The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

MEXICO

Intervention: 1903,1908,1912,

1914–1916, 1918–1920

GUATEMALA

Intervention: 1906

PANAMA

Protectorate: 1903–1939

HONDURAS

Intervention: 1903,1907,1911,

1912, 1919, 1924–1925

NICARAGUA

Intervention: 1906,1909–1910

Occupied: 1898, 1899, 1910,

1912–1925, 1926–1933

HAITI

Protectorate: 1915–1936,

Occupied: 1915–1934

CUBA

Protectorate: 1898–1934,

Occupied: 1898–1902, 1906–1909,

1912, 1917–1933

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Protectorate: 1905–1941,

Occupied: 1903–1904, 1914,

1916–1924

VIRGIN ISLANDS

(purchased from

Denmark, 1917)

PUERTO RICO

(ceded by Spain, 1898)

UNITED STATES

COLOMBIA

JAMAICA

(Br.)

BRITISH

HONDURAS

EL SALVADOR

COSTA

RICA

VENEZUELA

Mexico City

Houston

New Orleans

BAHAMA

ISLANDS

Miami (Br.)

Gulf of Fonseca

(1914–1933)

(1903–1912) Guantánamo Bay(1903–Present)

Canal Zone

(1903–1999)

US and possessions

US commercial interests: Fruit

US commercial interests: Sugar

Major US Naval bases

Caribbean Sea

Gulf of

Mexico

ATLANTIC OCEAN

The United States in the Caribbean and Central AmericaPuerto Rico was ceded by Spain to the United States after the Spanish-American War;

the Virgin Islands were bought from Denmark; the Canal Zone was leased from Panama. The ranges of dates shown for Cuba, the Dominican

Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama cover those years during which the United States either had troops in occupation or in some other way

(such as financial) had a protectorate relationship with that country.

governments in the region annulled concessions and
repudiated debts with equal disdain for honest busi-
ness dealing.
In 1902, shortly after the United States had
pulled out of Cuba, trouble erupted in Venezuela,
where a dictator, Cipriano Castro, was refusing to
honor debts owed the citizens of European nations.
To force Castro to pay up, Germany and Great
Britain established a blockade of Venezuelan ports
and destroyed a number of Venezuelan gunboats and
harbor defenses. Under American pressure the
Europeans agreed to arbitrate the dispute. For the
first time, European powers had accepted the broad
implications of the Monroe Doctrine. By this time
Theodore Roosevelt had become president of the
United States, and he quickly capitalized on the new
European attitude. In 1903 the Dominican Republic
defaulted on bonds totaling some $40 million. When
European investors urged their governments to inter-
vene, Roosevelt announced that under the Monroe
Doctrine the United States could not permit foreign
nations to intervene in Latin America. But, he added,
Latin American nations should not be allowed to
escape their obligations. “If we intend to say ‘Hands

off ’... sooner or later we must keep order our-

selves,” he told Secretary of War Elihu Root.

The president did not want to make a colony of

the Dominican Republic. “I have about the same

desire to annex it as a gorged boa constrictor might

have to swallow a porcupine wrong-end-to,” he said.

He therefore arranged for the United States to take

charge of the Dominican customs service—the one

reliable source of revenue in that poverty-stricken

country. Fifty-five percent of the customs duties

would be devoted to debt payment, the remainder

turned over to the Dominican government to care for

its internal needs. Roosevelt defined his policy, known

as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,

in a message to Congress in December 1904.

“Chronic wrongdoing” in Latin America, he stated

with his typical disregard for the subtleties of complex

affairs, might require outside intervention. Since,

under the Monroe Doctrine, no other nation could

step in, the United States must “exercise... an inter-

national police power.”

In the short run this policy worked. Dominican

customs were honestly collected for the first time and

the country’s finances put in order. The presence of

The United States in the Caribbean and Central America 599