ABSTRACT
When civil war broke out in the Dominican Republic in 1916, the United States dispatched Marine Corps servicemen to support the incumbent regime; however, Dominican President Juan Isidro Jiménez resigned rather than accept foreign assistance. Now in the position of trying to uphold an administration that ceased to exist, the United States established a military government and remained in power for the next 8 years. Throughout the occupation, U.S. leaders asserted that their primary goal was to protect a law-abiding majority against a minority of insurgents. Marines deliberately labeled opponents “bandits” to emphasize this distinction, but the American troops found it challenging to distinguish insurgents from refugees and ordinary inhabitants, especially in rural precincts. Many turned against the population they were assigned to protect, meting out gratuitous punishment regardless of an individual's guerrilla involvement. This essay illuminates how the occupation evolved, for U.S. citizens, from a celebrated humanitarian campaign to a misguided counterinsurgency operation and military regime embodying imperialist overreach in U.S. foreign affairs.
