Page 276 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

778 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

a “Junta Patriótica” in the capital city to resist the Marine presence, U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson sent a commission to Santo Domingo in 1915 and another 1916, demanding that the
U.S. be given the power to establish a U.S.-created and Marine-controlled Guardia Nacional
to replace all Dominican and military and police forces. But with General arias and his
11
forces in open rebellion against the government, tensions were high in the city and armed
forces were polarized. When the provisional president, under such pressure, finally accepted
the appointment of a U.S. financial advisor, the Dominican public in the capital protested
so severely that the president resigned from office in May of 1916. in the ensuing power
12
vacuum, the U.S. placed more Marines in Santo Domingo, forced Arias out of the city, and
began to spread throughout the country—ostensibly to follow Arias and his forces and finally
end the civil war.
With U.S. forces now controlling the city, the Dominican Congress elected Francisco
Henríquez y Carvajal to the presidency. His election and subsequent refusal to succumb to
the demands for a U.S. financial advisor and U.S.-controlled military led to the refusal of
U.S. forces to hand over the 45% of the customs revenue that funded the Dominican govern-
ment. From May to late November of 1916, the Dominican government under Henríquez y
Carvajal was forced into the unique position of running a country with practically no funds.
While many Dominicans in civil service continued to work even without pay, the lack
13
of funding meant that the Dominican executive office “abolished all army commands and
demobilized the First and Second Battalions. . . Only the Guardia Repúblicana, or police
force, remained in charge of maintaining public order.” This small Dominican military
14
force, however, was rapidly vanishing, as during these months President Henríquez y Car-
vajal was slowly liquidating it due to an inability to pay soldiers’ salaries and support. In the
last months before the military occupation in 1916, the Dominican president was frantically
ordering reports of how many Guardia members and arms remained in the provinces around
Santo Domingo in an attempt to prioritize and somehow keep at least a small armed force in
the capital to counterbalance the presence of U.S. Marines.
15
The lack of Dominican armed forces facilitated increasing control by U.S. military forces
in the capital. Tensions ran high, and a status quo continuation of the stand-off was increas-
ingly less viable as new Marine-Dominican violence broke out in many sectors of the coun-
try. The eventual full military occupation of the country became truly inevitable with the Du-
arte Riot, a direct product of the increasing Marine-Dominican tensions in Santo Domingo:
In October, acting on a rumor that a wanted Dominican “rabble-rouser” was hiding out in
Villa Duarte—across the Río Ozama from the capital—a small contingent of Marines led a
poorly organized and poorly controlled invasion of Villa Duarte, which led to a shoot-out in

11 Roberto Cassá, Historia social y económica de la República Dominicana, (Santo Domingo: la Editora Alfa
y Omega, 1981), 211-213. See also, Tulio Cestero, Estados Unidos y las Antillas. (Madrid: Compañía ibero-
americana de publicaciones (s.a.), 1931), 123-135.
12 Peguero, 213. Moya-Pons, 317.
13 See, for example, Dr. Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, La Ocupación de la República Dominicana por los Es-
tados Unidos y el Derecho de las pequeñas Nacionalidades de América. (Havana: Imprenta “El Siglo XX,”
1919), 43.
14 Peguero, 29.
15 Dominican Republic, Government correspondence 1916, Legajo 22, “Gobierno Militar,” AGN.