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Chapter Title: Annex Hispaniola and Deport U.S. Negroes There? 1870–1871

Book Title: Confronting Black Jacobins Book Subtitle: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic Book Author(s): GERALD HORNE Published by: NYU Press, Monthly Review Press. (2015) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15zc5jc.14

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11

Annex Hispaniola and Deport U.S. Negroes There? 1870–1871

W as there a Haitian plan to fire upon Frederick Douglass during his visit to Hispaniola in early 1871? This was the controversial contention of Santo Domingo when a U.S.

delegation, which included Douglass, arrived on the island. The delegation was dispatched by President Grant to examine the modalities of annexation. It was well known that Port-au-Prince and its Dominican allies were firmly opposed to annexation and it was equally notorious that Luperón and others had taken up arms against this prospect, reputedly backed by Port-au-Prince. If Haitians and their island allies could be credibly accused of firing upon Douglass, still the reigning symbol of U.S. Negro freedom, it was a troubling sign that both this beset main- land grouping, which had just escaped enslavement, and those thought to be their comrades in Hispaniola were in more danger than either seemed to acknowledge.

P R E S I D E N T G R A N T D E S I R E D T o S E E the “valuable timbers” of the Dominican Republic in U.S. hands. Moreover, it was the “gate to the Caribbean Sea” and, most importantly, “capable of supporting the entire colored population of the United States”; since “the present difficulty in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of the prejudice to color,” he was eager to see the mass deportation of the newly freed to Hispaniola. only “space” was needed and a “refuge” like the Dominican Republic was where the U.S. Negro would find that his “worth . . . would soon be discovered.” For “if Providence designed that the two races should not live together, he would find a home in the Antilles.” This interest dovetailed with security concerns since “in case of war between England and the United States, New York and New orleans would be as much severed as would be New York and Calais, France,” due to the string

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of British islands surrounding the mainland—Bermuda and the Bahamas not least. And this increased the value of Hispaniola. “San Domingo is weak,” he said with frankness, “and must go somewhere for protection. Is the United States willing that she should go elsewhere than to herself? Such a confession would be to aban- don our oft repeated ‘Monroe Doctrine.’ ” Grabbing the isle would be “carrying out Manifest Destiny”; anyway, “can anyone favor rejecting so valuable a gift who voted $7,200,000 for the icebergs of Alaska?”1

Territorial aggrandizement had seized the now abolitionist republic. one Grant supporter, Samuel G. Howe, likewise maintained that “the Emperor of Russia had far less right to convey Alaska to the United States than the government of Santo Domingo has to convey its territory.”2 According to Congressman oliver Morton of Indiana, “San Domingo alone” was “worth to us commercially, socially, and in every other way fifty Alaskas.” The Dominican Republic would be “consolidated and absorbed” into the United States “long before the people of Canada will be converted to annexation,” referring to that other sizeable land that had resisted U.S. charms.3

Samuel Howe, told the president that “foreign powers which disfavor the growth of our political influence in the West India islands” opposed annexation. They “also stirred up the anger of that party in Haiti which covets the domination of the whole island even at the price of extermination . . . of white or mixed blood”—which neces- sitated a robust response from Washington, lest this project gain momentum and head northward to the mainland.4 Annexation failed in Congress; however, indica- tive of its importance was Grant sending to the Dominican Republic the commission which included Douglass—a purpose of which was to revive this defeated proposal.

As annexation was going down to congressional defeat in Washington, the U.S. consul in Cap-Haïtien, who employed a “secret” agent, conveyed “intelligence that the Haytien man-of-war ‘L’Union’ ” had departed Port-au-Prince “for this city and Fort Liberty” and had “on board arms and ammunition, destined for the Dominican insurgents.” Worse, the consul noted, “we have no way of preventing it. They have sent ammunition in empty soap boxes” in order to evade shipboard search.5 Thus, General Nord Alexis of Haiti was warned that “a large majority of the Dominican people [have] asked to be annexed to the United States” and Port-au-Prince would be well-advised to curtail its backing of opposing forces, e.g. Luperón.6 General Alexis was dumbfounded, maintaining stoutly that his nation enforced the “strict- est neutrality” with regard to Santo Domingo and that aid to Luperón was simply “incomprehensible.”7

Still, this was an ironic coda to mainland abolition and what had helped to inspire it—the rise of Black Jacobins on the island. This was too a signal that

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abolition was not without cost, i.e. the formal adoption of U.S. nationality by the formerly enslaved meant that these newly formed “African Americans” would feel constrained to go along with the more noxious aspects of U.S. imperialism as a way to avoid an even steeper decline of their now routinely degraded status. Yet, breaking with Haiti and coddling imperialism were not the surest route to equality of any sort; along with the contemporaneous enlisting of U.S. Negro soldiers in the military and their involvement in leading attacks against Native American polities, these were clear signs that the destiny of the newly freed slaves would be precarious at best. Fortunately for the island, annexation failed8—and this, ironically, saved African Americans from being shipped to Hispaniola, a paradoxical conclusion to the decades-long trend of solidarity with Haiti and Black Jacobins.

The failure of annexation also had other consequences. It drove a wedge between President Grant and Senator Charles Sumner—or perhaps deepened it—and, thus, reduced the potential of conflict with London, which would have ensued if annexation had succeeded. Whether the reduction in tension between London and Washington was of benefit to U.S. Negroes is questionable, particu- larly in light of this group having been able to engage in fruitful arbitrage between the two capitals for decades previously.9 When the Haitian regime presented Senator Sumner with a richly ornamented and exquisitely wrought gold medal for his staunch opposition to annexation—and this was then praised in certain U.S. Negro newspapers—it also deepened a wedge among African Americans,10 which pitted those who backed Douglass’s mission against those who did not. When President Grant said of Sumner’s unyielding opposition to annexation—“I think he is mad”—some U.S. Negroes were inclined to apply that descriptor to the occupant of the White House.11

By December 1870, one friend of Sumner proclaimed that “little has been talked of but San Domingo.” As for Sumner, he felt that initially there were not “more than six senators . . . in favor of annexation at first,” which indicated the effectiveness of Grant’s arm-twisting.12

Though Senator Sumner was certainly influential,13 the anti-annexation pos- ture of U.S. Negroes—who presumably would have been sent en masse to the Dominican Republic if the pact had been ratified—was also reflected among other congressional stalwarts. Fernando Wood of New York thought the project was designed to “overawe” Haiti and “protect American interests,” which was why the United States had dispatched “three ships of war of our small Navy” to “Samaná bay.”14 Yet it was Senator Sumner who argued passionately that the annexation resolution was simply a “dance of blood” since “Báez has been and is now main- tained in power by the naval force of the United States. Deny it, if you can,” he

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taunted, but instead of annexation, the two republics—Haiti and the Dominican Republic—should be one.15 Sumner did not note what his adversary Samuel Howe did, namely that President Báez was willing to relinquish sovereignty if the United States assumed his nation’s debt and made D.R. nationals U.S. citizens.16

Joseph Fabens, the land speculator and investor who stood to profit from annex- ation, confirmed Sumner’s—and many Negroes’—worst fears when he confessed openly that taking the Dominican Republic was just the first step: we “must have Hayti too,” he demanded. Proponents of annexation were displeased when word leaked that the jowly, bearded, and balding Haitian envoy, Stephen Preston, had spent a hefty $20,000 to sink the treaty and had helped to disseminate stories of shabby land deals between Báez and his mainland backers—stories that alienated potential backers. In any case, the avenue named after Sumner in Port-au-Prince was an emblem of the appreciation for him in Haiti.17

Carl Schurz, another potent force in Washington, proclaimed that annexation “ipso facto” was “the most flagrant threat against Hayti that can possibly be uttered. Is there a man on the floor of the Senate,” he asked, “who thinks that when we have the one half of that island we shall stop before we have the other?” The “very nature of our customs service would oblige us to take the territory of the Haytian republic too” and, like falling dominoes, this would inexorably lead to taking Cuba too. Spain lost 10,000 soldiers and $40 million in trying to take the Dominican Republic—and the United States with folly was seeking to emulate Madrid, he said.18

This was hardly the consensus view in Washington. Samuel Howe argued that the Dominican Republic “is worth more to us than even Cuba would be,” since “it has no slaves. More than half of its population are [sic] of the white race (in the Southern sense of the word).”19 Congressman Job Stevens of ohio argued with similar intensity that Samaná was the key “to the Gulf of Mexico, the mouths of Mississippi, and the route across the Isthmus.” This was no small matter in a time before the Panama Canal and given the necessity to reach California from the east- ern seaboard so as to avoid combative Native Americans on overland routes. The annexation “will give us the mastery of the West India islands,” said the congress- man. Yes, “gentlemen say the population of this West Indian republic is inferior.” And, yes, there were those who thought the United States had enough Negroes, thank you very much. But, “sir,” he asserted, “it is the same blood as that of five mil- lion American citizens” whereas “there are less than one hundred and fifty thousand of them” in the Dominican Republic. Anyway, many of those who objected to tak- ing the Dominican Republic still lusted for Cuba—“bond and free, a million and more, slavery and slave trade, coolie and coolie trade, all and all.” And if the United States rejected the Dominican Republic, could the United States credibly object if

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the Dominican Republic requested annexation by Spain—again—and at what cost to U.S. national security?20

Congressman oliver P. Morton of Indiana was of like mind. He denied that annexation of the Dominican Republic would lead to a similar fate for Haiti. Anyway, his sources told him that “the people of Hayti, the great majority, were in favor of annexation” because “they hoped that it would be the precursor of their own annexation.” Anyway, “the annexation of San Domingo will come” sooner or later “and with it too the annexation of Cuba and Porto Rico”—this was “destiny not to be averted.” Yet the Dominican Republic “is the key to the West Indies. It contains the finest harbor in the world. It commands the great Mona Passage from the Atlantic ocean to the Caribbean Sea.” “San Domingo is the richest piece of earth” extant, a “great natural cabinet of all the choicest productions of the world.”21

Senator zachariah Chandler of Michigan felt that annexation meant an “increase” in “commerce” by “enlarging our borders. Take in the islands of the Gulf; take in the Sandwich Islands” and, yes, “take in the Dominion of Canada; take in Colombia” too. Given this, “why should we not take San Domingo in?” For “in 1789 the commerce of San Domingo was immensely greater than the commerce of Cuba at the present day” and “the island of San Domingo is several hundred miles nearer by water to New York than New orleans.” Like others, he thought that controlling Hispaniola “gives us the key to the Gulf; and once possessing the key to the Gulf, we make all the world tributary to us.” This would open a vast cornucopia, i.e. “the commercial relations of this nation will be entirely changed at the moment we take possession of the West India islands.” Unlike some, the Michigander was “not afraid of representatives from the island of San Domingo, although they may be black.” The Dominican Republic was a stepping-stone since “it will not be . . . five years before the island of Cuba will be ours, if we raise our flag in the island of San Domingo.”22

Senator Cornelius Cole of California was not opposed to the idea of acquiring “some property in the tropics suitable for the emigration of the freed population.” He was grateful that the United States was able to “obtain the Dominican portion of that large island almost for the taking.” visiting Puerto Plata he found “many of the buildings” to be “comparatively new, the town having been entirely destroyed . . . almost three years before by the Spaniards,” presumably taking vengeance against U.S. Negro emigrants known to be hostile to the occupation. Actually, it was not just the emigrants, for the Spaniards “on leaving,” with “unheard of malignity, burned and destroyed as much property as possible,” costing “thousands of lives and millions in money.” He denounced Sumner as a “man of remarkable egotism” and claimed that his opposition to annexation came from “European sources.” He

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Annex Hispaniola and Deport U.S. Negroes There? 1870–1871 293

bumped into the former Mexican foe of the United States, General Santa Anna, reminding him of the national security importance of the Dominican Republic. He too was struck by Báez, a “rather small man, with a tincture of African blood,” who “understood English better than he spoke it.”23

Instead of praising Senator Sumner, Benjamin Wade “ascertained” that the “source” of his “delusion upon the subject of annexation” was a supporter of the solon with “large interests” on the island; indeed, said Wade, “the most important and essential papers used by Mr. Sumner were made up in Washington to deceive him—forged for the purpose.”24

President Grant was pleading by this juncture, openly expressing “an unusual anxiety for the ratification of this treaty.” This pact would uphold the Monroe Doctrine, he said, but—it was added—“I now deem it proper to assert the equally important principle that hereafter no territory on this continent shall be regarded as subject of transfer to a European power.” It was Santo Domingo, he claimed, that “has voluntarily sought this annexation. It is a weak power, numbering probably less than 120,000 souls and yet possessing one of the richest territories under the sun.” The issue was blocking other powers, e.g. the unnamed one that “stands ready now to offer $2,000,000 for the possession of Samaná bay alone.”25 Grant compro- mised his already tenuous position when he was forced to issue a curious denial. “You have doubtless noticed hints in Congress,” he said, “and charges in various newspapers that I am financially interested in the acquisition of Santo Domingo.” He denied the allegation, but mere words could not vitiate the accompanying claim that some of his more affluent supporters surely stood to profit.26

Báez was at issue and the image he conveyed was not necessarily appealing, even to pro-annexation forces. When the U.S. national Samuel Hazard encoun- tered him he remarked that Báez “would never be taken for other than a Spaniard were it not that his hair, as he turns his head, shows just a little of the character of the hair of the African.” Still, he noticed that “the Dominican people differ widely in this particular from the Haytians, among whom the black race is in complete ascendancy.” This was not a minor matter since, said Hazard, the “masses of the people of the United States [were] watching with great interest the action of their representatives in Congress on the question of the admission of St. Domingo into the Union.”27 Andrew D. White, who served alongside Douglass as a commis- sioner, also found that Báez was a “man of force” and “though a light mulatto, he had none of the characteristics generally attributed in the United States to men of mixed blood.”28

Howe, was keen to assure that a “large proportion of the Dominican people are of a high type of physical organization and may be properly classed with the white

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race”—a view that stretched this privileged category beyond all meaning and rec- ognition. He pleaded that “the people of all ranks” in the Dominican Republic “do earnestly and almost unanimously desire annexation,” which too was an exaggera- tion. He knew that this project had “important bearing upon the subject of West Indian and Brazilian slavery,” which was accurate insofar as the newly abolitionist United States could more credibly threaten Cuba if it annexed Hispaniola.29

Despite the strenuous ministrations of Douglass and others, President Grant had to write President Báez to inform him with regret of “the failure of the treaty for the annexation of San Domingo to the United States” and of the fact that he “had hoped [for] a different result.” Still, he remained ready to fight. “I believe now,” Grant said, “that if the subject was submitted to a popular vote of the people, it would carry by an overwhelming majority.”30 As his successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, confided when speaking of Grant, “San Domingo was his pet topic.”31

Do not blame Grant, said Samuel Howe, for this failure since “annexation was an old project,” extending back to the creation of the Dominican Republic. He went on to associate anti-annexationists with foreign foes, especially “European traders.” The proposal also “angered” Haiti, “which represents the aggressive Negro party that came into power by murdering the preceding president, Salnave, who was sus- pected of being an annexationist. This party has ever coveted possession of the whole island and incited the several attempts made by the government to subdue by force and arms the Dominican territory and to drive out, or exterminate, all of Spanish descent.” Thus, the U.S. patriot Benjamin Wade announced that he would go to “Hayti and tell that black prince that he must call off his dogs immediately or take severe consequences.” If the United States did not act against Haiti forthwith, it would be “execrated, as was England for her shameful abandonment of Parga in 1819” (a reference to a tragic episode in Greek history). For Haitians “are vastly superior in numbers” and “in wealth and warlike resources. They have, naturally enough, ever coveted and never ceased their effort to get possession of the whole island and”—most critically—“dominate the whites.” Howe seemed perturbed to observe that “it is not very strange that our people should have believed the mis- taken statements” of anti-annexationists “because popular sympathy is now turning in favor of Negroes, so long and cruelly oppressed.”32

Since the lengthy tie between London and Port-au-Prince had not disintegrated, it had become easier to associate opposition to annexation with foreign foes. As the commission dispatched by Grant was returning from Santo Domingo, Haitians were arranging to visit the “Royal Arsenal” and “other Military Establishments” in London33—including “Her Majesty’s Dockyards”34—for purposes that would not be reassuring to Washington. The same could be said of a highly desirable

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invitation to the London International Exhibit of 1871 to be opened by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales Himself.35 A Haitian emissary was present when the celebrated Benjamin Disraeli spoke at the installation of the Lord Mayor of London, providing an opportunity for sharing notes on mutual foes. The difficul- ties then faced by France, reeling from conflict with Prussia, were duly noted.36 Port-au-Prince surely hoped that municipal elections in France would lead to a new type of politics.37 For when London agreed to a substantial loan to Haiti with ironclad guarantees, Port-au-Prince was looking over its shoulder to gauge Paris’s reaction, fearing that France would seek to scuttle this deal in light of debts owed to the hexagonal nation.38 Haiti was seeking a $2 million loan—with $300,000 to be directed immediately to pay debts to Paris.39 Paris was also monitoring the after- math of the failed annexation with the United States still scrambling to take charge of Samaná.40 By 1873 the French delegate was closely monitoring an “insurrection” in Puerto Plata that involved “les Americains.” It is unclear, however, if he was concerned that U.S. emigrants were in an uproar or if this provided an opening for Paris.41

Wade, who was part of the commission that visited the Dominican Republic, returned “as strong for annexation” as upon his departure. “Nothing can redound as much to the honor and glory of our country as to plant our flag on this beautiful island, and lay the foundation of one of the most wealthy and prosperous states of the Union. By its location it belongs to us,” he exclaimed. For “it is but the east- ern boundary of our continent and must not and shall not fall into other hands. Its annexation,” Wade cried, “will be the crowning glory of your administration. For God’s and humanity’s sake, do not give it up,” he told the president.42

M. M. Gautier of the Dominican Republic was irate because of attacks that coincided with the visit of Douglass and his fellow commissioners, which left many dead and wounded. It was “planned” by Haitians, he asserted accusingly, “for the sole purpose of surprising the U.S. Commissioners” and causing them “to believe that there was some legitimate opposition to the plan of annexation.”43 Soon he was arranging to meet President Grant himself on a “confidential” mission with a murky agenda.44 There was “not a shadow of a doubt,” contended the U.S. envoy, Stanislaus Goutier, “that something serious is taking place to defeat the intentions of our Government in the annexation.” There were, he added, “certain leaders” that desired “to cause an uprising in several sections of the country” while the U.S. commission was present.45 one thing was certain: Luperón had made it translucently clear that he opposed annexation and that just as Santana turned over the nation to Spain, Báez was doing the same with an even more formidable antagonist—the United States.46

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The visiting commissioners made it similarly pellucid that their mission was to investigate the mining and agricultural capacities of the island, along with the harbors and even the meteorology. They departed on 17 January 1871 and, said one commissioner, Andrew D. White, upon completion of their mission, it was possible to say that it was “doubtful whether any country was ever so thoroughly examined in so short a time.” White was unimpressed with certain aspects of the Dominican Republic: “I never in its entire domain saw a bridge, a plow, a spade, a shovel, or a hoe,” he said wondrously—though he did notice “magnificent squared logs of the beautiful mahogany of the country,” begging to be exploited. “Under the natural law of increase the population of the republic should have been numbered in millions,” but “there were not two hundred thousand inhabit- ants left and that of these about half were mulattoes, the other half being about equally divided between blacks and whites.” He did not say which group backed annexation, though he did say that there was support from the clergy. Like oth- ers, he thought that the island had a “curse” from “which it had never recovered,” stretching back decades to the abolitionist revolution. This seemed to strike him when he arrived in Port-au-Prince—“few things could be more dispiriting. The city had been burned again and again.” These “revolutionists of 1793, imitating those [of] 1793 in France, as apes imitate men, had torn the corpses” out of a mausoleum “and had them scattered.” His view of Douglass, his fellow commis- sioner, was a limited accolade, calling him “one of the two or three most talented men of color I have ever known.” This opinion was apparently substantiated when the Negro leader found that Santo Domingo “discouraged and depressed him. He said to one of us, ‘if this is the outcome of self-government by my race, Heaven help us!’ ”

White visited Geffrard, the former Haitian leader, in Jamaica. He was a “light mulatto,” who “calmly discussed with us the condition of the island, and evidently believed that the only way to save it from utter barbarism was to put it under the control of some civilized power”—like the United States, perhaps. Like others, he was eager to grab Samaná but accepted, philosophically, the setback to annexation since the United States felt that “with the new duties imposed on them” by the newly freed slaves, “they had quite enough to do without assuming the responsi- bility of governing and developing this new region peopled by blacks and mulat- toes.”47 Before departing the commissioners were told that their mission was “to feel the pulse of the colored community of two hundred thousand” and to “ascer- tain how that enlightened community is disposed toward us.”48 However, since they could not be altogether open about an underlying purpose—depositing tens of thousands of U.S. Negroes in their midst—taking the pulse was problematic at

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best. Still, Samuel Howe felt compelled to argue that the “canvass of the people” in the Dominican Republic was “minute and extensive.”49

So buoyed, U.S. Negroes resumed their decades-long effort to move to Haiti— though this was now happening in the wake of abolition, indicating that the terror of the ku klux klan was taking a toll and, similarly, that the attraction to Haiti had yet to abate,50 though it was far from being idyllic. “The whole country is a state of anarchy, East and West,” said the U.S. envoy in late 1867. “Never was Hayti in such a deplorable condition since the [advent of the] Republic.”51

Nissage Saget had succeeded Sylvain Salnave as president in Port-au-Prince in 1869 and, in the months preceding the latter’s departure, Haiti was in an uproar. It was early in that fateful year that the “Southern State of Hayti, Council of State” mandated and did “solemnly declare that it places itself under the protection of the Government of the United States of America, as its natural ally”52—which simultaneously inflamed a good deal of public sentiment. Weeks after this provocation, foreign consuls were promised that their quarters would not be assaulted—so, “women and children, sick and infirm” promptly moved to said quarters, with about “357 persons” in the U.S. consulate alone. The consul, James de Long, visited the outskirts of Aux Cayes and was overcome by the “stench emitted by dead bodies,” which had been “left for food for the hogs and other animals. Hats and shoes” were “scattered” all about. He spoke to two elders, who had been hiding in the woods: “it made my blood chill,” said the shaken consul, “to hear them relate the murders.” “My life as well as that of all the foreigners and nations are in the most eminent danger,” with “horrors” too macabre to detail, though “surpassing anything recorded in the history of the most barbarian country.” A “steamer under the American flag came into the harbor towing a [barge] laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions” for Salnave. However, de Long fin- gered the latter as being responsible for most of the atrocities. This “open assistance rendered to Salnave created considerable excitement and a strong feeling of resentment against foreigners generally and especially Americans,” which was justified—though he was shortly to be victimized by these passions. “Speculators” were responsible for this influx of arms, seeking to profit from restiveness; “officers of the U.S. Navy” were “resigning their positions and allowed the command of Salnave’s privateers” and it was “these same officers” who were “committing acts of cruelty and barbarity unknown to civilized countries.” The “hands” of these once beribboned officers were “stained with the blood of innocent women and children”; he resolutely confirmed that “none of these acts of cruelty or vengeance have ever been practiced by the rebels.”53

“My life as well as that of others are in as much danger as on a field of battle,” wailed de Long in May 1869; “we are hemmed in on all sides like cattle in a slaughter pen.”54

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Salnave was perceived as more favorable to U.S. interests, a realization rati- fied when in December 1869 the U.S. intervened to insure the safe passage of his mother, wife, and children from Saint-Marc.55 Luperón, on the other hand, leader of the anti-annexation forces, was perceived in Washington as being pro-London, a sentiment confirmed when in early 1870 the U.S. consul in Cap-Haïtien noticed that a “small British schooner” was headed to the Turks and Caicos Islands with Luperón aboard, bringing him “nearer” to the “revolution at Puerto Plata.”56 Thus, when Douglass and his fellow commissioners visited, Saget and his cabinet were cold and formal,57 a cul-de-sac for U.S. Negroes then under siege by ku klux klan terrorists on the mainland and now seen as turning away from their global backer. Douglass was portrayed as being equally dismissive of Haitians, purportedly telling an inquiring reporter that “in his judgment the Dominicans are a far superior peo- ple to the Haytians, that there is no republicanism whatever in Hayti, and that the Government there is an absolute despotism of the most oppressive character.” For good measure, the Negro leader reprimanded Senator Sumner’s backing of Port-au- Prince.58 This was not Douglass’s finest hour: apparently he was chosen for this del- egation with the idea that his imprimatur would encourage U.S. Negroes to emigrate en masse to Hispaniola, ridding the mainland of a presumed intractable problem.59

When President Grant held a dinner at the White House for the commission- ers—excepting Douglass—it became more difficult for the masses of U.S. Negroes to accept annexation or the counsel of this Negro leader for that matter. When a steward on the return voyage from Santo Domingo refused to serve him in the main dining room, Douglass’s luster was tarnished further.60 The indignity continued when, upon arriving in Charleston, Douglass was refused service on a train head- ing north and his fellow commissioners in solidarity refused to enter the dining car, meaning they all returned to Washington famished.61 Douglass seemed a tad too proud to be traveling as a U.S. representative on an important mission with mem- bers of the elite. However, this was not just a personal flaw, it was symptomatic of a larger trend: when a form of citizenship was thrust upon U.S. Negroes, the price of the ticket was seen as going along with imperial projects, even if it meant those inimical to a nation that had sacrificed so much for abolition: namely, Haiti. Thus, the Negro leader preened about the “spectacle presented by a colored man seated at the captain’s table” since it “was not only unusual but had never before occurred in the history of the United States Navy.” He was baffled as to why “my presence and position seemed to trouble” the “colored waiters” aboard, seemingly unaware that their unease might have reflected their opposition to annexation.62

But it was not just Douglass who had to bend preexisting views in order to fit the new annexation consensus. Samuel Howe considered James Redpath a

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“worthy friend,” but this progressive voice denounced annexation—unlike Howe. In fact, Howe confessed that “one of the most painful episodes of my life was a short sojourn in Haiti,” a nation he otherwise supported. He “had always felt a deep interest in the experiment of a Negro republic. I came a warm friend,” he confided. “I wanted to be an indulgent admirer; but I had seen too many countries not to feel instinctively on landing that I was no longer among a democratic people, as I had been in the eastern end of the island” since a “reign of terror” existed. “Mulattoes, especially, seemed in fear for their lives” and “after a few days, Frederick Douglass, meeting me on the quay, said sadly, ‘if this is all my poor colored fellow-men have been able to do in seventy years,’” then “‘God Help the race!’ ”

Even a cursory reading suggests that Howe—and Douglass too—were indict- ing Haiti in order to propel annexation. However, neither seemed to consider that even if their allegations about Port-au-Prince were accurate, this still did not justify liquidating island sovereignty. In any case, Howe was reputedly told that “if we mulattoes should shout our wishes about annexation, the Negroes would murder us and our children.” Howe’s confidantes there “all looked to the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States as a step toward the annexation of Hayti”— and “their deliverance,” which helps to explicate why this group may have faced a bit of hostility from those who continued to subscribe to Black Jacobinism. Howe was willing to sink to great depths in order to indict Haiti, contending that “where they are left to themselves,” the “Negroes of Hayti, as in other West India islands” tend to “revert toward barbarism.” Thus, “witness the sacrifice of infants and the eating of their flesh.” Hence, “avoid the scheme of building up a great Negro con- federacy in the tropics. That implies the converse, to wit, a white republic in the temperate zone. . . . it implies segregation based on color and the world has had too much of that.” After all, “of all races the Negro can least flourish under such disad- vantages. He needs contact with more highly developed races” since “he imitates rather than originates.”

Perhaps the color difference illuminated why President Báez “walks about freely among his people, without parade and without guards, in striking contrast with the president of the neighboring Negro republic, who seldom appears except on horseback, bedizened, and befeathered and surrounded by armed guards.” The drive to annex Hispaniola perforce led to a sharp devaluation of Haiti, which opposed this maneuver that complicated its future.63 of course, when Howe became involved in land speculation in Samaná, it called into question his self- righteous approach to Haiti.64

Still, the influential Gerrit Smith took issue with Howe when he said that the “tropics belong to the sable races” while “the temperate zones” were the “natural

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dwelling place of the pale races of men.” Thus, annexation would be “robbery.” Not only was Santo Domingo just a step toward taking Haiti, it was also the “first step toward our getting possession of all the West India islands” and, besides, “an impor- tant and even indispensable means for paying our national debt.” How could the United States, a nation which has “surely . . . surpassed every other country in wrong- ing Africa,” commit such “further injury to her children”? Yes, Smith confessed, “I was wrong” about taking Mexican soil and trying to take Cuba and was now repenting.65

When Douglass visited Port-au-Prince in 1870, he supped with John Bell Hepburn, formerly of the United States, who introduced him to the nation’s presi- dent. But Hepburn then was in conflict with his new homeland and was lobbying President Grant for support. “When I was in the United States,” he told the U.S. leader, “as a man of color, I was considered a chattel and by judicial election had no rights that a white man ought to respect. Being a man of sensibility and honor,” he said pleadingly to Grant, “could I be blamed for voLUNTARILY EXPATRIATING myself to another country”—even one where he found difficulty?66 It was Hepburn, who described himself in 1869 as a “mulatto and native of virginia, sixty four years old, and thirty five years absent from my native country.”67 Also weighing in during Douglass’s sojourn was Ed Horton, a Negro “born eight miles from Plimoth (North Carolina) in 1825”; his “mother and father” were “still living” there.68 Like Hepburn, Henry Allen, then in Port-au-Prince, was lobbying Grant. Born in Maryland in March 1800, he left in September 1824 for Haiti where he had resided for “46 years.” Allen added, “I have brought property and built a large two stories [sic] house of two apartments,” but it had been destroyed and he was bereft; so he invoked the U.S. Constitution and a “treat[y]” with Haiti to bolster his claim against Port-au-Prince.69 Such difficulties made these emigrants more prone to back annexation.

Just as the Dominican Republic had invited the return of Spain in 1861 because of the fear of Haiti, a decade later Santo Domingo was making a similar invitation to the U.S. president. Báez was unequivocal in his charge that Haiti was back- ing the Luperón-led rebels with “arms and ammunition” that—at least—was “brought” to these forces “through Haitian territory.” It was, he said, no more than a “Machiavellian policy.”70 U.S. naval leaders, poised to bombard Haiti in league with Santo Domingo, heartily concurred. “There is a large party in Haiti in favor [of] annexing” the Dominican Republic, said John Irwin. “They are composed of the followers of the late President Salnave and they are doubtless causing the present Government much anxiety”; Báez was eager to “capture some Haitien [sic] officers in order to prove the complicity of the Haitien [sic] Government.”71 Downplayed in this regard was the Dominican insurgency led by Luperón, which Washington knew was opposed to the “cession of Samaná.”72

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Haiti was infuriating Washington because of its opposition to annexation. Secretary of State Fish made it plain that Washington was “peculiarly interested” in “exemptions” of the Dominican Republic from “internal commotion and from inva- sions from abroad.”73 The man of color serving as U.S. envoy in Haiti—Ebenezer Bassett—cautioned that there was “much excitement here just now in reference to the annexation” and “ruling sentiment” was “opposed to any and everything look- ing to a possibility of giving up the nationality of Hayti.” These forces had aligned with Senator Sumner, though he thought the support squishy since the presumed leader of this bloc had “over and over again assured me that he is in favor” of annex- ation.74 Nevertheless, Bassett well knew that when Grant was reelected as president in 1872, the reception in Haiti was—at best—mixed with the annexation scheme accounting for the negative reaction.75

Washington was thinking that it could parlay the alleged Haitian attacks on the Dominican Republic into an overall effort to annex the entire island. The Cacos, or militant Haitians, were just as determined to undermine the Port-au-Prince regime, another U.S. commander asserted. Since “American influence decidedly prepon- derates amongst the adherents of Salnave,” which had “embittered” the Cacos, this created a set of circumstances ripe for U.S. intervention. The U.S. Secretary of the Navy was informed that “without some outside assistance Salnave will be over- thrown and the influence which the United States has acquired through him will be lost”—and the despised Cacos could surge to power in Haiti. The solution? Fund Salnave in return for access to Môle-Saint-Nicolas, a key Haitian port. of course, Paris and London were “extremely inimical to our possession” of this port which—at least—“would cut off the approach to Jamaica.” In annexing Haiti alto- gether “would be found an elephant both costly in money and lives”—but this was becoming a minority viewpoint in Washington.76

For there were potent merchant forces in Haiti—with U.S. roots—that found the status quo unacceptable; for example, there was “Sumner & Brooks” in Gonaïves which, it was said, “carries on a large business at that port,” but now the lives—and perhaps more importantly—the “property” of businessmen were “unsafe.”77 Thus, the press reported then that “Big Business” was the driving force behind annexation of the island.78 Dozens of U.S. nationals had lost property or investments during the Salnave years and the resultant conflict. About a half-million dollars in claims by U.S. citizens were posited with little headway toward resolution and they were piled upon preexisting claims from previous years.79

Haiti’s agony had continued during the Salnave years with reports of “unabated violence and barbarity unknown in any country professing civilization,” according to the U.S. consul, whose own nation’s experience with mass enslavement provided

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a tutorial on barbarism. “Tyranny exists in its worst shape,” said James de Long, “and I may say it is nothing less than a ‘Reign of Terror.’ ” He recalled a distressing episode when “all the mulattoes were shot in cold blood and their bodies frightfully mutilated. The black prisoners taken were liberated, their only punishment being a good thrashing”; this was an emblem, he observed, of the “war of caste—class or colour—a conflict between the black and coloured races.” Anyway, the country was “full of thieves and murderers,” who deployed color as a cover for plunder. The unrest had taken a toll on the economy since “labourers are scarce and what little field work is done by women.” This had an effect on the United States too with “Hayti being one of the principal consumers of American produce.” The consul was exasperated, having been in Haiti for “almost six years” and having “passed through some four or five revolutions.” The frightened de Long worried that “were it not for the awe which natives” held for “the power” of “the whites,” this latter group “would be taken and killed” and were “ill treated” in any case.80

The U.S. consul in Gonaïves found “complete anarchy” there that also was intimidating to the French—who were receiving a stream of “insults”—while, strik- ingly, the British seemed to be “intimate friends” of local leaders.81 Former Haitian leader Geffrard—according to the U.S. Negro press—was rumored to be in Jamaica in the late 1860s and was considering becoming a naturalized British national.82 Hence, annexing the entire island could have extinguished this developing trend.

In the prelude to annexation being debated in the U.S. Congress, U.S. rela- tions with Haiti were undergoing the usual strain with abolition not eliminating underlying tensions. The U.S. delegate in Aux Cayes found it “very unhealthy,” compelling him to reside “six miles” away from the city where he had a “small farm and sugar mill.” (other foreign consuls too found it necessary to move away from the center of the city.) That did not keep his property from being stolen regularly; the most recent case had “caused considerable excitement amongst the natives and caused quite a crowd to assemble.” Then, quite typically, a “Captain” approached and after a spirited exchange of words, “deliberately got off his horse and knocked me down,” said a startled James de Long, “and commenced beating me.” He was comprehensibly upset, angry that “nothing” had “been done for me (being a white man I suppose) to punish this man for the outrage & assault of which I was the vic- tim.” That was not the end of his misery for when he subsequently went for a ride on his horse, he was “surrounded by eight or ten Negroes, headed by the commander of the district, who pulled me from my horse, throwing me heavily on the ground, and commenced beating me with clubs”; then “they took my horse” and “one of the men mounted him [sic]” and rode away. The indignity continued when they marched him home, “continuing always beating me with their clubs.” While this

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pummeling was unfolding, “the commander of the district was present all the time ordering the men to beat and kill me. After I got into the house the commander left, but returned in a short time with several other natives and by his orders they broke open all the doors and windows and entered the house.” While this was occurring, the “commander during this time [was] calling out ‘beat him,’ ‘kill him’! ‘Get a rope and bind him and take the d---d [sic] white man to Aux Cayes.” At this point, de Long was “exhausted” and for days following “could neither walk, sleep, nor eat, vomiting almost constantly and sore from head to foot”; he had “not yet recovered and probably I never shall,” he confided. Why was this “outrage” committed? The consul “had caused the commander’s son to be arrested for stealing money and he [the commander] was determined to have satisfaction in some way. My son was so disgusted and mortified that he left for the States on board the first vessel” head- ing north. As for de Long, he was beset with injury: “I would prefer being shot at once and put out of misery and disgrace, rather than re-pass through what I have” and “were it not for my friends I could not live.”83 When he appealed to a judge, de Long’s words were unheeded,84 despite evidence of “violent language and threats”—and worse—raining down upon him, including threats to “shoot” him by a Haitian who “drew a pistol.”85 Like others, de Long did not connect the hostil- ity that he personally experienced with the hostility felt by many Haitians toward his government. This was an immediate product of the proposed annexation, but the fury toward annexation should be seen as a culminating vehemence toward a lengthy and hostile U.S. policy toward Black Jacobinism.

By late 1869, Paris had gotten hold of a U.S. message penned near Jacmel, warning Haitian forces to halt their “acts of hostility” against the Dominican Republic and their aid to rebels in the east, consisting of “men, money, arms, and ammunitions of war.” Haiti was warned that unless this ceased, the United States would deem this to be a hostile act against itself.86 Paris also conferred with Spencer St. John, the British representative, who had spoken with Báez, but found him reluctant to engage with Haiti since he felt he held a trump card: U.S. sup- port. Yet he also dismissed the idea of widespread backing for annexation, alleging that “no one but Báez and his Ministers are heartily in favor of annexation; the majority of people are averse to it but are kept down by terror, while the others, somewhat indifferent, believe that they will be able to expel the Americans with the same ease they did the Spaniards, if they find their new masters troublesome”; and, he concluded, “very little encouragement would induce them to insist on their Government abandoning the thought of annexation to the United States.” Paris and London should “act together” on this “to preserve the independence” of the Dominican Republic.87

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By early 1870, de Long had been replaced—but similar results obtained. “Much of the property of the United States at this Consulate has been stolen or lost,” complained the new consul, W. A. Gould, in early 1870. There was “no flag at present,” nary a “bookcase nor any proper place to keep papers on file,” and “no stationery of any kind”; moreover, “nothing of this sort can be bought in this place,” which severely hampered communication and normal operations.88 Shortly however, the “war” had “virtually ceased,” said Gould, “though armed bands” marauded “occasionally.”89 Nonetheless, as late as May 1872—after annexation had been squelched—the United States delivered a howitzer to its allies in Haiti, which even Secretary of State Fish acknowledged “caused considerable excite- ment at that place.”90

Gould’s view of Haiti was as malignant as de Long’s. To be sure, he had not “observed any hatred of Americans, as distinguished from other foreigners.” However, the “governing class” was “bitterly opposed to all foreigners without respect to their nationality. There are but two parties here,” he said, “the party of the blacks and the party of the browns” (he had crossed out “whites”). There were “no public schools of any kind” and “the insane run wild in the streets,” while “the poor Negro of the mountain is the only one whom you can at all trust.”Aux Cayes, which had an estimated “population of over ten thousand,” had “not more than one hundred votes” that were “cast at an election.”91 The problem was that Port-au-Prince knew “nothing about what is taking place” in Aux Cayes—and vice versa. Still, he suspected that what was obtaining in Aux Cayes was not pecu- liar. “Threats of assassination are openly made against persons who have incurred the displeasure of the authorities and they say, ‘if we kill a white man, the gov- ernment will have to pay a few thousand dollars and that is all they can do to us.’ ” Meanwhile, “the chief merchant in the American trade” there was suffering “persecution.” This strife may have affected his judgment negatively since he also thought that the prospect of “annexation” meant that Haitians’ “respect for and fear of America is very much increased thereby. All the foreigners here,” Gould noted, “say that when San Domingo is fairly annexed to the United States, they will feel perfectly safe in Haiti.”92

Maybe so—though the U.S. consul in Cap-Haïtien was enduring similar harass- ment at that precise moment. By early 1870, as the annexation debate was waxing, this agent found that the “military authorities” had become “riotous and menac- ing” and engaged in “unpleasant surveillance” that included “forcible entrance into my consulate.” Haiti, he said haughtily, was “semi-civilized” at best; besides, the domestic upheaval meant a “heavy expense for the support of so many refugees,” which was a “terrible infliction on one with my small salary.”93 His ordeal was just

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beginning. Soon there was a “large military force” that “surrounded this consul- ate” with the “most impertinent scrutiny”; “during the whole of the night” they “indulged in the most abusive, riotous, and barbarous orgies.” They threatened, the consul said, to break in and shoot him on account of the refugees he housed, forcing him to retreat to his “balcony, revolver in hand.”94 vice Consul Charles Brody was accosted too: “two soldiers advanced on him,” General Nord Alexis was informed, and “one of them dealt his horse a heavy stroke with his bayonet, whilst the other fired” at him; “the ball pass[ed] . . . near his head,” creating a “flagrant outrage.”95 General Alexis again issued a blanket denial—but his words were not taken seri- ously in Washington.96 Unfortunately, Washington did not connect the growing problems experienced by U.S. envoys in Haiti with the vociferous opposition to annexation of the island; nor did Washington tie this opposition to the long and troubled relationship between Black Jacobinism and the former enslaving republic.

Problematic for the United States was that—Douglass and Haitian problems of biblical proportion notwithstanding—U.S. Negroes often disagreed with Gould’s assessment: they were hardly monolithic in their backing for annexation, bringing rifts at a time when wars with Native American polities were ascendant and neces- sitated a kind of national unity. Henry Highland Garnet, for example, was among those in opposition. The Weekly Louisianan was among the periodicals in this beleaguered community that assailed Douglass for having accepted the position of “a mere attaché on the Santo Domingo Commission after his name had been men- tioned as a probable Commissioner.” The “colored people everywhere,” said this journal, “felt that a man who is always and everywhere mentioned as the representa- tive par excellence of the Negro race [had] compromised his dignity and belittled the colored man’s claims to consideration and where the interests of a Negro nationality were most at stake by going as a sort of nondescript official.”97 This pro-Haitian sentiment reached a new zenith when a Negro congressman was touted as being a “native of Hayti”—though he was born in South Carolina.98

Successful U.S. Negro emigrants in Haiti continued to be touted by this press. Theodore Holly, a cleric born in Washington, D.C., was one of these emigrants.99 There was also Hezekiah Grice, a native of Baltimore, who was a “tolerable French scholar—speaking that language with great fluency.” A veteran, as early as 1832, he presented a report to a mainland convention on voluntary emigration; by 1834 Grice, having taken his own advice, had migrated and promptly found a high- level post as a machinist and inventor. He survived the dislodging of Boyer and acquired the confidence of Solouque; the Emperor sent him to Manhattan to obtain machinery for sugar manufacturing. He died in 1863, but left behind a family of six sons and five daughters, all of whom were born in Haiti: “they are all good French

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scholars,” it was said proudly. However, three of his sons returned to reside in the United States, leaving their siblings behind.100

Both sides in the annexation debate had to take account of the U.S. Negro emi- grant population on the island. This included Samuel Hazard, who visited Port-au- Prince in the early 1870s, and “found a good many English-speaking people and amongst them some coloured people who settled here years ago, established them- selves in business, and are now doing well.” It was unclear if this cohort were among those who felt that annexation was “the only salvation for the island.” However, he met one individual who declared that if annexation occurred, the response would be chilling: “there won’t be a white man left alive in the island.” Despite this reserva- tion, Hazard found “an almost universal wish of the people, high and low,” in Santo Domingo “to come into the American Union.”101

Such an opinion was shared by some of the U.S. Negro emigrants—but the extent to which such a view took root is not clear. one mainland visitor arrived near the time of Hazard’s visit and made his way to Samaná, where he detailed the “arrival” in 1824 of “a few free colored people from the American states of Pennsylvania and Maryland. About 300 of these people and their children are still living, the majority at Samaná. They rank among the most intelligent and industri- ous on the island. In 1851 the population of the town of Samaná was about 1800 souls, of which 300 were colored Americans,” and it grew even larger in the 1870s, propelled by “commerce” with the “Turks Island.”102

President Grant also was the recipient of a fusillade of criticism and his Haitian policy was termed an “outrage.” With barely contained rage, one journalist said that the White House “proceeded to strike at the independence of the black republic in an open menace of war.” How could the United States be involved in “threatening to . . .capture the Haytien ships” and other acts of aggression? The newly aboli- tionist republic “would have done no such thing to any white ruler, nor would our country have tolerated such a menace.” Why was the U.S. Navy “hovering on the coast keeping that insulted people in constant anxiety”? How could the United States collaborate with Báez, who “immured” a U.S. national—David Hatch— “because it was feared he would write against the treaty [of] annexation”? This was enough to call for the replacement of Grant with Horace Greeley on the Republican Party ticket.103

This steadfastness in support of Haiti was all the more remarkable given the parlous condition to which so many U.S. Negro emigrants had descended in Haiti. As early as 1863, there were reports of “destitute coloured emigrants,” notably those “located on Isle a vache.” A statute had been passed to subsidize Negroes in Washington, D.C., who wished to emigrate to the tune of $100,000;

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this was in addition to an earlier $500,000 subsidy. But, by the late 1860s, many were still streaming back to the mainland and the terrible portrait of their misery no doubt influenced those U.S. Negroes who longed for annexation by a richer power, i.e. the United States.104 of course, some of those returning—at least before 1865—were doing so in order to join the fight to rout the secessionists.105 Consider Edouard Tinchant, for example. He was born in France in 1841, but both of his parents hailed from Gonaïves during the revolutionary era and settled in New orleans thereafter. Tinchant fought in the U.S. Civil War and played a role in crafting the Reconstruction Constitution, which was adjudged to be quite radical.

For good reason there were those who sought to abandon the mainland for Haiti—or elsewhere. (Tinchant became a cigar merchant in Antwerp, for exam- ple.106) It was in late 1868 that Judge David Irvin in Texas was told that the hue and cry about the Negro would soon die—and a kind of terrorism against him could easily resume.107 R. J. Lackland of St. Louis said that the Negro had fulfilled his destiny in building the productive forces of the mainland and now could be ushered off stage as bonded labor from China would proceed to hold sway.108

Yet those U.S. Negroes who opposed Washington’s foreign policy were pursu- ing a dangerous course. The United States continued to challenge Haitian sover- eignty over Navassa, the small island replete with guano, and was willing to back up this claim with armed force.109

Yet Secretary of State Fish continued to be befuddled by the downturn in rela- tions with Haiti: in 1870, as annexation hung in the balance, he “learned with regret that a sentiment hostile to the United States prevails among” a good number of Haitians, despite “what the United States has done for the African race within the past ten years.”110 The sanctimonious secretary understood why Haiti might view Spain with disdain, but “this feeling should not however include the United States,” especially “in view of the fact that the equality of races here before the law is signally exemplified in the person of our diplomatic representative accredited to them”111—namely, the U.S. Negro, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett.

What might be called the “Bassett Card,” or underscoring the ancestry of U.S. diplomats, was played repeatedly by Washington to establish the allegedly progres- sive credentials of the recently enslaving republic (and in a pattern that was to extend for decades, in the absence of concrete policies to highlight). When Stanislaus Goutier of the United States met President Saget, he gushed about Bassett, telling the Haitian leader that the United States, “having abolished slavery at an enormous sacrifice,” was now “striving to obliterate its last vestige—prejudice of color” and to that end “has sent a gentleman of your race to represent” the United States. “These

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remarks had the intended effect”—or so thought Goutier.112 The United States even thought the fact that it was now officially abolitionist should disarm Haiti and com- pel the nation to back annexation.113

Appointed by Grant in 1869, Bassett was the son of a “mulatto” and an indigene (Pequot), which pursuant to the typical U.S. calculation made him a Negro. He had studied French and, given these characteristics, it should not be deemed surprising that from 1879 to 1888 he served as Consul General of Haiti in Manhattan. It is likely that Haiti did not want to “insult” mainstream Euro-American opinion by send- ing a darker man as its agent. This may explain the appointment of its Washington emissary, Stephen Preston, the grandson of a British officer, who had settled on the island after the failed occupation by London. He served for two decades in Washington as ambassador.114 Bassett, however, was reproved by the U.S. consul in Cap-Haïtien, who resigned in early 1870, though it is unclear if his melanin content was the reason.115 John Bell Hepburn, a U.S. Negro emigrant then residing in Haiti, did not shrink from making a racial reprimand, stressing to President Grant that the “interests” of the United States “would be better served in Hayti by a White Representative rather than a Black one.”116 Secretary of State Hamilton Fish too was upset with Bassett after he allowed asylum seekers to enter the legation, contrary to instructions. He was “inclined to recommend his recall” though he objected to the typical Haitian tactic of “surrounding his legation with a military force,” an “indig- nity which cannot be allowed”; thus, he said, a “vessel of war will be sent there.”117

Ultimately, it was Bassett who played the larger role in bilateral relations. He was a “highly educated colored man and for years . . . [had] been the chief of the faculty of the Philadelphia Colored High School,” said one confidant of President Grant.118 Bassett himself said, “[I] was born and educated in New England—partly at Yale.”119 A post in the diplomatic service—even in a place that was scorned like Haiti—was deemed to be a plum position and there was competition for the assign- ment. George vashon told Grant, “I resided in the island for nearly three years, during the latter portion of which I held the professorship of the Greek and English languages in the College Faustin, which enabled me to attain an extended familiarity with the French language.”120 But it was Bassett who got the job.

This sourness was an aspect of a larger ennui that gripped the island in the aftermath of a failed annexation. Stanislaus Goutier, the newly appointed U.S. con- sul in Cap-Haïtien in 1871, found it “very gloomy” and wracked with an “uneasi- ness which has been severely felt in business circles for some time past”; this was worsened by the “unfortunate Franco-Prussian war,” which “completely paralyzed commerce” and harmed U.S. interests too.121 Surely, U.S. maritime interests were threatened when David Williams, described as a “black man,” emulated many from

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his mainland group and “deserted” his navy vessel in Haiti; “although a reward of $20 was offered,” Goutier noted, “he was not apprehended.”122

Though London was elated with the foiling of annexation, it was displeased with what it saw as “communistic assassins,” who were supposedly proliferat- ing in Haiti. These forces seemed to “answer the call of any agitators who cry out against the proprietors that they are intriguing to sell the country to the foreigner and who propose a division of the property of the wealthy.” Perhaps strengthening the Catholic Church would flummox these forces, it was said.123 London, then wor- rying over a typical spate of insurrectionary unrest in Jamaica,124 had reason to fear that any contagion from Haiti could have easily spread to kingston, just as it was fretting over spreading unrest from Cuba.125

President Saget was unhappy too, sternly rebutting claims by the United States and the major powers “for losses sustained by them during our last civil war” and the “considerable arrears [that] were due to France.” While clamoring for payments, U.S. forces “occupied” the “island of Navaza [sic] situated but a short distance from our coast” and did so “without having entered into any contract with the Government,” Saget noted. All the while, they were conducting a “considerable commerce with the guano”—the proceeds of which rightly belonged to Port-au-Prince since, President Saget reminded, his nation had “incontestable rights to this island.” Such aggression meant “bankruptcy stares us in the face” though “we still have immense resources,” as the “line of steamers” steadily plying the waters between New York and Haiti sug- gested.126 Nonplussed, the United States steadily pressed claims and, just as steadily, Saget sought to rebut them.127 When “American silver” became the “circulating coin of the country,” which was the U.S. contention in 1873, and the indigenous “filthy currency” was sidelined, the prospect for Haiti satisfying claims became even more complicated.128 This difficulty compelled Port-au-Prince to apply to a London bank for a loan129—even a successful deal would have made for more complex relations with its powerful mainland neighbor.130 This possibility of economic distress seemed to be realized when, weeks later, Haiti found it difficult to pay its London envoy131— and key personnel in Port-au-Prince too.

The news for Haiti was getting worse with the rise of Germany—or Prussia— indicated by its recent triumph over France. There was now yet another power interested in plundering Haiti. By 1872, the United States resorted to appointing a “Mr. Herberlein,” an “American citizen,” to the post of consul in Gonaïves; he was both a “partner in an American house”—and “a Prussian” and also “German consul at Gonaïves.” But it seemed his allegiance rested with Berlin, particularly since another U.S. consul thought that “he might raise the German flag above the glorious stars and stripes.”132

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Joseph Fabens was disconsolate too. The failure of annexation had scuttled his ambitious real estate visions for Hispaniola and seemed to inflame his ire toward Haiti accordingly. By 1873 U.S. warships still hovered near the island, which he endorsed, since it deterred “filibustering expeditions” and “invasion by land and sea” from Haiti. Why was the Dominican Republic so despotic? It was Haiti’s fault. The fear of their western neighbor was of justifiable concern since the “Dominicans are of the white race and mixed breeds” too, with “few pure blacks,” whereas “the Haytians are almost all Negroes.” Thus, “all intelligent Dominicans perceive that their existence as a people is constantly threatened by the Blacks of Hayti.” In fact, “mothers frighten their children by threatening to call a black Haytian to come and gobble them up.” This was not, Fabens maintained, pure fantasy since “five times in forty years, the Negroes of Hayti, who although possessing only the western end of the island and about a fifth of its territory, are five times as numerous and rich as the Dominicans, have crossed the mountains in open war and in large numbers.”133 More pressure on Haiti was needed, a proposal that would have been supported by William Cazneau, whose American West India Company, founded in 1862, was designed to exploit annexation but now had to turn to other schemes.134

While Fabens was licking his wounds, Santo Domingo remained in an uproar. Rebellion rocked Puerto Plata, purportedly led by those still concerned about annex- ation. A Dominican general was killed and two of his sons rebelled in response; they then fled to the British consulate after committing an assassination of their own. They were granted asylum and strident resistance was accorded to those who sought to capture them. These were “humiliations” claimed the U.S. envoy.135 If it had the opportunity, Washington would have looked with grave suspicion on the seemingly congratulatory message to Haiti’s London envoy from Port-au-Prince, cheering the revolt in Puerto Plata and awaiting eagerly the downfall of Báez.136 By January 1874, Port-au-Prince seemed to have been gloating when it reported that Báez had departed unceremoniously and was headed to the United States. Now was the time for an entente with Santo Domingo, it was said. The agents of the president’s demise had been placed on a steamer, apparently at Haiti’s behest, headed for the capital to form a provisional government.137 That was in January and in June there was enthusiasm at the eclipse of Báez and his annexationist plan,138 but by August the news was discouraging in terms of bilateral relations on the island;139 there seemed to be much bad blood and too much interference from external forces to bring the two republics together. In any case, a story—possibly false—was cir- culated that Haiti was seeking ammunition, arms, and steamers from the United States in order to better confront what had become a perpetual antagonist.140 Still, Port-au-Prince continued to speak optimistically about an “entente,”141 though

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right after that U.S. gunboat diplomacy continued to operate when Secretary of State Fish requested a battleship to be sent to the island and virtually demanded that Haiti take no offense;142 almost two decades later, Haiti’s envoy in Washington was informed that “the welfare of Haiti is again threatened by [the] very likely real negotiations for the partition of St. Domingo.”143

This perception was confirmed when in 1874 the British consul in Port-au- Prince was trying to negotiate a treaty between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the completion of which would involve a bailout of Port-au-Prince and annul- ment of foreign concessions in Samaná; the latter decision would be contrary to Washington’s interests and entail its possible replacement by Her Majesty’s min- ions—and, thus, was receiving pushback in Samaná.144 Nonetheless, soon official Haiti was satisfied by improving relations with its immediate neighbor to the east and the apparent decline of U.S. influence that inexorably accompanied this devel- opment. vigilance was counseled and the mandate to unite the two populations of the island was the watchword—while guarding against outside meddling.145

This rosy scenario was not easy to realize as evidenced from reports emerging from Puerto Plata. There were a “considerable number of American vessels trad- ing in wood, honey, and other products of this island at the port of Monte Cristy [sic], Santo Domingo and near the Haitian frontier.”146 But soon there was a pre- dictable event—a “revolution was pronounced” and “strangers have been the main sufferers,” it was reported. Cubans who were “naturalized American citizens” were “the greatest sufferers,” while even “children of American citizens” were “forced to bear arms.” The city, which still contained a number of U.S. Negro emigrants, was besieged, but it was not evident if the “outrages” that were “daily being committed upon American citizens as well as other foreigners” included these migrants from decades earlier.147

Evidently, one of those so affected was not Jane Cazneau. Even after the unsuccessful annexation—perhaps to fulfill the promise of her real estate specu- lation—she continued to expound on the island. By 1878 she was in Samaná — the “Gibraltar of the Antilles” was her phrase—where she took careful note of “a widow, the daughter of a colored emigrant from virginia.” There were other “colored Americans” all about, a “band of freedmen and their children” was “in many respects the most remarkable missionary congregation I ever had the good fortune to encounter. They deserve honorable mention as industrious Christians, but it is especially of their qualities as reliable sailors that I wish to offer this cer- tificate of merit.” These “colored American settlers” owned and cultivated “some of the prettiest little homesteads in this region. They all speak English as well as Spanish,” which made them valuable interlocutors regionally—though “they are

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almost a state unto themselves.” This “state” involved “fifty homesteads—each a picture in itself—each tidy cottage nestling in its own grove of coffee and fruit trees, scattered in irregular profusion over a rich upland, sometimes expanding into level savannas and sometimes swelling up into romantic eminences.” Many “claimed descent from a party of liberated slaves sent out from virginia while Boyer was president of the whole of Hayti. The newcomers received a generous welcome from that wonderful man.” They controlled “several small vessels, ranging from twenty to forty tons” that plied “constantly between Samaná bay” and the Turks and Caicos “in the fruit trade.” These “colored Americans,” effused the adventurer, “have surprised me more profoundly and more agreeably than anything else I have met in this land of surprises.” Their “small estancias—seldom reaching ten acres in extent” featured “more care and, of course, more profit also, than those of the average of their Dominican neighbors.” She was impressed with this setting and lamented that it was “no wonder that England and France forbade the cession” to the United States. Yet she was disturbed that Haiti “still clings to the doctrine of Negro supremacy,” but not the Dominican Republic. “A white man, though just as wise and well-behaved as the most exemplary Negro, is denied citizenship alike in Ashantee and Hayti.” Looking back, she recalled how she was “twice present in the library of the White House, when the project of a free port at Samaná was explained and defended” by her spouse. Secretary of State Lewis Cass was present during this briefing, where Mr. Cazneau warned about a Spanish takeover—a warning ignored—and now Samaná was in the hands of mere U.S. Negroes.148

Despite the setback, Jane Cazneau had fared well in the region, with an estate in Jamaica and another near Santo Domingo of about twenty acres; she had control- ling interest in a wharf in the latter city and a square of land nearby with four homes sited. She was still pursuing a claim of $10,000 against Madrid in the wake of the occupation and owned a tract of forty acres near Samaná.149 In December 1878, she left there for New York City—but her vessel was lost at sea,150 an ignominious end for her and for this chapter in the history of Hispaniola.

Though wracked with instability, Haiti in succeeding years continued to main- tain legations—not just in key ports, e.g. Hamburg151—but also in flashpoints, e.g. Wilmington, North Carolina.152 Port-au-Prince also continued to maintain an acute interest in mainland trends, notably the struggle for equality.153

And the mainland continued to reciprocate. In his final message to Congress in December 1876, President Grant continued to complain that the newly “eman- cipated race of the South would have found” a “congenial home” on the island; “whole communities would have sought refuge in Santo Domingo.” Yes, “the whole race would [not] have gone,” but enough to fulfill the dreams of those who

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longed for a land free of Africans.154 Grant seemed to be obsessed with the failed annexation, speaking in 1878 in harsh terms about the abolitionist Wendell Phillips who had spoken with contempt of the “treachery to the black race” involved in this pro-annexation effort. Yet, countered Grant, Douglass was “among the most enthusiastic supporters of the treaty” that “would have given a new home for the blacks.” For “if two or three hundred thousand blacks were to emigrate to St. Domingo under our Republic, the Southern people would learn the crime of ku kluxism.” And, he said with regret, “we [would] have made of St. Domingo a new Texas or a new California.”155

Taking this into account, the militant U.S. Negro journalist, T. Thomas Fortune sought funding from Port-au-Prince to establish a mainland newspaper. “I believe,” he told Haiti’s U.S. envoy, “that a newspaper devoted to the interests of the Government and the people of Haiti, printed in the English language at New York, and properly circulated here and elsewhere throughout the country, would serve an important and useful purpose,” not least “in correcting the misleading and often malicious and damaging statements which constantly appear in the American journals concerning Haiti, its Government, its people, its social life, and the admin- istration of its laws.” Said Fortune, “I understand that the Haitian Government has already a paper of that character issued at Paris in the French language”—so why not one published in Manhattan? Was it not true that “the desirability or the neces- sity of having such an organ in the United States is much greater than . . . in France or elsewhere in Europe”? Was not Haiti sensitive to the impact of “the prevailing contemptuous feeling existing in the United States, but not in Europe, toward the African race”? He was willing to concede that the “matter appearing in the columns should be approved by the representatives of the Haytien Government,” though “it would weaken rather than strengthen the force of the paper, if it should be known to be in any way a Government organ. I would name the paper The West Indian Trade Journal”—indicative of regional ambition—and it should be “free of charge to all persons engaged in the import and export trade between America and Haiti.” Start-up costs would be a mere “four hundred . . . dollars per month.” But Haiti, then pressed on all sides, was hardly in a position to embark in this potentially attractive direction.156 For example, the Haitian legation in the United States was— perhaps understandably—more concerned with “illegal practices,” e.g. U.S. ves- sels’ “supposed transmission of correspondence with political refugees from Haiti” with the aim of destabilizing a government that was unsteady in the best of times.157 Understandably, Haiti too was consumed with unraveling the often convoluted problems that ensued from a massive emigration of U.S. Negroes, who left rela- tives—and at times property—behind.158 Moreover, Haiti continued to be dogged

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by claims stemming from the revolution and the massive indemnity paid to Paris.159 In 1888 Haiti was forced in Washington to hand to Charles Adrien van Bokkelen $60,000, funds that would have been better allocated to health and education in Port-au-Prince.160

Nonetheless, Fortune’s project, which envisioned mutually beneficial trade relations with Haiti, would have been a boon for both sides,161 as suggested by the fact of a surfeit of applications for presumably lucrative Haitian consular posts in ports like Mobile162 and Norfolk.163

The point is that the failed annexation did not squelch continuing interest by U.S. Negroes in the fate of Haiti.164 Perhaps seeking to redeem himself, Douglass speaking in Chicago in 1893 saluted the Haitian Revolution as “one of the most wonderful events in the history of this eventful century and I may also say in the his- tory of mankind.” Rather than castigate the Haitians, as he did during his mission, he acknowledged that they “met deception with deception, arms with arms, harass- ing warfare with harassing warfare, fire with fire, blood with blood, and they would never have gained their freedom and independence if they had not thus matched the French at all points.”165

In Samaná and Puerto Plata, the U.S. Negro emigrants continued to play a major role on the island—and this remains true today. During the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the mid-20th century, this community suffered. Still, they persevered and, like their relatives on the mainland, they valued education; they built many schools and their children often returned to the United States for study, including at the Tuskegee Institute of Booker T. Washington. Some of the first engineers in the Dominican Republic emerged from this community.166

The influence went in the other direction too: Haitian-Americans have left an indelible mark on the mainland. The growing list includes Jelly Roll Morton, the famed musician and composer,167 and Septima Clark, who has justifiably been com- pared with the legendary Rosa Parks as a heroine of the anti–Jim Crow movement from her perch in South Carolina.168 of course, perhaps the leading light of Black America—W. E. B. Du Bois—had roots in Haiti.169 Unfortunately, this mutuality is not always recognized; for example, the contemporary Haitian-American artist Wyclef Jean who grew to maturity in the U.S. Northeast, has been troubled by con- flict between this largely immigrant grouping and those now designated as “African American”—an ironic counterpart to the 19th century emigration to “Hayti” of U.S. Negroes.170

By the same token, African Americans today have not fully digested the implica- tions of the failed annexation of the island. Indeed, the assumption of U.S. citizen- ship has come at a steep price: namely, presumed—or coaxed—support for imperial

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ventures that are harmful to longtime allies and are, ultimately, detrimental to the true interests of African Americans themselves. Nevertheless, the ultimate legacy of Haiti on the mainland is the penetrating impression left by Black Jacobinism, which inspired abolition and helped to generate a spirit of militancy among African Americans that has yet to be extinguished.

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