Spanish occupation of the Dominican Republic

In 1861 general Pedro Santana asked queen Isabella II of Spain to retake control of the Dominican Republic, after a period of only 17 years of independence. Spain, which had not come to terms with the loss of its American colonies 40 years earlier or so, accepted his proposal and made the country a colony again.

The end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865 and the re-assertion of the Monroe Doctrine by the United States (no longer involved in internal conflict and possessing enormously expanded and modernized military forces as a result of the war) prompted the evacuation of Spanish forces back to Cuba in that year.