THE UNITED STATES AND SANTO DOMINGO,

1789-1866

By Mary Treudley, Ph.D., Clark University

The twentieth century has witnessed the awakening of a new interest on the part of the United States in the island of Santo Domingo, an interest stimulated by the wave of imperialism which has swept through the western world and which has caused the United States to feel, with especial force since the building of the Panama Canal, that the Caribbean is an American sea and to covet for the defense of its great waterway the guardianship of the islands which dot the American Mediterranean.

But, though the cause of the interest in this little West Indian island may be new, the interest itself is almost as old as American history and has passed through phases of greater intensity than the present. During the eighteenth century the trade between the North American colonies and Santo Domingo constituted one of the most important economic factors in colonial life and development; while in the critical last decade of that century, when American history was almost synonymous with the record of foreign affairs, the interaction of the two countries upon each other did much to change the destiny of each. And again in the forties and fifties of the nineteenth century, when the dreams of a slave-empire in the West Indies captivated the fancies of southern slave-owners, Santo Domingo became an object of keen interest to its northern neighbor. It is my purpose to chronicle the interrelations between the histories of the United States and Santo Domingo in the period from 1789 to 1866. An introductory chapter on trade relations existing between the two countries during the eighteenth century furnishes the economic background for the political connections which had their beginning as the French Revolution spread through the French

colonial possessions. The period dealt with divides into two main parts. The first, from 1789 to 1803, is the period in which the French still retained their hold upon the island, the richest of all their colonies. The second, from 1803 to 1866, covers the first half of the history of Haitian independence and ends with the granting of the longsought and grudgingly-given recognition of that independence by the United States.

CHAPTER I

UNITED STATES AND

TRADE

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE

SANTO DOMINGO DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

It was on his first voyage of discovery that Columbus reached the island to which he gave the name Hispaniola and in which he established the first city founded by Europeans in the western hemisphere, Santo Domingo City, which still breathes a quaint Old World atmosphere. The history of Spain in Santo Domingo is one repeated in every land into which the Spaniards penetrated; a greedy search for gold, the extermination of the natives by a policy of reckless exploitation, and restrictive trade regulations which prevented the development of any sound colonial economy. The result was a gradual draining off of the conquistadores to Mexico and Peru where more alluring prizes were being offered to those adventurous spirits. But, though the colony decayed, Spain retained her hold upon the eastern half of the island until well into the nineteenth century.1

The western half she early abandoned, for, while it was to prove the richest treasure-mine of all the West Indian islands, it was poor in the precious metals which alone Spain seemed able to garner. In 1697, at the Peace of Ryswick, she made the formal surrender of her rights to France. It is the French half of the island which is of interest during the colonial period, for interest centers in

1 The standard authority for the early history of Santo Domingo is Charlevoix, Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole ou de Saint-Domingue.

the trade connections of the colony with the outside world and of such connections Spanish Santo Domingo had none.

Early in the seventeenth century, roving bands of buccaneers and freebooters found a footing on the little island of Tortuga and from there made their way over to the deserted western half of the island of Santo Domingo. Outcasts of all nations, they kept a precarious hold upon the island, often driven away by the Spaniards but as often returning, and from it they sallied forth on their marauding expeditions to spread terror over the Spanish Main.

It was long a question of doubt whether England or France would assert supremacy over this lawless colony but by 1660 the question was settled and in 1664 France granted the island to the Company of the West Indies just established.3

To Colbert was entrusted the task of building up the French colonial empire and for assistance he resorted to great chartered companies, one of his principal objects being "to establish trade with the islands and mainland of America, which foreigners had usurped for sixty years, in order to preserve for our people the advantages which their courage and their industry had given them the right to enjoy from the discovery of a great expanse of land in this part of the world." It proved especially difficult, however, to establish a company monopoly of trade among the colonists of Santo Domingo, who were unused to any restraint, or to break up their trade with the Dutch "who had never let them lack for anything at a period when the presence of French at Tortuga and St. Domingo was unknown in France." Repeated regulations against trade with foreigners had the effect of increasing the trade carried on under the French flag and at the same time of making more hazardous all other trade with the island. But,

? Vaissière, Saint-Domingue: La Société et la vie Créoles sous l'Ancien Régime, 6-10.

Mims, Colbert's West India Policy, 69.

• Ibid., 180.

'Ibid., 201.

though for over a hundred years French colonial policy forebade any commercial connections between its possessions and the outside world, foreign trade with Santo Domingo continued almost without interruption and increased steadily in amount.

Just when trade with the North American colonies began is uncertain. In 1675 a Boston ketch was admitted into Martinique with provisions." and in 1681 the refiners of Guadeloupe and Martinique petitioned for permission to trade 'with the English colonies, especially those in the neighborhood of Boston." Direct intercourse between New England and Santo Domingo probably began somewhat later, for the basis of the trade was sugar and molasses and in 1682 Santo Domingo was just beginning to establish sugar plantations and a decade later it was still clinging to tobacco as its monopoly product. It was not until the Treaty of Utrecht had been signed that the trade assumed proportions of any importance, but the year following the treaty the Boston News Letter begins its record of vessels from Santo Domingo.

8

The principal objects of exchange were: from the British colonies, salt fish which was too poor to find a market in Spain and Portugal but which fed the slaves of the great sugar plantations; salt meat and vegetables for the planter's table; spermaceti candles and lamp oil to illuminate his home; staves and hoops for the thousands of hogsheads which Santo Domingo yearly filled with sugar and molasses; lumber for building and even house-frames ready to be set up by unskilled negro labor; and live stock and horses for the plantations. The French island in return furnished an ever-abundant supply of molasses, which, converted into rum, formed an important article of exchange in the African slave-trade, among the Indians in return for furs, and among the fishermen on the Newfoundland Banks. In addition Santo Domingo paid its adverse balance in trade in specie which served as a circulating medium on the

6 Ibid., 209.

7 Ibid., 221.

8 Ibid., 257, 258.

American continent and helped to pay the bills which the American colonists owed in ever-increasing amounts to European merchants."

In theory the French government was opposed to this trade between the French West Indies and the British colonies and passed numerous laws against it, threatening with the galleys any colonist who dared to trade with a foreigner.10 But practically such a prohibition proved impossible, for foreign trade was an absolute necessity to Santo Domingo.

The island needed the North American colonies as a market for its molasses and rum. Sugar was admitted into France but its by-products were forbidden importation from the fear that they might come into competition with French wines and brandies. A vent had to be found for them elsewhere if the sugar plantations were to prosper. But the English colonies were even more important as a source of food supplies than as a market. Highly specialized as Santo Domingo was in the production of sugar and coffee, she was utterly unable to feed herself and had to depend on external sources for almost her entire supply of provisions. France, in her attempt to retain a monopoly over this branch of trade, showed herself incapable and even unwilling to meet the demand. In times of peace her merchant marine proved inadequate and during war when her merchant vessels were swept from the seas, her colonies were dependent on foreigners, Dutch, American, and even English, for subsistence.

To make the French empire entirely self-sufficing would have required not only the mother-country and the West Indian colonies, but trading-posts on the coasts of Africa, guaranteeing a sufficient supply of slaves, and well-de

' Hilliard d'Auberteuil, Considérations sur l'Etat Présent de la Colonie française de Saint-Domingue, 295. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Déscription de la Partie Française de Saint-Domingue, I, 606. An Essay on the Trade of the Northern Colonies of Great Britain in North America. 6. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, iii, 173, 568.

10 Levasseur Histoire du Commerce de la France, i, 488, 489.