The U.S. policy of “Dollar Diplomacy” was designed to replace “dollars for bullets,” to guarantee economic and political stability in the Caribbean without intrusive and increasingly controversial military interventions. Using military and government records from Dominican and US archives, this work investigates the extent to which early twentieth-century U.S. involvement in the Dominican Republic fundamentally changed the course of Dominican history and the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. In the Dominican Republic, successive interventions contributed to a drastic shifting of the social order ... More

The U.S. policy of “Dollar Diplomacy” was designed to replace “dollars for bullets,” to guarantee economic and political stability in the Caribbean without intrusive and increasingly controversial military interventions. Using military and government records from Dominican and US archives, this work investigates the extent to which early twentieth-century U.S. involvement in the Dominican Republic fundamentally changed the course of Dominican history and the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. In the Dominican Republic, successive interventions contributed to a drastic shifting of the social order, as well as centralized state power through the military, which Rafael Trujillo leveraged in his rise to dictatorship in the 1920s. Ultimately, this study demonstrates, the overthrow of the social order resulted not from military planning, but from the unplanned and uncoordinated interactions and negotiations between U.S. Marine Corps military occupation initiatives and Dominican society. This work provides insight into Dominican history and early U.S. attempts to use military force to reform other nations, but also offers a unique view of the power and goals of U.S. Navy officers and administrators during a period of expansive naval growth and concern about Caribbean security.