05/24/2010

Lamoine and the Santo Domingo Connection

Sometimes a gravestone inscription creates connections to far away places. What would two young Lamoine men be doing on a Caribbean island in 1866 and how did they die?

The island of Hispanola felt the first footsteps of Columbus on the New World. Here he founded Santo Domingo City, and Spain went about its usual process of plunder and pillage. In 1697 Spain signed over the western half of the island, now called Santo Domingo, to France, perceiving it to be of little value. Therefore, the division of the island between a Spanish speaking side (Dominican Republic) and a French speaking side (Haiti) had its origins in the 17th century.
In these early days trade was strictly controlled by European powers over their colonies and commerce between islands of the Caribbean and the colonies of mainland America were either at the whim of those powers or done illegally. Sugar, molasses, rum and slaves were the island products while the mainland supplied salted meat and fish, whale oil, livestock and iron goods. France disliked the trade with British North America but needed the food to feed plantation slaves and feared importation of rum into France where it would displace wine demand. Similarly, the British preferred its colonies trade only with British islands and passed the Molasses Act to control trade with the islands. The effect of this restricted trade translated later into a United States desire to preserve our hemisphere for our own trading interests. In the short term it was yet another reason for our founding fathers to throw off the yoke of British domination and taxation.

Our post-revolution relations with France were sunny. France however was still bowing to the demands of its merchants at home who wished to protect their exclusive trade with the French islands. The newly independent Americans were demanding freer trade. A French minister to the U.S. reported,

To hear them, one would believe at times that all they have obtained was due them and that every refusal to grant further concessions is an injustice.

During the French Revolution Haiti, called French Santo Domingo at the time, used the distant struggle for liberty to begin its own struggle. By 1793 slaves were liberated and in ownership of their third of the island. Concurrently, political turmoil and bad crops in France made importation of American goods to the island a necessity. It was this trade more than the liberation of slaves which mattered most to our country. Since France was at war with England and America was recently, it was a concern that a liberated Santo Domingo would drift under English domination as it seemed obvious, given the racism of the times, that freed slaves were incapable of self government. A close alliance with England meant a loss of trade for America. America also had a huge debt owed to France for its help in the American Revolution. An infusion of arms and foodstuffs from America to colonial France during this period not only helped reduce this debt but also set the stage for our legacy of meddling in the affairs of the island, usually on the side of colonialism, trade interests and the prevention of mass immigration. A veneer of racism weighed heavily on our Haiti relations, especially prior to the end of the Civil War:

[Laws forbidding recognition]…will not permit the fruits of a successful negro insurrection to be exhibited among them. It will not permit black consuls and ambassadors…to parade through our country, and give their fellow blacks in the Untied States, proof in hand of the honors which await them…for the murder of their masters and mistresses…

Senator Benton of Missouri, 1825

In 1795 France seized the eastern 2/3s of the island, then a Spanish colony, and were eventually driven out by the English in 1814. The independent Dominican Republic was declared in 1821, but Haitian leader Jean Pierre Boyer quickly demanded union of the entire island under the Haitian flag. The coup was bloodless. By 1843 Dominican leaders in the eastern portion appealed to colonial powers to establish a protectorate, safe from volatile Haiti. This request bore little fruit until 1851, in the Tripartite Intervention, which began mediation between Haiti and France, Great Britain and the United States. To the three nations demands Haiti responded with a promise to abstain from hostilities for the time being, far short of their demands. The three nation’s cooperation fell apart and later attempts to peacefully annex the Dominican Republic to the United States failed. In 1862 the United States finally recognized the Haiti Republic.

The scheme to annex the Dominican Republic was hatched by Southern politicians who saw the end of slavery approaching. They longed for a Caribbean slaveocracy where they could return to the good old days of plantation life. Dominican statehood fulfilled this fantasy. The idea was not popular in the North. Therefore the Civil War pitted Haitian recognition (the North) against Dominican statehood (the South). France, Spain and Britain were dead set against annexation and stepped up their diplomatic and military efforts in the area. Spain won the contest in 1861, motivated by fears of an American invasion of Cuba. The Dominican Republic remained a Spanish protectorate until 1865.

So what was it in November of 1866 which killed two young men from Lamoine? I can’t answer that. There are many sailors and captains in the East Lamoine Cemetery and dieing at sea is not unusual. Both stones mention Santo Domingo but there was no hurricane or military action that I can find. So for 21 year old Captain Thomas King and 16 year old Orren A. Hodgkins we will have to assume a drowning, illness, bar brawl or other calamity befell them.