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If you ever wonder (probably don't even know it) why so many government buildings and monuments built by the government (not to mention a high number of homes of the upper class and even the upper class have floors of this material) are made of marble in the Dominican Republic...
This mine is in the Las Galeras area of the Samaná Peninsula. I know it's used for extensive local consumption (including the lobbies of many hotels and resorts), but have no idea if it's exported as well. Juat as good as Italian marble from Carrara, but at a fraction of the cost. While the marble is mined there, the place where it's processed is near Santo Domingo.
Dominican Republic had the peculiarity of extensive usage of mahogany too, which is considered a "luxury" wood in much of the globe. This was di¡ue to the abundance of mahogany trees which are native to the country, so it didn't required to be imported and the mahogany wood itself was cheaper than in most countries. Even at the ports the piers used to be made entirely of mahogany. That must had been a shock to foreign sailors and captains. I think it was the only country where that was seen. Today, mahogany is protected and is considered the national tree. Nowadays real Mahogany wood is imported mostly from Central America.
Near the marble mine, in the same municipality of Las Galeras, are these (mostly deserted) beaches. Unlike the water temperatures in most beaches along the US east coast and all the beaches on the west coast, these beaches are bathe bywarm waters.
To think that during the US presidency of Ulysses S Grant (the Dominican president at that time was Buenaventura Báez) the Dominican Republic, with a population that was around 150,000 vs the 10 million + that exist today, it was almost annexed by the USA. One extra vote against annexation from a senator put an end to the attempt of annexation. All of this would had been the USA, perhaps the Hawaii of the eastern United States.
In fact, the USA was planning of placing a military base on the shores of Samaná Bay, very close to here, considered the finest bay in the entire Caribbean. Coveted by people such as Napoleon Bonapart of France who planned to built a new Paris-like capital in what is now Samaná city. The plans for the new city still exist. It was to become the capital of the French Empire in the Americas (including places in the USA such as New Orleans and everywhere in the "Louisiana Purchase," as that land which duplicated the size of the United States was put on sale by Napoleon after the possibilities of his Dominican project was dismantled, for that reason the French city was never built. It was going to be named Port Napoleon.)
There is an official report done for the US government by a commission of Americans sent to see and get to kmow the entirety of the Dominican Republic at that time. The report is titled "Dominican Republic, 1871: Report of the Commission of Inquiry to Santo Domingo."
The annexation attempt was well before the US take over of Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898. In fact, it could very well be the reason the USA didn't went about democratic means to get a foothold in the Caribbean, since a few decades before the DR annexation attempt failed going by the Congress and Senate of the USA.
The Mausoleum to Ulysses S Grant in Manhattan, NYC.
Last edited by AntonioR; 11-23-2023 at 08:15 AM..
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