Hamilton Fish

Hamilton Fish was Ulysses S. Grant’s principal diplomat and served as Secretary of State from 1869 to 1877. His most durable work used negotiation and arbitration to reduce disputes inherited from the Civil War while managing pressure for intervention in the Caribbean. ^{1, 3}

Hamilton Fish presided over the Washington negotiations that produced the armistice between Spain and the Pacific republics on 11 April 1871. As United States Secretary of State, he brought together the representatives of Spain, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador at the State Department. Peru’s Manuel Freyre also represented Bolivia pending approval from his own government. ²

Fish came to the department after a career in New York politics. Born in 1808, he graduated from Columbia, practiced law, and served in the House of Representatives, as governor, and in the Senate. He moved from the Whig Party to the Republicans. During the Civil War, he served on a commission concerned with Union prisoners and prisoner exchanges. ¹

As Secretary of State from 1869 to 1877, Fish also handled the rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba. Working with Senator Charles Sumner, he persuaded President Grant not to recognize the Cuban rebels as belligerents; he later pressed Spain to consider Cuban independence and an end to slavery. ¹

The Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871 placed the Alabama claims before an international arbitration commission and addressed other Anglo-American disputes over boundaries and fishing. In September 1872, the commission rejected expansive American claims for indirect damages but awarded the United States $15.5 million for losses associated with Confederate commerce raiders. The settlement removed a major source of hostility toward Britain and established an influential example of resolving serious claims through arbitration. ^{1, 3}

Fish’s restraint over Cuba did not mean abandoning American claims against Spain. Repeated disputes over the treatment of American citizens led to a February 1877 protocol securing greater due-process protections for them in Cuba. Other expansionist projects, including Grant’s attempt to acquire territory in the Dominican Republic, failed. Fish therefore left a record of substantial negotiated settlements alongside ambitions that neither Congress nor foreign governments would accept. ¹