... This chapter considers the geopolitical context into which Henry C. C. Astwood was born. Centering Astwood’s birth land, the Turks Islands, it examines the British Caribbean’s transition from slavery to free labor in the 1830s. It then pushes forward to the 1860s, demonstrating how...

.... Astwood’s migratory trajectory from the Turks Islands to Puerto Plata to Samaná and finally to New Orleans. This chapter demonstrates how people of color in each locale united and adapted their strategies in their struggles for liberty. It especially highlights Black Protestant churches in the Dominican...

... This chapter analyzes the aftermath of Astwood’s dismissal and his refusal to surrender his consular post. Once finally discharged, Astwood immediately began to lobby for reinstatement. Behind the scenes, elite American businessmen debated Astwood’s fitness for office, echoing the larger...

... Church liberals African Methodist Episcopal Odd Fellows Eugenio María de Hostos This chapter considers traditional Dominican Spanish-Catholic nationalism through a close study of Henry C. C. Astwood’s most infamous scheme: his attempt to facilitate the lease of Christopher Columbus’s exhumed...

...Beginnings This chapter considers the geopolitical context into which Henry C. C. Astwood was born. Centering Astwood’s birth land, the Turks Islands, it examines the British Caribbean’s transition from slavery to free labor in the 1830s. It then pushes forward to the 1860s, demonstrating how...

... 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...

...Black Political Authority This chapter considers Astwood’s aspirations for the Dominican Republic within the context of the United States’ racial imaginary of Haiti and the whole island of Hispaniola, and it documents his struggle to assert his political authority. As consul, Astwood faced...

... The conclusion explores the afterlife of Henry Astwood’s consulship in Santo Domingo. Recounting the Dominican Republic’s absence at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, among other events, it demonstrates how the Dominican crossroads vanished as white supremacist concepts of morality consolidated...

... This chapter considers Astwood’s aspirations for the Dominican Republic within the context of the United States’ racial imaginary of Haiti and the whole island of Hispaniola, and it documents his struggle to assert his political authority. As consul, Astwood faced discrimination against his...

... in Washington preferred to ignore the killing, Astwood declared it a case of murder and insisted that both the Dominican Republic and the United States engage in diplomatic negotiations under his watch in order to avert international scandal. Through an analysis of the racist and gendered language in the case...

... This chapter considers traditional Dominican Spanish-Catholic nationalism through a close study of Henry C. C. Astwood’s most infamous scheme: his attempt to facilitate the lease of Christopher Columbus’s exhumed remains to a US businessman in 1888. The Dominican Republic’s transatlantic debate...

... Henry C. C. Astwood diplomacy Black internationalism moral politics trickster ...