14 Chapter 2
Participants: 2 United States of America/42 Dominican Republic
Outcome (and Settlement): Victory for side A (Imposed)
Fatalities: None
Narrative: The period of relative calm that came to the Dominican Republic after
being put on receivership (see MID#247) had eroded by the time Woodrow Wilson
became US president. The assassination of Ramon Caceres in 1911 began a period of
general upheaval and civic unrest. Wilson, worried over the situation in Europe and
border troubles with Mexico, vowed to not let the situation in the Dominican Republic
persist. The United States followed its previous pleas for the restoration of order in
the Dominican Republic in early 1914 with a threat that failure to do so would result
in US action. This resulted in a US-mediated ceasefire between the government and
rebels on the terms that the Americans wanted: a free and fair election to determine
control of government. However, this process was manipulated by the government
and resulted in the reelection of the incumbent head of state, Jose Bordas Valdez, and
more conflict followed.
The United States grew impatient. Amidst growing unrest, the Machias fired on
Bordas’s armaments in Puerto Plata to stop Bordas’s side from bombarding the city.
Woodrow Wilson then unveiled a plan for the Dominicans. Under his eponymous
plan, the Dominican Republic was again to have free and fair elections aimed at secur-
ing the peace. The plan then took on the form of an ultimatum. If the Dominicans
failed in this effort, the United States would impose a president. US troop movements
to Guantanamo (in Cuba) and the port at Santo Domingo in order to demonstrate that
Wilson backed the ultimatum. This ultimately resulted in a presidential election on
October 25, 1914, which returned Juan Isidro Jimenes to power. The supporters of
Jimenes’s rival in this election, Horacio Vasquez, protested to the United States, but
the United States rebuffed the horacistas on November 14 by promising to uphold its
end of the Wilson Plan.
The elderly Jimenes made the mistake of appointing too many rivals to cabinet posi-
tions in order to gain broader support, and the government struggled to operate despite
US support. Attempts through early 1915, such as an April plot to impeach Jimenes on
a technicality, were met with reiterated US backing of Jimenes. Difficulties regarding
customs receivership, controlled by an American for the first time, mounted. Jimenes
saw that the American controller weakened his position domestically and tried to
withdraw him. The Americans refused. Meanwhile, small scale uprisings started in the
summer of 1915. A new US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, resulted in a heavier
hand by the United States especially regarding Dominican debt. Lansing admonished
the Dominicans for violating the 1907 treaty (again, see MID#247) by taking on debt
without US permission, and the Americans reiterated their interpretation of the treaty,
complete with rights to intervene if they felt it necessary. The Dominican government
balked when the Dominican citizens discovered the terms that the United States was
proposing. In essence, it was identical to what it had placed on its next-door neighbor,
Haiti.
With anti-American sentiment rising, Jimenes rejected all proposals from the
United States on December 8, 1915. This rejection and anti-American backlash fueled
American fears that Jimenes was unsafe politically. The United States promised mili-
tary support for Jimenes, which had the adverse effect of compounding the problem.