of the Alabama claims, depredations caused to the Union by the Confederate warship , built in a British shipyard in violation of neutrality rules. Secretary Hamilton Fish played the central role in formulating and implementing the Treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration (1872). Senator Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led the demand for reparations, with talk of British Columbia as payment. Fish and Treasurer George Boutwell convinced Grant that peaceful relations with Britain were essential, and the two nations agreed to negotiate along those lines. To avoid jeopardizing negotiations, Grant refrained from recognizing Cuban rebels who were fighting for independence from Spain, which would have been inconsistent with American objections to the British granting belligerent status to Confederates. A commission in Washington produced a treaty whereby an international tribunal would settle the damage amounts; the British admitted regret, but not fault. The Senate, including Grant critics Sumner and Carl Schurz, approved the Treaty of Washington, which settled disputes over fishing rights and maritime boundaries, by a 50–12 vote, signed on May 8, 1871. The Alabama claims settlement would be Grant's most successful foreign policy achievement that secured peace with Great Britain and the United States. The settlement ($15,500,000) of the Alabama Claims resolved troubled Anglo-American issues, ended the bullied demand to take over Canada, and turned Britain into America's strongest ally. Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) In 1869, Grant initiated his plan, later to become an obsession, to annex the Dominican Republic, then called Santo Domingo. Grant believed acquisition of the Caribbean island and Samaná Bay would increase the United States' natural resources, and strengthen U.S. naval protection to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, safeguard against British obstruction of U.S. shipping and protect a future oceanic canal, stop slavery in Cuba and Brazil, while blacks in the United States would have a safe haven from "the crime of Klu Kluxism". Joseph W. Fabens, an American speculator who represented Buenaventura Báez, the president of the Dominican Republic, met with Secretary Fish and proposed annexation, whose island inhabitants sought American protection. Fish wanted nothing to do with the island, but he dutifully brought up Faben's proposal to Grant at a cabinet meeting. On July 17, Grant sent his military White House aide Orville E. Babcock to evaluate the islands' resources, local conditions, and Báez's terms for annexation, but was given no diplomatic authority. When Babcock returned to Washington with