First International Conference of American States And so, as Secretary of State, Blaine sent invitations to all the nations of the Hemisphere to come to Washington in November 1881 with the principal goal of considering and discussing methods to prevent war between the nations of the Hemisphere. But destiny intervened: President Garfield was assassinated on 19 September 1881 and the new President Chester A. Arthur, who was no friend of Blaine's, quickly removed him from the State Department. Shortly afterward, the Conference invitations were withdrawn on the grounds that the unsettled situation at home and abroad would make such an event impossible. Now a private citizen,
SS Ozama (1881) SS Ozama (1881) The American steamer Ozama, 1028 tons, was the former British steamer "Craigallion", built by Ramage & Ferguson in 1881 at Leith, Scotland. She had a colorful history, with a mutiny and gunrunning. She was shipwrecked twice, the first time in 1885 in the Bahamas, and the last in 1894 on the outer shoal of Cape Romain, South Carolina. She was named for the Ozama River in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, which was one of her regular ports of call. This steamer was definitely a powerful and well built ship as evidenced by the fact that she was