scholars of geography at Harvard, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, began to

place emphasis on the eugenic and Lamarckian conviction of hereditary biological and cultural traits of humandevelopment in the 1890s. In other words, what determined civilization, morals and mental capabilities was not

just the climate, but now an array of mutually reactive factors. For Shaler, while climate could influence human

characteristics, so could human biological, cultural and intellectual inheritances modify the environment[113].

The relationship between climate and human characteristics was not as unidirectional as it had been for SenatorSchurz.

49

In political discourse, the frontier no longer seemed like a threatening conceptual space, as it was for Schurz.

The constant threat and encounter with the frontier was now the source of Anglo-Saxon inventiveness,creativity and democratic institutions according to Frederick Jackson Turners frontier thesis. It is plausible,

then, to infer that the development of different branches of scientific knowledge, the rapid industrialization of

the United States, and the virtual disappearance of climatic determinism from political language, togetherprovided a context more amenable to American expansion in the tropics towards the end of the

19th century[114]. It is more than coincidence that by late 19th century the United States was seriously

considering expanding to Hawaii and later to the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

50

If the craft of the historian consists primarily in studying events of change, in this essay I did quite theopposite: I studied a non-event. That is, an event that was imagined, debated about, planned for and envisioned,

but not carried out. The value of this study is not identifying a turning point, but instead viewing the nature of

the debates that were aimed at producing some sort of change. As the episode of American history studied hereconveys, territorial expansion to Santo Domingo was an issue of whether the tropics were conducive to

economic benefits and institutional stability. As this study conveys, economic opportunity, racism or any

number of other analytical and trans-historical categories should not alone be the focus of the history ofAmerican foreign relations. Notions of economic opportunity and racism are both powerfully shaped by

peoples assumptions regarding humans and the different races. It is because of this that I have become

strongly convinced that historians of American foreign policy should begin to write histories attentive tomeaning and intention; the task should be to adequately reconstruct contexts by investigating what kinds of

problems politicians confronted when proposing any particular solution.

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Nevertheless, in this essay Livingstone is not interested in the contested nature of moralistic idioms about the climate, butrather on how these helped forge an American national identity in the early republic. Moreover, he also does not focus onhow these ideas influenced debates about territorial expansion.


[10] I find it useful to think about the tropics not just as a physical objective entity, but also as a conceptual space. Forinstance, influenced by the work of Edward Said, David Arnold asserts that calling a part of the globe the tropics (or bysome equivalent term, such as the equatorial region or torrid zone) became, over the centuries, a Western way of definingsomething culturally alien, as well as environmentally, from Europe (especially northern Europe) and other parts of thetemperate zone. See Davis Arnold, Inventing Tropicality, in The Problem of Nature: Environment, Culture and EuropeanExpansion, Cambridge, MA, Blackwell Publishers, 1996, p. 142. For an insightful collection of essays that documentmultiple ways in which the tropical domain was conceptualized see Felix Driver and Luciana Martins, eds., Tropical Visions

in an Age of Empire, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005.[11] U.S. Senate Journal41st Cong., 3d sess., 5 December 1870.

[12] The underlying assumption behind Grants convictions was the idea that humans could conquer nature and adapt to allsorts of environments. President Abraham Lincoln also agreed with the ideals of Grant, and accused climactic determinismof being a lullaby argument. It is important to note, however, that Lincoln used this argument to warn that slavery couldpotentially be expanded to the northern temperate zone and that the only way of barring it was to make slavery illegal andimmoral in the minds of all men. Cited in Kagan, op. cit., 235.

[13] U.S. Senate Journal41st Cong., 3d sess., 5 December 1870.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Nicholas Guyatt, Americas Conservatory: Race, Reconstruction, and the Santo Domingo Debate, The Journal ofAmerican History, March 2011 (vol. 97), no. 4, pp. 974-1000.

[16] See Armitage, Empire and Liberty: A Republican Dilemma, inRepublicanism...; Paul A. Rahe,Montesquieu and theLogic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political

Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009, 27-42; Armitage, John

Milton: Poet Against Empire, in Milton and Republicanism, eds. Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

[17] In fact, Schurz was an advocate of the incorporation of Alaska. Unlike Santo Domingo, Alaska was in the temperatezone.

[18] Walter Nugent,Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

[19] Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco Scarano, Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State ,Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2009; George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relationssince 1776, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008; Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy, New Haven, YaleUniversity Press, 1988; Michael Adas,Dominance by Design, Technological Imperatives and Americas Civilizing Mission,Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

[20] Eric T. Love, Race Over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900, Chapel Hill, The University of NorthCarolina Pres, 2004, p. xi.

[21] He asserts that the annexation of Hawaii and the 1898 imperial moment only occurred because skillful politiciansmanaged to hide the racial question. According to him, only when Hawaii was construed as a white republic did American

politicians and legislators accept incorporating it to the Union.[22] Love, Op. Cit., p. xii.

[23] Ibid.

[24] For Instance, what united all racists was their belief in white/European superiority. But, If Europeans (prioritizingNordic Teutons or Anglo-Saxons) were the dominant group, then racists rationalized that there was some intrinsic reasonfor their superiority. But, what that reason was, and how it came about is where monogenists, polygenists, Darwinists andcreationists disagreed. In the American context, it seems important not to overemphasize the role of Darwinism. As StephenJay Gould asserts, American scientists endeavored to emancipate themselves from European science. In this manner,polygenism became the quintessential American theory. In their quest for attaining respect and recognition, the AmericanSchool, as polygenism came to be identified, endeavored to expand and give empirical validity to the theory of multiplecreations. Nonetheless, the other ideologies of human origins continued to thrive, especially in the non-scientific circles.Christians, for instance, had a hard time adopting polygenism since it contradicted the doctrine of a single Adam andcontravened the literal truth of scripture. See Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, New York, W.W. Norton &Company, 1981, p. 70. Moreover, for non-Christian monogenists, Darwinism offered confirmation of a single origin ofhumanity. But, Darwinism could also be accommodated to polygenism as Darwin posited that humans came to existance so

long ago that the different races had followed vastly divergent trajectories over millions of years. Therefore, the level offluidity among these different theories of human origins makes it difficult to identify neatly who was a monogenist, apolygenist, a Darwinist or a creationist. See George W. Stocking, Race, Culture, and Revolution, Chicago, University ofChicago Press, 1982, and Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

[25] It is indeed curious that he adopts racism as an analytical category considering that he critiques the previoushistoriographys use of the analytical category of racial ideology. According to Love, racial ideology is an ambivalentcategory because both imperialists and anti-imperialists used it to put forward their arguments. Racism, he argues, promisesto solve this ambivalence. See Love, Op. Cit., 11.

[26] Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An interpretation of America Expansion, 1860-1898 , Ithaca, NY, Cornell UniversityPress, 1963, p. 1, and The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The American Search for Opportunity,1865-1913, Vol. II, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993.For a more recent interpretation along these lines seeMatthew Frye Jacobson, Annexing the Other: The Worlds Peoples as Auxiliary Consumers and Imported Workers,1876-1917, inRace, Nation and Empire in American History, eds., James T. Campbell, Mathew Pratt Guterl, and Robert G.Lee, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2007, and Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters


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Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917, New York, Hill and Wang, 2000. Jacobson points out that throughout thelater half of the nineteenth century politicians constantly talked about American overproduction. Hence, many proposed thatan expansion of American markets was necessary to avoid the constant crisis of overproduction.

[27] LaFeber, The New Empire, p. 7.

[28] Ibid, p. 8.

[29] Ibid, Preface, p. vii.

[30] Skinner, for instance, reproached the practice of reducing intellectual history to timeless problems to which canonicalauthors proposed solutions. Moreover, Skinner condemned the formalist practice of examining which canonical authorsproduced better and more thorough solutions to timeless problems.

[31] For a collection of Skinners methodological oeuvre see Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics: Regarding Method, Vol. 1,Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Particularly relevant in this context is his essay Meaning andUnderstanding in the History of Ideas.

[32] Some scholars have critiqued Pococks structural approach by pin pointing that his neat political languages areover-intellectualized abstractions than cannot withstand the empirical test. Despite these limitations, Pocoks insights areworth considering, albeit in a new light. See D.N. DeLuna, The Political Imagination in History: Essays Concerning J.G.APocock, Baltimore, Owlworks, 2006.

[33] For a collection of Pococks methodological essays see J.G.A. Pocock, Political Thought and History: Essays onTheory and Method, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

[34] Although Pocock and Skinner do not think their methodological commitments are reconcilable with Kosellecksconceptual history, scholars like Melvin Richter and Kari Palonen have suggested ways in which these two projects canpotentially complement each other. See Melvin Richter, The History of Political and Social Concepts: A CriticalIntroduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995. Of particular relevance is chapter 6 entitled Pocock, Skinner, andBegriffsgeschichte. See also Kari Palonen, Quentin Skinner: History, Politics, Rhetoric, Cambridge, UK, Polity Press 2003.

[35] See Reinhart Koselleck, trans. Keith Tribe, Begriffsgeschichte and Social History, in Futures Past: On the Semantics

of Historical Time, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1985.[36] Taking into account Kosellecks insights, there is no need to construe an unnecessary dichotomy between economic andideological causes. If instead we see economic/political interests and ideological commitments as powerfully implicatedwith each other, then perhaps we do not need to argue for the primacy of any one of them. As a result we do not need to fallin the trap of asserting that historical actors had an economic or political hidden agenda when expounding theirideological commitments.

[37] Charles S. Campbell, The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865-1900, New York, Harper & RowPublishers, 1976, p. 13.

[38] Luis Martinez-Fernandez, Torn Between Empires: Economy, Society, and Patterns of Political Thought in the HispanicCaribbean, 1840-1878, Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1994, p. 213.

[39] William Javier Nelson,Almost a Territory, Newark, University of Delaware Press, 1990, p. 49.

[40] In 1861 President Pedro Santana annexed the Dominican Republic to Spain because according to him the youngnation-state would never be secure without the backing of a more stable and advanced state. Nevertheless, sectors of theelites, the middle classes and the peasantry organized a nationalist movement against the annexation that culminated withthe independence of the Dominican Republic once again in 1865. This war for independence is known as the Guerra deRestauracin.

[41] For a detailed study of this episode and the issue of annexing the Dominican Republic in general see Harold T. Pinkett,Efforts to Annex Santo Domingo to the United States, 1866-1871, The Journal of Negro History, 1941 (vol. 26), n 1,p. 12-45.

[42] Frank Moya Pons, The Dominican Republic: A National History, New Jersey, Markus Weiner Publishers, 1998, p. 220.

[43] Ibid, p. 224.

[44] Ibid, p. 225.

[45] Ibid, p. 227.

[46] Previously on 17 May 1869, President Grant had also sent war vessel to obtain political, commercial and financialinformation about Santo Domingo. Grant was later attacked for sending war vessels and General Babcock to collectinformation without congressional approval. Subsequent critics, Senator Sumner among them, asserted that it wasunconstitutional to grant Navy vessels and General Babcock diplomatic authority. See Pinkett, Op. Cit., p 23-5.

[47] Love , Op. Cit. p. 38.

[48] Moya Pons, Op. Cit., p. 229 and Love, Op. Cit., p. 37.

[49] Ulysses S. Grant, John Y. Simon ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant , Vol. 20, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL,Southern Illinois University Press, 1995, p. 121.

[50] At first President Grant was hesitant about advocating for an extension of the treaty because Senator Sumner was thefirst one to propose such extension. Grant feared that Sumner had proposed the extension in order to secure the defeat of thetreaty. But, President Grant changed his mind as the Senate debates regarding the annexation treaty reached a standstill. Seea letter sent to secretary of state Hamilton Fish on 22 March in Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 20, p. 123-4.

[51] Nelson, Op. Cit., p. 96.

[52] Very little is recoverable from these debates in late June 1870 because for reasons not entirely clear the CongressionalGlobe does not have records of these debates. Nonetheless, some of the highlights of the debate were recorded in theExecutive Journal. For instance, Senator Sumner and Senator Howard amended the wording of certain sections of the treaty,primarily because they wanted to clarify that the United States would not be responsible for any further debt acquired by theDominican government. In the end these amendments had no significance as the treaty was rejected even after these


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modifications were made. See U.S. Congress. Senate Executive Journal, 40th Cong. (30 June 1870), p. 500-502,

[53] Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 20, p. 188.

[54] Ibid, p. 311-2.

[55] Grant, Op.Cit, vol. 21, p. 39.

[56] See footnotes quoting Hamilton Fishs diary in, Grant, Op. Cit., p. 44-5.

[57] Ibid, p. 51.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Ibid, p. 52.

[60] Charles Sumner, George Frisbie Hoar ed., Charles Sumner: His Complete Works, New York, Negro Universities Press,1969, 255-299.

[61] See Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 3rd sess., p. 226-231, as cited in Pinkett, Op. Cit. p. 39-40

[62] Letter to Hamilton Fish, Grant, Op. Cit., 85.

[63] Letter to Buenaventura Baez in, Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 21, 132-3. Ironically, the black leader andabolitionist Frederick Douglass was included among these men. What is most surprising is that Douglass had previouslybeen a firm supporter of Sumner, who he considered a defender of black men. In this occasion Douglass supported Grantsannexation plans, because he believed that the people of Santo Domingo needed the guidance of a more civilized nation likethe United States. For him, annexation was not a threat to black people of the tropical island, but a measure that wouldbenefit them. For an interesting discussion of Douglass rhetoric see Merline Pitre, Frederick Douglass and the Annexationof Santo Domingo, The Journal of Negro History, 1977 (vol. 62), no. 4, p. 390-400.


[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Ibid, p. 26.

[69] Ibid.

[70] It is important to not also that the strong positivist convictions of many historians of American foreign relations alsotends to reduce these kinds of beliefs to mere political rhetoric intended to satisfy some more pristine political or economicinterest.

[71] For an enlightening account of the role of moralistic idioms of climate in Western thought see of David N. Livingstone,Race, Space and Moral Climatology: Notes toward a Genealogy, Journal of Historical Geography, 2002 (Vol. 28), no. 2,p. 159-180.

[72] Livingstone, The Moral Discourse of Climate: Historical Considerations on Race, Place, and Virtue, Journal ofHistorical Geography, 1992 (vol. 17), p. 413-434.

[73] The moral economy of climate did not always manifest itself in the same way. For instance, while many saw positivebenefits with tropical climate others believed that it was fundamentally damaging to the morals, civilization and democratic

institutions of peoples of the temperate climates. In short, the moral discourse of the climate could both support and hinderimperial expansion in different contexts. For Senator Schurz the tropics were damaging, but for and alternative andfascinating account on how imperial scientists began conservationist schemes in the tropics to recreate Eden see Richard H.Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 ,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

[74] Ibid, p. 27.

[75] Ibid.

[76] Ibid, p. 26.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid, p. 27.

[79] Ibid.

[80] Schurz was and had been for long time firmly opposed to slavery. In 1860 he asserted Slaveholders of America, Iappeal to you. Are you really in earnest when you speak of performing slavery? Shall it never cease? Never? Stop andconsider where you are and in what days you live. () This is the world of the nineteenth century () You stand against a

hopeful world, alone against a great century, fighting your hopeless fight () against the onward march of civilization.Cited in Kagan, Op. Cit., p. 224.


[82] Ibid.

[83] Ibid.

[84] Ibid.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Ibid.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid.


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[90] Ibid.

[91] Ibid, p. 29.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Ibid, p. 30.

[94] Ibid, p. 31.

[95] Van Gelderen and Skinner, eds. Republicanism: A shared European Heritage, 2 Vols., Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002; Maurizio Viroli, trans. Anthony Shugaar, Republicanism, New York, Hill and Wang, 2002; PhilipPettit,Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.

[96] Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University

Press, 1992; Gordon S. Woods, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Chapel Hill, University of NorthCarolina Press, 1998; Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic RepublicanTradition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975.

[97] Some historians argue that republicanism became a sort of paradigm that encompassed everything yet explained almostnothing the historiography of the 1980s. See Daniel T. Rodgers, Republicanism: The Career of a Concept, Journal ofAmerican History, 1992 (vol. 79), n 1, p. 11-38. Others argue that after the period of the Atlantic Revolutions,republicanism was re-imagined in new ways to fit a modern context and slowly gave way to liberalism. See AndreasKalyvas and Ira Katznelson, Liberal Beginings: Making a Republic for the Moderns,Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 2008. In the context of England see Vickie B. Sullivan, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the Formation of LiberalRepublicanism in England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. In the context of France see Andrew Jainchill,Reimagining Politics after the Terror: The Republican Origins of French Liberalism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2008.

[98] While many southerners believed that it was just and even generous to enslave non Anglo-Saxons of other territories,many northern politicians condemned expansion on these terms and labeled slavery a barbaric institution of the past. Forinstance, during the 1850s Cuba gathered much attention from southern plantation owners who believed that it was just forthem to prevent a slave uprising in Cuba that could turn into a second Haiti and destroy the institution of slavery. In contrast,northern expansionists overwhelmingly privileged expansion for trade, primarily westward to build a transcontinental

railroad. See chapters 7 and 8 of Robert Kagan, Op. Cit, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

[99] For a thorough description of the changes that occurred in the political and social organization of the United Statesduring Reconstruction see Eric Foner, Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, New York,HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. Foner sees the period of Reconstruction as an experiment with racial democracy thatallowed for blacks to actively participate in a new form of politics generated by the emancipation proclamation. But, just asit was a time of political participation for blacks, it was also a time that generated fierce opposition to the project of radicalRepublicans. Although Foner does not spend much time discussing how reconstruction shifted the nature of debatesconcerning territorial expansion, upon examining the rhetoric of the politicians in this study, it becomes clear that theexportation of slavery was no longer an issue in Congress. In fact, one can reasonably argue that slavery became anon-question.

[100] Guyatt, Op. Cit., p. 975-977.

[101] Ibid, p. 18.

[102] Ibid.

[103] U.S. Congress SenateExecutive Journal41st Cong., 3rd sess., 31 May 1870.

[104]Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 3rd sess., app.: 26 (1871).

[105] Ibid, p. 28.

[106] Ibid.

[107] Ibid, p. 31.

[108] While Schurzs use of Anglo-Saxons had essentialist overtones, Senator Mortons use mainly referred to culturaland civilizational traits that in theory could be taught to the peoples of the tropics.

[109]Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., app.: 40-67 (1871).

[110] Quoted in Livingstone, Race, Space and Moral Climatology: Notes toward a Genealogy.

[111] In contrast to Schurz, for instance, Gourrou believed that temperate soils were richer and more stable. Schurz in factbelieved quite the opposite. For Schurz, the less bountiful nature of the temperate climate and its instability provided Nordicpeoples with enough struggle to continue pursuing its development and perfection.

[112] For a discussion of Dr. Sambons ideas see Livingstone, Tropical Climate and the Moral Hygiene: the Anatomy of aVictorian Debate, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1999 (vol. 32), n 1, p. 93-110.

[113] See David N. Livingstone, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Culture of American Science, Tuscaloosa, Al, TheUniversity of Alabama Press, 1987, p. 134-8, 158-191.

[114] The relationship and development of these factors poses a fertile ground from which to study American territorialexpansion towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Para citar este artculo

Referencia electrnica

Fidel Tavrez, The Moral Miasma of the Tropics: American Imperialism and the Failed Annexation of the DominicanRepublic, 1869-1871 ,Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, Debates, 2011, [En lnea], Puesto en lnea el 13 juillet 2011. URL :


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http://nuevomundo.revues.org/61771. Consultado el 14 juillet 2011.

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Fidel Tavrez

Princeton University (Latin American History Doctoral Student). [email protected]

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