ABSTRACT
The fifty-year period that immediately followed La Restauración was plagued by still more chaos. The Dominican Republic fell into serious ruin. There were crippling political fragmentation, revived socioeconomic competition between El Cibao and the south, paralleled by regionalized economic production, plus the nagging question of the Samaná territory. From the period of 1865 until 1916 there were thirty-six presidents, some serving multiple terms in office. The era was marked by heavy foreign loans, the difficulty of debt payments, power struggles among regional caudillos, and a series of bloody civil wars, all compounded by a stagnant national economy. The fragile Dominican government with its ruinous indebtedness eventually prompted United States military intervention. First, though, came the humiliating Fiscal Convention of 1907 that placed the nation’s customs operations completely in the hands of the United States. Later, in 1916, the United States Marines landed. One might say that the truly modern era for Quisqueya began with the unceremonious introduction of United States imperialism.
