Introduction

Abstract

US scholarship has named Henry C. C. Astwood among the nineteenth century’s esteemed Black leaders. His trajectory as a poor African-descendant migrant from the British Caribbean to Reconstruction-era New Orleans to the US consulship in Santo Domingo in 1882 demonstrated his remarkable ingenuity. However, Astwood was also a controversial international figure whom Dominicans best remember for his exploitative politics in Santo Domingo. Using Astwood’s early life and polemical career in Santo Domingo as a guide, the book examines the intersection of moral discourse and racial capitalism in the Americas at the end of the nineteenth century. The introduction presents Astwood’s moral politics of race making and political tigueraje as part of a Dominican-centric history essential to understanding the postemancipation Americas. It additionally presents other major themes: US-Dominican diplomatic relations, African American emigration, Dominican liberalism, Dominican national identity formation, and Dominican religious history.