1865-00-00: (The Dominican Republic Declares Independence From Spain for the Second Time, Ending a Four-Year Experiment in Voluntary Recolonization That Had …

1865-00-00: (The Dominican Republic Declares Independence From Spain for the Second Time, Ending a Four-Year Experiment in Voluntary Recolonization That Had Alarmed Every Haitian Leader Who Understood That a European Presence on the Island Was an Existential Threat): In 1865, after a two-year war of national liberation, the Dominican Republic declared independence from Spain for the second time, ending the voluntary recolonization that had begun in 1861. The United States had abolished slavery the same year. The Western Hemisphere was reorganizing itself, and the European colonial model that had defined the Caribbean for four centuries was in retreat. Haiti’s relationship with the newly re-independent Dominican Republic remained tense, complicated by Geffrard’s refusal to support the Dominican independence movement and by the lingering resentment of Boyer’s twenty-two-year occupation. No Latin American nation sent an official diplomatic representative to Haiti until 1865, a sixty-one-year diplomatic quarantine that reflected the hemisphere’s refusal to accept a Black republic as a legitimate member of the community of nations.