Last month after visiting Jamaica, I stated that with a little twist of fate I could have ended up a Jamaican (my ancestors could have been bought and sold to any Caribbean destination instead of the US.)

This month Claudette and I visited the Dominican Republic which gave us the opportunity to learn about a different part of the world. What was interesting is that after the slaves were freed in the US, the Grant administration proposed to send the recently freed slaves to the Dominican Republic. Around 1880 the Senate voted on his proposal and the tally was 28-28 (I guess there were only 28 states in the union at that time and a 2/3 majority was needed).  Nonetheless, the effort to expatriate us was strong and without the opposition efforts by Frederick Douglass and other we may well have been Dominicans.