ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine some of the more dramatic examples of financial crises in the Caribbean during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with a focus on the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba. "Gunboat diplomacy" was endemic in the Caribbean, but hardly limited to the region. The rising power of the United States played a key role in Caribbean history during the nineteenth century. The expansion of US power resulted in increased American economic interest in the Caribbean. One of the more interesting stories of Caribbean "high finance" took place in the Dominican Republic. Far removed from the Caribbean sun, a group of Haiti's official creditors met in Montreal, Canada in January 2010. The combination of sugar wealth and an expanding financial sector with few restrictions as well as the incestuous nature of big business pumped up the Cuban economy into a bubble in 1918 —1919; it burst in 1920.
