The 1916 Occupation: The View from the North

Published in Diario Libre
(Dominican Republic) on 22 June 2019
by José del Castillo Pichardo (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Madeleine Brink. Edited by Arielle Eirienne.
The classic work on the 1916 invasion of the Dominican Republic, “The Americans in Santo Domingo” (1928), was written by an American economist and historian named Melvin Moses Knight. He was given the task of carrying out this study by the American Fund for Public Service as part of a series of studies on the role of U.S. extraterritorial military interventions. The same excellent program would also become the source of the works of Leland Jenks – “Our Colony in Cuba” – and of Margaret Marsh – “Our Banks in Bolivia.” These would be the first monographs written on what would come to be known as “economic imperialism.”

For many years, Knight’s book stood brilliantly but alone in the academic world. Near the end of the 20th century, historian Bruce J. Calder completed his doctoral dissertation on the U.S. military’s presence in the Dominican Republic and its consequences on Dominican society. The book, entitled “The Impact of Intervention” (1984) was published by the University of Texas, and in it, the author presents a more balanced view of the military government’s activities. The main thesis is that a large part of the military’s administrators was inspired by the progressive ideology that was then fashionable in the U.S., an ideology that extolled the introduction of economic and social reform along with a sense of equality.

Calder’s contribution tended to relativize the “black legend” of the occupation, which over the years has been spread by the radical focus of Melvin Knight’s work, by the nationalism of the Dominican elite in the 1920s, and by the Marxist or neo-Marxist Manichaeism of the young students of social sciences who have a proclivity to see a perverse Machiavellian intentionality in every aspect of recorded imperialism.

There are three Spanish editions of Calder’s book, the last published in 2014 by the Dominican History Academy. This latest is entitled “The Impact of the Intervention. The Dominican Republic during the U.S. Occupation of 1916-1924.”

We must add to these works another classic, “Naboth’s Vineyard. The Dominican Republic 1844-1924” (1928), written by Benjamin Sumner Welles, who was head of the Latin American division of the State Department, with a special commission in the Dominican Republic from 1922-1925 and later under-secretary of state. Sumner Welles’s work is key to understanding the minutiae of U.S. diplomacy in the first decades of the 20th century. Another important book that covers some of the same time period is the work of Dana G. Munro, “Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean 1900-1921” (1964). As an official in the State Department starting in 1919, Munro was a part of U.S. policy formation in the region.

At the same time that Munro’s book was published, an ex-officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, David Charles MacMichael, presented his excellent doctoral dissertation called “The United States and the Dominican Republic, 1871-1940: A Cycle in Caribbean Diplomacy.”

To complete a vision of the fascinating history of diplomatic relations between the two countries, all these texts can be connected to the works of Charles C. Tansill – “The United States and Santo Domingo, 1798-1873” – and of William R. Tansill – “Diplomatic Relations between the United States and the Dominican Republic, 1874-1899.”

To understand what happened in the first decades of the 20th century, especially in the 1920s, two works stand out. The first, written in 1944, is called “De Lilís a Trujillo,” by Luis Felipe Mejía, a politician from the Horacista Party and one of the first anti-Trujillo exiles. His book was recently edited by the Dominican Bibliophile Society in 2014. The second, written in 1973, is called “Los Responsables. Fracaso de la Tercera República,” by Víctor M. Medina Benet, a Puerto Rican who was involved with U.S. diplomacy in the Dominican Republic. His book, too, was reedited by the Bibliophiles in 2013.

But it isn’t only diplomats and scholars from the north who wrote about our relations. The Marines who landed in unknown territories lived new experiences. Their contact with the sizzling tropical climate, with the jungle wildlife, with a strange language and customs, in rudimentary living conditions in rural areas: all this, along with the governmental functions they were to perform, provided raw material for writing.

There are official reports about all sorts of topics, there are descriptions of the construction that the Marines were undertaking, there are stories about trips and skirmishes, narratives about customs, works of literary fiction – these are some of the materials that were produced as a result of the American military occupation.

To provide a reference, here are some titles: “Santo Domingo, its Past and its Present Condition” (1920), an official publication of the military government; “Civil Government in Santo Domingo in the Early Days of the Military Occupation,” submitted by Coronel Rufus H. Lane to the Marine Corps Gazette; “Indoctrination in Santo Domingo,” a text for Marines to read, penned by the legal officer, First Lieutenant Robert C. Kilmartin, and “Some Forced Plane Landings in Santo Domingo,” in which Second Lieutenant Hayne D. Boyden tells about his flights over Dominican territory. The literary works of the naval officials include the book by Arthur J. Burks, “Land of Checkerboard Families,” published in 1932 and edited by the Dominican Bibliophile Society in 1990 under the title, “The Country of Multi-colored Families.”

Other bibliographic materials include Samuel G. Inman’s “Through Santo Domingo and Haiti. A Cruise with the Marines.” Also, “Report of a Visit to the Island,” ed. Committee on Cooperation in Latin America, New York City, 1919. Another is Stephen M. Fuller and Graham A. Cosmas’s “Marines in the Dominican Republic 1916-1924,” a work based on the study of official sources from the History and Museums Division of the U.S. Marine Corps, published in 1974 by the Government Printing Office in Washington.

The case of the aforementioned Arthur J. Burks is very illustrative of the spirit of adventure that motivated some of those in the military. According to the lieutenant of the Marine Infantry Corps of the United States, Burks arrived in Santo Domingo in 1922 seeking action, after having spent World War I serving as a training officer in California and having worked in the Census Office in Washington. Tired of being away from the front, working in training and offices, he came to Santo Domingo with his wife and first child, with the goal of living experiences that would later serve him in his vocation as a writer.

Some 35 books and more than 1,200 stories would become the products of a life filled with emotion which would take him also to China in 1927, as assistant to the legendary Smedley D. Butler, who later would take him to the Amazon jungle to live with the Munduruku tribe to collect medicinal plants that he used for oncological research. Burks later would become involved in the film industry during the golden years of Hollywood, writing scripts and helping with film production.

Burks alternated between military life and the life of a writer. Between 1917 and 1928, he dressed for work in military boots. Between 1928 and 1941, he worked from New York writing for different magazines, newspapers, radio and film. When his country proposed entry into World War II, he reentered the Marine Corps as a captain, acting as training supervisor for more than 17,000 soldiers on Parris Island, South Carolina. He also trained troops in amphibian warfare and personal attack in Cuba, training for the U.S. landing in Japan. By the end of the war, he would reach the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Burks died in 1974 at the age of 76 after having rerouted his interest – as often happens for men of action as they enter old age – toward metaphysical concerns. He toured the U.S. presenting at conferences and was ordained minister of the Christian Spiritual Alliance and the Church of Ageless Wisdom. Politically, if it is of interest, he was a Democrat.

In “Land of Checkboard Families,” the author talks about his experiences according to the different functions he exercised during his two and a half years in Santo Domingo. Reading the book is exciting from the start: Burks captures and maintains the reader’s interest through a series of stories dominated by action. It’s not by chance that the work begins with the story of the point-blank assassination of President Ramon Cáceres, situating the reader in the center of the Dominican drama, and providing the motive used by the U.S. to justify U.S. intervention in the country. “It’s difficult to deny,” says Burks, “that the chaos that followed the death of Mon Cáceres...led to the necessity of the American intervention.”

In twenty chapters charged with emotion – in a style and pace similar to the stories about Indiana Jones – Burks writes about the experiences that stand out most in his mind, experiences derived from his work as a Marine. He worked in various capacities: as commander of the regiment in Barahona where he was also provost marshal and head of the jail, as head of improvised topography that made maps of various provinces, and as head of the Office of the Intelligence Brigade, seated in Santo Domingo with national jurisdiction. In this last post he traveled throughout the country, following illegal arms traffickers and those labeled as “bandits.” He also ensured that the gossip mills of Dominican politics were kept to an inaudible mumble, through a well-informed network of informants.


La obra clásica sobre la intervención de 1916, The Americans in Santo Domingo (1928), se debe a un economista e historiador norteamericano, Melvin Moses Knight, a quien le fuera encomendado ese estudio por el American Fund for Public Service, como parte de una serie de investigaciones acerca del papel de las inversiones de los Estados Unidos en el exterior. De ese meritorio programa saldrían las obras de Leland Jenks, Nuestra Colonia de Cuba y de Margaret Marsh, Nuestros Bancos en Bolivia. Serían las primeras monografías sobre lo que se conocería como “imperialismo económico”.

Por muchos años, la obra de Knight permaneció sin parangón, brillando solitaria en el firmamento académico. A finales del siglo XX, el historiador Bruce J. Calder culminó su tesis doctoral sobre la administración militar norteamericana y sus consecuencias para la sociedad dominicana, publicada por la Universidad de Texas bajo el título The Impact of Intervention (1984). El autor presenta un balance más equilibrado de la obra del gobierno militar, bajo la tesis de que buena parte de sus ejecutorias se hallaba inspirada en la ideología progresista, en boga en EEUU. Que preconizaba la introducción de reformas económicas y sociales en esa sociedad con sentido de equidad.

El aporte de Calder tiende a relativizar la “leyenda negra” sobre la Ocupación, alentada por el enfoque radical de Melvin Knight, el nacionalismo de la elite dominicana de los años 20 y el maniqueísmo marxista o neo marxista en la joven generación de estudiosos de las ciencias sociales, proclive a ver intencionalidad perversamente maquiavélica en todos los actos del consignado imperialismo. Existen tres ediciones en español del libro de Calder, la última de 2014 de la Academia Dominicana de la Historia, bajo el título El Impacto de la Intervención. La República Dominicana durante la ocupación norteamericana de 1916-1924.

A estas obras se agrega un clásico como Naboth’s Vineyard. The Dominican Republic 1844-1924 (1928), de Benjamin Sumner Welles, quien fuera jefe de la división latinoamericana del Departamento de Estado, Comisionado Especial en la República Dominicana entre 1922-25 y Subsecretario de Estado. Clave para entender los pormenores de la diplomacia norteamericana en las primeras décadas de este siglo, al igual que Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean 1900-1921, de Dana G. Munro, quien desde 1919 jugaría un rol en la formación de la política norteamericana hacia la región, como funcionario del Departamento de Estado.

Cuando en 1964 se publicaba la obra de Munro, un antiguo oficial del U.S. Marine Corps, David Charles MacMichael, presentaba su excelente disertación doctoral bajo el título The United States and the Dominican Republic, 1871-1940: A Cycle in Caribbean Diplomacy.

Estos textos se conectan a los de Charles C. Tansill, Los Estados Unidos y Santo Domingo, 1798-1873 y William R. Tansill, Diplomatic Relations between the United States and the Dominican Republic, 1874-1899, para cubrir la fascinante historia de las relaciones diplomáticas entre ambos países.

En adición, dos obras resultan esenciales para entender lo que sucedió en las primeras décadas del siglo pasado, en especial en los años 20. De Lilís a Trujillo (1944), de Luis Felipe Mejía, quien fuera diputado horacista y uno de los primeros exiliados antitrujillistas, con edición reciente de la Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliófilos (2014). Y Los Responsables. Fracaso de la Tercera República (1973), del puertorriqueño Víctor M. Medina Benet, empleado de la legación diplomática estadounidense en el país, reeditada por los Bibliófilos en 2013.

No sólo diplomáticos y scholars del Norte se ocuparían de escribir sobre estas relaciones. Los marines que desembarcaban en territorios que les eran desconocidos, recibieron el impacto de experiencias muchas veces inéditas. El contacto con el clima abrasador de los trópicos, con una naturaleza selvática, con lenguas y costumbres extrañas, bajo condiciones de vida rudimentarias imperantes en las zonas rurales, junto a las funciones de gobierno a desempeñar, proporcionó materia prima para la escritura.

Informes oficiales sobre los más diversos tópicos, artículos de divulgación de la obra realizada por los marines, relatos de viajes y escaramuzas, narraciones de costumbres y obras de ficción literaria, se confunden en la masa de materiales que produjo la Ocupación militar americana.

A manera de referencia, algunos títulos: Santo Domingo, its Past and its Present Condition (1920), publicación oficial del gobierno militar. “Civil Government in Santo Domingo in the Early Days of the Military Occupation”, colaboración del coronel Rufus H. Lane a la Marine Corps Gazette. Indoctrination in Santo Domingo, texto para ser leído a los marines de la autoría del oficial jurídico, primer teniente Robert C. Kilmartin. Y Some Forced Plane Landing in Santo Domingo, en el cual el segundo teniente Hayne D. Boyden relata sus vuelos sobre territorio dominicano. La saga literaria del cuerpo de oficiales navales desemboca en la obra de Arthur J. Burks, Land of Checkerboard Families, publicada en 1932, con edición de los Bibliófilos bajo el título El país de las familias multicolores (1990).

Otros materiales bibliográficos comprenden a Samuel G. Inman, Through Santo Domingo and Haiti. A cruise with the marines. Report of a visit to the Island, edición del. Committee on Cooperation in Latin America, New York City, 1919. Y a los historiadores militares Stephen M. Fuller y Graham A. Cosmas, quienes aportaron Marines in the Dominican Republic 1916-1924, obra basada en el estudio de las fuentes oficiales del History and Museums Division of the U.S. Marine Corps, publicada en 1974 por Government Printing Office, Washington.

El caso de Arthur J. Burks es sumamente ilustrativo del espíritu de aventura que motivaba a algunos de estos actores militares. Segundo teniente del Cuerpo de Infantería de la Marina de los Estados Unidos, llegó a Santo Domingo en 1922 en busca de acción, luego de haber permanecido durante la Primera Guerra Mundial como oficial de entrenamiento en una base de la armada situada en California y de haber laborado en la Oficina del Censo, en Washington. Cansado de permanecer alejado del escenario de guerra, en funciones de entrenamiento y de gabinete, vino a Santo Domingo acompañado de su esposa y de su primer hijo, con el objetivo de acumular experiencias que luego le sirvieran para alimentar su vocación de escritor de literatura de ficción.

Unos 35 libros y más de 1,200 cuentos serían el balance de una vida llena de emociones, que le llevarían también a China en 1927 como asistente del legendario Smedley D. Butler, que luego lo situaría en la selva amazónica conviviendo con los indios mundurucus colectando plantas medicinales que servirían a las investigaciones oncológicas. Y que le involucraría en la industria cinematográfica durante los años dorados del cine de estudio de Hollywood, escribiendo libretos y auxiliando en la producción de algunos films.

Burks alternó la vida militar con la de escritor. Mientras entre 1917 y 1928 estuvo con las botas puestas hoyando el barro, entre este último año y 1941 se radicó en New York, escribiendo para diferentes revistas, periódicos, así como para la radio y el cine. Para reingresar a las filas de la Marina con rango de capitán, cuando su país se proponía participar en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, actuando como supervisor de la formación de más de 17 mil soldados en Parris Island, Carolina del Sur y como entrenador en guerra anfibia y ataque personal, en Cuba, con mira al desembarco norteamericano en el Japón. Al término de la guerra alcanzaría el rango de teniente coronel.

Falleció en 1974, a los 76 años, tras haber derivado -como sucede en la edad provecta con muchos hombres de acción- hacia preocupaciones metafísicas que le llevaron a recorrer el país como conferencista y a ser ordenado ministro de la Christian Spiritual Alliance y en The Church of Ageless Wisdom. Políticamente, si de algo sirve el dato, fue demócrata.

En El país de las familias multicolores relata el autor sus experiencias al frente de diferentes funciones ejercidas en dos años y medio de estancia en Santo Domingo. La lectura de sus páginas apasiona desde el primer momento, cuando Burks logra atrapar el interés del lector, manteniéndolo a lo largo de una sucesión de relatos dominados por la acción. No resulta fortuito que la obra se inicie con la historia del asesinato a quema ropa del presidente Cáceres, una forma de situar al lector en el centro del drama dominicano y de avanzar un motivo del argumentario oficial empleado para justificar la intervención. “Difícilmente puede negarse -dice Burks- que el caos que siguió tras la muerte de Mon Cáceres...condujo a la necesidad de la intervención americana”.

En veinte capítulos cargados de emoción -cual si fuere una serie de Indiana Jones-, Burks refiere sus vivencias más sobresalientes, derivadas de la ejecución de las tareas asignadas. Como comandante de regimiento en Barahona -donde también fue juez prebostal y alcaide de la cárcel. Como jefe de topógrafos improvisados que levantó cartografía en varias provincias. Y en calidad de cabeza de la Oficina de la Brigada de Inteligencia, radicada en Santo Domingo con jurisdicción nacional. Función ésta que le llevó a moverse por toda la geografía dominicana, tras las huellas de los contrabandistas de armas y de los denominados “bandidos”. Así como a parar las orejas en los mentideros de la política criolla a través de una bien articulada red de informantes.
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