Wade, B. F. Report of the Commission of Inquiry to Santo Domingo with the Introductory Message of the President, Special Reports made to the Commission/#...#. Ed. A. D. White and S. G. (Samuel Gridley) Howe. Washington, D.C.: Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1871.
US President Grant appointed:
a Commission of Inquiry to visit Santo Domingo early in 1871 ... composed of five men, among them Senator Benjamin F. Wade, Cornell University president Andrew D. White, and philanthropist minister Samuel G. Howe, together with former U.S. envoy to Colombia A. A. Burton and the renown abolitionist Frederick Douglass as secretaries. It arrived in Santo Domingo on January 16, 1871, along with a cadre of scientists led by geologist William M. Gabb. They were charged with ascertaining popular support for annexation and assessing the physical, moral and intellectual conditions of the people and the quality of the land and its resources. As with previous U.S. government agents, part of the commissions' task was to assess the racial composition of the country and the power of the white elite, both of which were central to any viable colonization or annexation scheme. After spending two months in the country, and several weeks in Haiti, the commissioners concluded that "the interests of our country and of San Domingo alike invite the annexation of that republic," as President Grant informed Congress.
For a background, see Efforts to Annex Santo Domingo to the United States, 1866-1871, by Harold T. Pinkett in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1941), pp. 12-45; Published by: Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, Inc..
See also Frederick Douglass and the Annexation of Santo Domingo.
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