* Soulouque’s attack on the Dominican Republic had ironic consequences: justified by him as a way of preventing foreign control on the island, it ultimately had the opposite effect. Some of those who resisted the Haitian invasion began lobbying for a return to Spanish colonial status, and in March 1861 the president of the Dominican Republic officially restored the country to Spain. Having become independent from Spain when it was taken over by Haiti in 1822, then independent from Haiti in 1844, the Dominican Republic was now once again in the hands of a European power.