Samaná Bay
Samaná Bay
Samaná Bay, harbor on the Samaná Peninsula, at the northeasternmost point of the Dominican Republic. Facing the Mona Passage, the key exit channel of the Caribbean for warships, oil tankers, and civilian passenger vessels, Samaná Bay is the Caribbean's best natural harbor. During the second half of the nineteenth century, U.S. presidents Ulysses Grant, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson, Dominican presidents Buenaventura Báez and Pedro Santana, naval strategists, and diplomats all made efforts to purchase or lease Samaná Bay and the peninsula on which it is located. At the same time, the United States was eager to keep the area out of the control of its European rivals, England, France, and Germany.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frank Moya Pons, Manual de historia dominicana, 7th ed. (1983), esp. pp. 376-377, 380.
Michael J. Kryzanek and Howard J. Wiarda, The Politics of External Influence in the Dominican Republic (1988), esp. pp. 5, 27, 29-30, 153.
Additional Bibliography
Moya Pons, Frank. The Dominican Republic: A National History. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998.
Sang, Lena, and Rosa Lamelas. Línea costera de la Bahía de Samaná: Desde Punta la Palometa hasta Punta Yabón. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana: Centro para la Conservación y Ecodesarrollo de la Bahía de Samaná y su Entorno, 1995.
Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Kai P. Schoenhals