LESSON FROM DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO

8/15/2017 Rafael Trujillo - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo 1/25
Generalissimo
Rafael Trujillo
Trujillo in 1952
36th & 39th President of the Dominican
Republic
In office
16 August 1930 – 16 August 1938
Vice President Rafael Estrella Ureña (1930–
1932)
vacant (1932–1934)
Jacinto Peynado (1934–1938)
Preceded by Rafael Estrella Ureña (acting)
Rafael Trujillo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (Spanish pronunciation: [rafaˈel le
ˈoniðas tɾuˈxiʝo]; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed El
Jefe (Spanish: [el ˈxefe], The Chief or The Boss), was a Dominican
politician and soldier, who ruled the Dominican Republic from
February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961.[2] He served
as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952,
ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman
under figurehead presidents.[Note 1] His 31 years in power, to
Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: El Trujillato), are
considered one of the bloodiest eras ever in the Americas, as
well as a time of a personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo
were in abundance. Rafael Trujillo was responsible for many
deaths including between 547 and 12,166 in the Parsley
massacre.[3][4][Note 2][Note 3]
The Trujillo era unfolded in a Caribbean environment that was
particularly fertile for dictatorial regimes.[Note 4] In the countries
of the Caribbean basin alone, his dictatorship was concurrent, in
whole or in part, with those in Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, and Haiti. In
retrospect, the Trujillo dictatorship has been characterized as
more exposed, more achieved, and more brutal than those that
rose and fell around it.[8]
Trujillo's rule brought the country a great deal of stability and

Preceded by Rafael Estrella Ureña (acting)
Succeeded by Jacinto Peynado
In office
18 May 1942 – 16 August 1952
Vice President None
Preceded by Manuel de Jesús Troncoso de la
Concha
Succeeded by Héctor Trujillo
Personal details
Born Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina
24 October 1891
San Cristóbal, Dominican
Republic
Died 30 May 1961 (aged 69)
Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican
Republic
Nationality Dominican
Political party Dominican
Spouse(s) Maria Martínez de Trujillo
Children Ramfis Trujillo Martínez (b.
1929)[1]
Odette Trujillo Ricardo (b.
1936)[1]
María de los Ángeles del
Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
Trujillo Martínez (b. 1939)[1]
Yolanda Trujillo Lovatón (b.
Trujillo's rule brought the country a great deal of stability and
prosperity throughout his 31-year reign. The price, however,
was high—civil liberties were non-existent and human rights
violations were routine. Due to the longevity of Trujillo's rule, a
detached evaluation of his legacy is difficult. Supporters of
Trujillo claim that he reorganized both the state and the
economy, and left vast infrastructure to the country. His
detractors point to the brutality of his rule, and also claim that
much of the country's wealth wound up in the hands of his
family or close associates.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Rise to power
3 Trujillo government
4 Personality cult
5 Oppression
6 Immigration
7 Environmental policy
8 Foreign policy
8.1 Hull–Trujillo Treaty
8.2 Haiti
8.2.1 Parsley Massacre

Yolanda Trujillo Lovatón (b.
1939)[1]
Leonidas Radhamés Trujillo
Martínez (b. 1942)[1]
Rafael Trujillo Lovatón (b.
1943)[1]
Residence Santo Domingo
Profession Soldier, Businessman,
Statesman
8.3 Cuba
8.4 Betancourt incident
9 Personal life
10 Assassination
11 Honors and awards
12 Trujillo in media
13 Further reading
14 Notes
15 References
15.1 Bibliography
16 External links
Early life
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was born in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic into a lower-middle-class
family,[9] to José "Pepito" Trujillo Valdez,[Note 5] whose father was a Spanish sergeant,[11] and Altagracia Julia
Molina Chevalier, later known as Mamá Julia, whose mother was of Franco-Haitian and Mulatto Haitian
origin.[11][12] He was the third of eleven children;[9][Note 6] he also had an adopted brother, Luis Rafael "Nene"
Trujillo (21 January 1935 – 14 August 2005), who was raised in the home of Trujillo Molina.[11]
In 1897, at age six, Trujillo was registered in the school of Juan Hilario Meriño. One year later he transferred
to the school of Broughton, where he became a pupil of Eugenio María de Hostos, and remained there for the
rest of his primary schooling. At the age of 16 Trujillo got a job as a telegraph operator, which he held for
about three years. Shortly after Trujillo turned to crime—cattle stealing, check counterfeiting, and postal

about three years. Shortly after Trujillo turned to crime—cattle stealing, check counterfeiting, and postal
robbery. He spent several months in prison, which did not deter Trujillo, as he later formed a violent gang of
robbers called the 42.[13][14]
Ancestors of Rafael Trujillo
8. Pedro Trujillo
4. José Trujillo Monagas (1841–
circa 1890)
9. María Monagas
2. José Juan de Dios Trujillo Valdez
(1865–1935)
5. Silveria Valdez Méndez
1. Rafael Leónidas
Trujillo Molina (1891–
1961)
6. Pedro Molina Peña (1840–?)
3. Altagracia Julia Molina Chevalier
(1865–1963)
28. Barthélémy Carrié Levigne (1804–?)
14. Justin Alexis Victor Turenne Carrié
Blaise (1827–1905)
29. Blaisine Blaise Croside
7. Luisa Erciná Chevalier (?–1940)
30. Bernard Chevallier
15. Eleonore Juliette "Diyeta" Chevallier
Moreau (1810–1905)

Moreau (1810–1905)
31. Louise Moreau
Rise to power
In 1916, the United States occupied the Dominican Republic due to threats of defaulting on foreign debts. The
occupying force soon established a Dominican army constabulary to impose order. Trujillo joined the National
Guard in 1918 and trained with the U.S. Marines.[15] Seeing opportunity, Trujillo impressed the recruiters and
won promotion from cadet to general and commander-in chief of the Army in only nine years.[14]
A rebellion (or coup d'état[16][17]) against President Horacio Vásquez broke out in February 1930 in Santiago.
Trujillo secretly cut a deal with rebel leader Rafael Estrella Ureña; in return for Trujillo letting Estrella take
power, Estrella would allow Trujillo to run for president in new elections. As the rebels marched toward Santo
Domingo, Vásquez ordered Trujillo to suppress them. However, feigning "neutrality", Trujillo kept his men in
barracks, allowing Estrella's rebels to take the capital virtually unopposed. On 3 March, Estrella was proclaimed
acting president, with Trujillo confirmed as head of the police and of the army. As per their agreement, Trujillo
became the presidential nominee of the Patriotic Coalition of Citizens (Spanish: Coalición patriotica de los
ciudadanos), with Estrella as his running mate.[18] The other candidates became targets of harassment by the
army, and withdrew when it became apparent that Trujillo would be the only person allowed to effectively
campaign. Ultimately, the Trujillo-Estrella ticket was proclaimed victorious with an implausible 99 percent of
the vote.[19] In a note to the State Department, American ambassador Curtis declares that Trujillo received a
lot more votes than actual voters.[20]
Trujillo government
Three weeks after Trujillo ascended to the Presidency the destructive Hurricane San Zenon hit Santo Domingo
and left more than 3,000 dead. On 16 August 1931, the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trujillo made the
Dominican Party the nation's sole legal political party. However, the country had effectively become a one-
party state with Trujillo's swearing-in. Government employees were required to

Dominican Party the nation's sole legal political party. However, the country had effectively become a one-
party state with Trujillo's swearing-in. Government employees were required to
"donate" 10 percent of their salaries to the national treasury,[21][22] and there was
strong pressure on adult citizens to join the party. Party members had to carry a
membership card, nicknamed the "palmita" as the cover had a palm tree on it, and a
person could be arrested for vagrancy without one. Those who did not join or
contribute to the party did so at their own risk. Opponents of the régime were
mysteriously killed.[23] In 1934 Trujillo, who had promoted himself to generalissimo of
the army, was up for re-election. By this time, there was no organized opposition left
in the country, and he was elected as the sole candidate on the ballot. In addition to
the widely rigged (and regularly uncontested) elections, which never saw a functioning
opposition, he instated "civic reviews", with large crowds shouting their loyalty to the
government.[21]
Personality cult
In 1936, at the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, Congress voted
overwhelmingly to change the name of the capital from Santo Domingo to
Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristobal was changed to "Trujillo", and
the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte, was renamed Pico Trujillo. Statues of
"El Jefe" were mass-produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges
and public buildings were named in his honor. The nation's newspapers had
praise for Trujillo as part of the front page, and license plates included slogans
such as "¡Viva Trujillo!" and "Año Del Benefactor De La Patria" (Year of the
Benefactor of the Nation.) An electric sign was erected in Ciudad Trujillo so
that "Dios y Trujillo" could be seen at night as well as in the day. Eventually,
even churches were required to post the slogan "Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on
Earth). As time went on, the order of the phrases was reversed (Trujillo on Earth, God in Heaven). Trujillo was
recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by his admirers, but the committee declined the suggestion.
Trujillo was eligible to run again in 1938, but, citing the United States example of
Stamp issued in 1933 on
the occasion of Trujillo's
42nd birthday
Heraldic flag used by Trujillo as
Generalissimo of the Armies

Trujillo was eligible to run again in 1938, but, citing the United States example of
two presidential terms, he stated: "I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my
people, refuse re-election to the high office."[24] In fact, a vigorous reelection
campaign had been launched in the middle of 1937 but the international uproar
that followed the Haitian massacre later that year forced Trujillo to announce his
"return to private life".[25] Consequently, the Dominican Party nominated
Trujillo's handpicked successor, 71-year-old vice-president Jacinto Peynado, with
Manuel de Jesús Troncoso as his running mate. They appeared alone on the
ballot in the 1938 election. Trujillo kept his positions as generalissimo of the
army and leader of the Dominican Party. It was understood that Peynado was
merely a puppet, and Trujillo still held all governing power in the nation.
Peynado increased the size of the electric "Dios y Trujillo" sign and died on 7
March 1940, with Troncoso serving out the rest of the term. However, in 1942, with President Franklin D.
Roosevelt having run for a third term in the United States, Trujillo ran for president again and was elected
unopposed. He served for two terms, which he lengthened to five years each. In 1952, under pressure from
the Organization of American States, he ceded the presidency to his brother, Héctor. Despite being officially
out of power, Trujillo organized a major national celebration to commemorate twenty-five years of his rule in
1955. Gold and silver commemorative coins were minted with his image.
Oppression
Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of any opposition was the key feature of Trujillo's rule right
from the beginning in 1930 when his gang, "The 42", under its leader Miguel Angel Paulino, drove through the
streets in their red Packard "carro de la muerte" ("car of death").[26] Trujillo also maintained an execution list
of people throughout the world who he felt were his direct enemies or whom he felt had wronged him. He did
even at one point allow an opposition party to legally form and permitted them to operate openly. This was
mainly so he could identify his opposition and arrest or kill them.[27]
Imprisonments and killings were later handled by the
Era de Trujillo sign: "In this
household, Trujillo is a national
symbol"

Imprisonments and killings were later handled by the
SIM, the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, efficiently
organized by Johnny Abbes. Some cases reached
international notoriety such as the Galíndez case and the
murder of the Mirabal sisters further eroding Trujillo's
critical support by the US government.
Immigration
Trujillo was known for his open-door policy, accepting
Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during
the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war.
He developed a uniquely Dominican policy of racial
discrimination, Antihaitianismo ("anti-Haitianism"), targeting the mostly-black inhabitants of his neighboring
country and those within the Platano Curtain, including many Afro-Dominican citizens. At the 1938 Évian
Conference the Dominican Republic was the only country willing to accept many Jews and offered to accept
up to 100,000 refugees on generous terms.[28] In 1940 an agreement was signed and Trujillo donated 26,000
acres (110 km2) of his properties for settlements. The first settlers arrived in May 1940; eventually some 800
settlers came to Sosua and most moved later on to the United States.[28]
Refugees from Europe broadened the Dominican Republic's tax base and added more whites to the
predominantly mixed-race nation. The government favored white refugees over others while Dominican troops
expelled illegal aliens, resulting in the 1937 Parsley Massacre of Haitian immigrants.
Environmental policy
The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque, a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River.
Trujillo with President
Magloire of Haiti. Hector
and Ramfis Trujillo in
attendance
Rafael Trujillo (right) and guest
Anastasio Somoza at the
inauguration of Héctor Trujillo as
president in 1952

The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque, a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River.
In 1934 he created the nation's first national park, banned the slash-and-burn method of clearing land for
agriculture, set up a forest warden agency to protect the park system, and banned the logging of pine trees
without his permission. In the 1950s the Trujillo regime commissioned a study on the hydroelectric potential of
damming the Dominican Republic's waterways. The commission concluded that only forested waterways could
support hydroelectric dams, so Trujillo banned logging in potential river watersheds. After his assassination in
1961, logging resumed in the Dominican Republic. Squatters burned down the forests for agriculture, and
logging companies clear-cut parks. In 1967, President Joaquín Balaguer launched military strikes against illegal
logging.[22]
Trujillo encouraged foreign investment in the Dominican Republic, particularly from Americans. He gave a
concession with mineral rights in the Azua Basin to Clem S. Clarke, an oilman from Shreveport, Louisiana.[29]
Foreign policy
Trujillo tended toward a peaceful coexistence with the United States government. During World War II Trujillo
sided with the Allies and declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan on 11 December 1941. While there was
no military participation, the Dominican Republic thus became a founding member of the United Nations.
Trujillo encouraged diplomatic and economic ties with the United States, but his policies often caused friction
with other nations of Latin America, especially Costa Rica and Venezuela. He maintained friendly relations with
Franco of Spain, Perón of Argentina, and Somoza of Nicaragua. Towards the end of his rule, his relationship
with the United States deteriorated.
Trujillo paid special attention to improving the armed forces. Military personnel received generous pay and
perks under his rule, and their ranks as well as equipment inventories expanded. Trujillo maintained control
over the officer corps through fear, patronage, and the frequent rotation of assignments, which inhibited the
development of strong personal followings. The establishment of state monopolies over all major enterprises
in the country brought riches to the Trujillos through price manipulation and embezzlement.

Hull–Trujillo Treaty
Early on, Trujillo determined that Dominican financial affairs had to be put in order, and that included ending
the United States's role as collector of Dominican customs—a situation that had existed since 1907 and was
confirmed in a 1924 convention signed at the end of the occupation.
Negotiations started in 1936 and lasted four years. On 24 September 1940, Trujillo and the American
Secretary of State Cordell Hull signed the Hull–Trujillo Treaty, whereby the United States relinquished control
over the collection and application of customs revenues, and the Dominican Republic committed to deposit
consolidated government revenues in a special bank account to guarantee repayment of foreign debt. The
government was free to set custom duties with no restrictions.[30]
This diplomatic success gave Trujillo the occasion to launch a massive propaganda campaign that presented
him as the savior of the nation. A law proclaimed that the Benefactor was also now the Restaurador de la
independencia financiera de la Republica (Restorer of the Republic's financial independence).[31]
Haiti
Haiti had historically occupied what is now the Dominican Republic, from 1822–
1844. Encroachment by Haiti was an ongoing process, and when Trujillo took
over, specifically the northwest border region had become increasingly
"Haitianized."[32] The border was poorly defined. In 1933, and again in 1935,
Trujillo met the Haitian President Sténio Vincent to settle the border issue. By
1936, they reached and signed a settlement. At the same time, Trujillo plotted
against the Haitian government by linking up with General Calixte, Commander
of the Garde d'Haiti, and Élie Lescot, at that time the Haitian ambassador in
Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo).[32] After the settlement, when further border
incursions occurred, Trujillo initiated the Parsley Massacre.
Trujillo–Vincent border meeting,
1933

Parsley Massacre
Known as La Masacre del Perejil in Spanish, Trujillo started the massacre in 1937. Claiming that Haiti was
harboring his former Dominican opponents, he ordered an attack on the border that slaughtered tens of
thousands of Haitians as they tried to escape. The number of dead is still unknown, though it is now
calculated between 1,000[Note 7] and 30,000.[Note 8] Nonetheless, the lack of graves does not prove that the
killings did not take place; however, it does suggest that the number of dead was in reality much less than
those commonly reported. Numbers of deaths reported at the time range from as little as 1,000 to 12,000—
but even the upper end of the scale is dwarfed by the 30,000 victims now commonly reported. This inflation of
the tally is attributed by some to the propaganda of anti-Trujillo exiles who wanted to rally international
support against the dictator. Dominican historian Bernardo Vega has chronologically tabulated many
conflicting reports on the number of victims, by various sources, with none of the estimates showing the
exaggerated 20,000–30,000 figures. The earliest report, dated 11 October 1937, by the United States consul
in Cap-Haïtien, puts the number at “almost one thousand.” On 6 November 1937 an official diplomatic note
from the Haitian to the Dominican government speaks of 2,040. By 19 December, a Haitian minister in
Washington gave the number 12,168. On the first of January 1938, the Dominican foreign minister offered
547.[35]
The Haitian response was muted, but its government eventually called for an international investigation. Under
pressure from Washington, Trujillo agreed to a reparation settlement in January 1938 of US$750,000. By the
next year, the amount had been reduced to US$525,000 (US$8.75 million in 2017); 30 dollars per victim, of
which only 2 cents were given to survivors, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.[24][36]
In 1941, Lescot, who had received financial support from Trujillo, succeeded Vincent as President of Haiti.
Trujillo expected that Lescot would be his puppet, but Lescot turned against him. Trujillo unsuccessfully tried
to assassinate him in a 1944 plot, and then published their correspondence to discredited him.[32] Lescot was
exiled after a 1946 palace coup.
Cuba
In 1947 Dominican exiles, including Juan Bosch, had concentrated in Cuba. With the approval and support of

In 1947 Dominican exiles, including Juan Bosch, had concentrated in Cuba. With the approval and support of
Cuba's Grau government, an expeditionary force was trained with the intention of invading the Dominican
Republic and overthrowing Trujillo. However, international pressure, including from the United States, made
the exiles abort the expedition.[37] In turn, when Fulgencio Batista was in power, Trujillo initially supported
anti-Batista supporters of Carlos Prío Socarrás in Oriente Province in 1955, however weapons Trujillo sent
were soon inherited by Fidel Castro's insurgents when Prío allied with Castro. After 1956, when Trujillo saw
that Castro was gaining ground, he started to support Batista with money, planes, equipment, and men.
Trujillo, convinced that Batista would prevail, was very surprised when he showed up as a fugitive after being
ousted. Trujillo kept Batista until August 1959 as a "virtual prisoner".[38] Only after paying between three and
four million U.S. dollars could Batista leave for Portugal, which had granted him a visa.[38]
Castro made threats to overthrow Trujillo, and Trujillo responded by increasing the budget for national
defense. A foreign legion formed to defend Haiti, as many expected that Castro might invade the Haitian part
of the island first and remove François Duvalier as well. A Cuban plane with 56 fighting men landed near
Constanza, Dominican Republic, on Sunday, 14 June 1959, and six days later more invaders brought by two
yachts landed at the north coast. However, the Dominican Army prevailed.[38]
In turn, in August 1959, Johnny Abbes attempted to support an anti-Castro group led by Escambray near
Trinidad, Cuba. The attempt, however, was thwarted when Cuban troops surprised a plane he had sent as it
unloaded its cargo.[39]
Betancourt incident
By the late 1950s, opposition to Trujillo's regime was building to a fever pitch. A younger generation of
Dominicans had no memory of the instability and poverty that had preceded him. Many clamored for
democratization. The Trujillo regime responded with greater repression. The Military Intelligence Service (SIM)
secret police, led by Johnny Abbes, remained as ubiquitous as before. Other nations ostracized the Dominican
Republic, compounding the dictator's paranoia.
Trujillo began to interfere more in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries. He expressed great contempt

Trujillo began to interfere more in the domestic affairs of neighboring countries. He expressed great contempt
for Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt. An established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt
associated with Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo developed an obsessive personal
hatred of Betancourt and supported numerous plots by Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of
intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against Trujillo to the Organization of American
States (OAS). This infuriated Trujillo, who ordered his agents to plant a bomb in Betancourt's car. The
assassination attempt, carried out on Friday, 24 June 1960, injured but did not kill the Venezuelan president.
The Betancourt incident inflamed world opinion against Trujillo. Outraged OAS members voted unanimously to
sever diplomatic relations with his government and impose economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic.
The brutal murder on Friday, 25 November 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, Patria, María Teresa and
Minerva, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship, further increased discontent with his repressive rule. The dictator
had become an embarrassment to the United States, and relations became especially strained after the
Betancourt incident.
Personal life
Trujillo's "central arch" was his instinct for power.[40] This was coupled with an intense desire for money,
which he recognized as a source of and support for power. Up at four in the morning, he exercised, studied
the newspaper, read many reports, and completed papers before breakfast. At the office by nine, he
continued his work, and took lunch by noon. After a walk, he continued to work until 7:30 pm. After dinner,
he attended functions, held discussions, or was driven around incognito in the city "observing and
remembering."[40] Until Santo Domingo's National Palace was built in 1947, he worked out of the Casas
Reales, the colonial-era Viceregal center of administration. Today the building is a museum; on display are his
desk and chair, along with a massive collection of arms and armor that he bought. He was methodical,
punctual, secretive, and guarded; he had no true friends, only associates and acquaintances. For his
associates, his actions towards them were unpredictable.
Trujillo and his family amassed enormous wealth. He acquired cattle lands on a

Trujillo and his family amassed enormous wealth. He acquired cattle lands on a
grand scale, and went into meat and milk production, operations that soon
evolved into monopolies. Salt, sugar, tobacco, lumber, and the lottery were other
industries that he or his family members dominated. Family members also
received positions within the government and the army, including one of
Trujillo's sons who was made a colonel in the Dominican Army when he was only
four years old.[Note 9][Note 10] Two of Trujillo's brothers, Héctor and José
Arismendy, also held positions in his government. José Arismendy Trujillo
oversaw creation of the main radio station, La Voz Dominicana, and later the
television station, the fourth in the Caribbean.
By 1937 Trujillo's annual income was about $1.5 million ($24.3 million in 2013 dollars (http://www.bls.gov/dat
a/inflation_calculator.htm));[42] at the time of his death the state took over 111 Trujillo-owned companies. His
love of fine and ostentatious clothing was displayed in elaborate uniforms and suits, of which he collected
almost two thousand.[43] Fond of neckties, he amassed a collection of over ten thousand. Trujillo doused
himself with perfume and liked gossip.[44] His sexual appetite was rapacious, and he preferred mulatto women
with full bodies, later tending to rape "very young" women.[40] Many who sought his favors procured women
for him, and later, he had an official on his palace staff to organize the sessions. Encounters typically lasted
for one or two sessions, but he often kept favorites for longer terms. If women resisted, Trujillo pressured
their families to get his way.[40]
Trujillo was married three times and kept other women as mistresses. On 13 August 1913, Trujillo married
Aminta Ledesma Lachapelle. On 30 March 1927, Trujillo married Bienvenida Ricardo Martínez, a girl from
Monte Cristi and the daughter of Buenaventura Ricardo Heureaux. A year later he met María de los Angeles
Martínez Alba "la españolita", and had an affair with her. He divorced Bienvenida in 1935 and married
Martínez. A year later he had a daughter with Bienvenida, named Odette Trujillo Ricardo.
Trujillo's three children with María Martínez were Rafael Leónidas Ramfis, who was born on 5 June 1929,
María de los Ángeles del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Angelita), born in Paris on 10 June 1939, and Leónidas
Rhadamés, born on 1 December 1942. Ramfis and Rhadamés were named after characters in Giuseppe Verdi's
opera Aida.
In 1937, Trujillo met Lina Lovatón Pittaluga,[45] an upper-class debutante with whom
Postage stamps honoring family
members

In 1937, Trujillo met Lina Lovatón Pittaluga,[45] an upper-class debutante with whom
he had two children, Yolanda in 1939, and Rafael, born on 20 June 1943.
In spite of Trujillo's indifference to the game of baseball, the dictator invited many
black American players to the Dominican Republic, where they received good pay for
playing on first-class, un-segregated teams. The great Negro League star Satchel
Paige pitched for Los Dragones of Ciudad Trujillo, a team organized by Trujillo. Paige
later claimed, jokingly, that his guards positioned themselves "like a firing squad" to
encourage him to pitch well. Los Dragones won the 1937 Dominican championship at
Estadio Trujillo in Ciudad Trujillo.[46]
Trujillo was energetic and fit. He was generally quite healthy, but suffered from
chronic lower urinary infections and, later, prostate problems. In 1934, Dr. Georges
Marion was called from Paris to perform three urologic procedures on Trujillo.[47]
Over time Trujillo acquired numerous homes. His favorite was Casa Caobas, on Estancia Fundacion near San
Cristóbal.[48] He also used Estancia Ramfis (which, after 1953, became the Foreign Office), Estancia
Rhadames, and a home at Playa de Najayo. Less frequently he stayed at places he owned in
Santiago_de_los_Caballeros, Constanza, La Cumbre, San José de las Matas, and elsewhere. He maintained a
penthouse at the Embajador Hotel in the capital.[49]
While Trujillo was nominally a Roman Catholic, his devotion was limited to a perfunctory role in public affairs;
he placed faith in local folk religion.[40]
He was popularly known as "El Jefe" ("The Chief") or "El Benefactor" ("The Benefactor"), but was privately
referred to as Chapitas ("Bottlecaps") because of his indiscriminate wearing of medals. Dominican children
emulated El Jefe by constructing toy medals from bottle caps. He was also known as "el chivo" ("the goat").
Assassination
On Tuesday, 30 May 1961, Trujillo was shot and killed when his blue 1957
Trujillo with his second wife
Bienvenida in 1934.

On Tuesday, 30 May 1961, Trujillo was shot and killed when his blue 1957
Chevrolet Bel Air was ambushed on a road outside the Dominican capital.[50] He
was the victim of an ambush plotted by a number of men, among them General
Juan Tomás Díaz, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero and General
Antonio Imbert Barrera.[51] The plotters, however, failed to take control as the
later-to-be-executed General José ("Pupo") Román betrayed his co-conspirators
by his inactivity, and contingency plans had not been made.[52] On the other
side, Johnny Abbes, Roberto Figueroa Carrión, and the Trujillo family, put the
SIM to work to hunt the members of the plot, and brought back Ramfis Trujillo
from Paris to step into his father's shoes. The response by SIM was swift and
brutal. Hundreds of suspects were detained, many tortured. On 18 November
the last executions took place when six of the conspirators were executed in the "Hacienda Maria
Massacre".[53] Imbert was the only one of the seven assassins who survived the manhunt.[54] A co-conspirator
named Luis Amiama Tio also survived.
Trujillo's funeral was that of a statesman with the long procession ending in his hometown of San Cristóbal,
where his body was first buried. President Joaquín Balaguer gave the eulogy. The efforts of the Trujillo family
to keep control of the country ultimately failed. The military uprising on 19 November of the Rebellion of the
Pilots and the threat of American intervention set the final stage and ended the Trujillo regime.[55] Ramfis
tried to flee with his father's body upon his boat Angelita, but was turned back. Balaguer allowed Ramfis to
leave the country and to relocate his father's body to Paris. There the remains were interred in the Cimetière
du Père Lachaise on 14 August 1964, and six years later moved to the El Pardo cemetery near Madrid,
Spain.[56]
The role of the Central Intelligence Agency in the killing has been debated. Imbert insists that the plotters
acted on their own.[54] In a report to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, CIA officials described
the agency as having "no active part" in the assassination and only a "faint connection" with the groups that
planned the killing.[57] An internal CIA memorandum states that a 1973 Office of Inspector General
investigation into Trujillo's murder disclosed "quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters."[58] The
weapons of the assassins included three M1 carbines that had been supplied with the approval of the CIA.[54]
"Memorial to the Heroes of the 30th
of May", a 1993 sculpture by Silvano
Lora along Autopista 30 de Mayo
where Trujillo was shot

weapons of the assassins included three M1 carbines that had been supplied with the approval of the CIA.[54]
President John F. Kennedy learned of Trujillo's death during a diplomatic meeting with French President
Charles de Gaulle.[59]
Honors and awards
Legion d'honneur[60]
Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem[61]
Trujillo in media

Media
type Title Release
date Details
Book
Trujillo: The Little Caesar of the
Caribbean 1958
Authored by Germán Ornes Coiscou, this book reveals the terror of Trujillo's dictatorship as
it became a cancerous growth infecting generations of Dominicans for more than 30 years.
Book In the Time of the Butterflies 1994
Authored by Julia Alvarez, the book describes the lives of the four Mirabal Sisters, who lived
under Trujillo's regime and eventually were killed after joining the resistance against his
rule.
Book The Terrible Ones 1966
Authored by Valerie Moolman, the book describes the attempts of The Terrible Ones (the
widows of murdered Trujillo opponents), Cuban fidelistas and Chinese communist forces to
locate and recover US$100 million in gold and precious stones accumulated by Trujillo
during his dictatorship.
Book The Day of the Jackal 1971
Authored by Frederick Forsyth, the book fictitiously attributes "credit" for this assassination
to the titular assassin. An English arms dealer, suspected of being "the Jackal", had a
meeting with Trujillo's chief of police in Ciudad Trujillo on 30 May 1961, trying to sell the
police British surplus submachine guns. However, Trujillo is assassinated that same day,
and the arms dealer is forced to flee the Dominican Republic.
Film The Day of the Jackal (film) 1973
Directed by Fred Zinnemann, the film, like the book of the same title, fictitiously attributes
"credit" for this assassination to its titular assassin.
Book
Memorias de un Cortesano de la Era
de Trujillo 1988
Authored by Joaquín Balaguer, the last puppet president of the Dominican Republic
appointed by Trujillo, in 1960, and who went on to rule in his own right for most of the
period 1966–1996.
Book
La era de Trujillo: un estudio
casuístico de dictadura
hispanoamericana
1990
Manuel Vazquez Montalbán, a Catalan writer, wrote about Galíndez en 1990. The book is a
fictional recreation of the life and disappearance of the diplomat.
Documentary El Poder del Jefe I 1994 Directed by René Fortunato
Documentary Ken Burns' Baseball 1994
Winning the Dominican National Championship with Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson
discussed in Inning Five: Shadow Ball.
TV Film Soul of the Game 1996 Brief appearance during a baseball game in Santo Domingo.

Media
type Title Release
date Details
Documentary El Poder del Jefe II 1996 Directed by René Fortunato
Documentary El Poder del Jefe III 1998 Directed by René Fortunato
Book The Feast of the Goat 2000
A book by Mario Vargas Llosa, set in the Dominican Republic and portraying the
assassination of the Dominican dictator, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a
generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and
thirty-five years later, in 1996.
TV Film In the Time of the Butterflies 2001
Directed by Mariano Barroso and Trujillo played by Edward James Olmos. Based on the
novel by Julia Alvarez (1994) about the regime assassination of the dissident Mirabal sisters
Book Before We Were Free 2002[62]
Julia Alvarez, a Dominican-American writer, wrote this young-adult novel about Anita, a
twelve-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic in 1960, who realizes that life under the reign
of Trujillo is much darker and more dangerous than she had previously known.
Film
El Misterio Galíndez - The Galindez
File 2003
Gerardo Herrero directed El Misterio Galíndez, a movie about Jesús de Galíndez Suárez,
activist of the PNV party and Basque diplomat who disappeared in 1956; allegedly because
of his opposition to Trujillo's regime.
Film The Feast of the Goat (*) 2006 Directed by Luis Llosa and Trujillo played by Tomás Milián
Book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 2007
Written by Junot Díaz, a Santo Domingo-born American, wrote this Pulitzer Prize–winning
book about a Dominican-American family. The book is a fictional account of the family's
misfortunes interwoven with a recounting of the atrocities of Trujillo's regime, some of
which are indirectly linked to the family's fate, following them like a curse or fukú across the
generations.
Film Code Name: Butterflies 2009
Directed by Cecilia Domeyko Film about the life and death of the Mirabal sisters with
interviews with people involved, and recreations of key events.
Film Trópico de Sangre 2010
Directed by Juan Delancer and Trujillo played by Juan Fernández de Alarcon. The film
focuses on Minerva Mirabal and tells the true story of how she and her sisters dared to
stand up against dictator Rafael Trujillo, and were assassinated in 1960 as a result. The film
further details how this crime led to the assassination of Trujillo.

Further reading
G. Pope Atkins (Author), Larman C. Wilson (Author). The Dominican Republic and the United States: From
Imperialism to Transnationalism (January 1998 ed.). University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-1931-7.
Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican
History, Stanford University Press 2004, ISBN 0-8047-5105-6
Secretaría de Estado de las Fuerzas Armandas (http://www.secffaa.mil.do/Galeria/trujillo.htm) In Spanish
Ignacio López-Calvo, "God and Trujillo": Literary and Cultural Representations of the Dominican Dictator,
University Press of Florida, 2005, ISBN 0-8130-2823-X
Notes
1. Rafael Estrella from 3 March 1930 to 16 August 1930; Jacinto Peynado from 16 August 1938 to 7 March
1940; Manuel Troncoso from 7 March 1940 to 18 May 1942; Héctor Trujillo from 16 August 1952 to 3
August 1960; Joaquín Balaguer from 3 August 1960 until 16 January 1962, 8 months after Trujillo's death
2. Crassweller mentions those estimates and adds that, "A figure of 15,000 to 20,000 would be reasonable,
but this is guesswork."[5]
3. Roorda mentions 12,000 as a likely figure.[6]
4. Jésus de Galindez points out in the introduction of his book La Era de Trujillo that "In this summer of
1955, half the Latin American republics are ruled by dictatorships, most of them of the military type".[7]
5. He was born out of wedlock, the son of José Trujillo Monagas, a Spaniard who worked for the secret
police during the 4-year Spanish occupation of the Dominican Republic in the early 1860s. He was later
chief of police of Havana, Cuba, before returning to Spain after the Spanish-American War. José (Pepito)
Trujillo's mother was Silveria Valdez Méndez, of San Cristobal.[10]
6. His siblings were Virgilio Trujillo (24 July 1887 – 29 July 1967), Flérida Marina Trujillo (10 August 1888 –
13 February 1976), Rosa María Julieta Trujillo (5 April 1893 – 23 October 1980), José Arismendy "Petán"
Trujillo (4 October 1895 – 6 May 1969), Amable Romero "Pipi" Trujillo (14 August 1896 – 19 September
1970), Luisa Nieves Trujillo (4 August 1899 – 25 January 1977), Julio Aníbal "Bonsito" Trujillo (16 October
1900 – 2 December 1948), Pedro Vetilio "Pedrito" Trujillo (27 January 1902 – 14 March 1981), Ofelia
Japonesa Trujillo (26 May 1905 – 4 February 1978) and Héctor Bienvenido "Negro" Trujillo (6 April 1908 –
19 October 2002).
7. "On October 2, 1937, Trujillo had ordered 20,000 Haitian cane workers executed because they could not

19 October 2002).
7. "On October 2, 1937, Trujillo had ordered 20,000 Haitian cane workers executed because they could not
roll the "R" in perejil, the Spanish word for parsley."[33]
8. "anyone of African descent found incapable of pronouncing correctly, that is, to the complete satisfaction
of the sadistic examiners, became a condemned individual. This killing is recorded as having a death toll
reaching thirty thousand innocent souls, Haitians as well as Dominicans."[34]
9. Decree of 18 April 1933.[41]
10. In 1935, Ramfis, then aged 6, was promoted to general.
References
1. Espinal Hernández, Edwin Rafael (21 February
2009). "Descendencias Presidenciales: Trujillo" (h
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140502221317/htt
p://www.idg.org.do/capsulas/febrero2009/febrer
o200921.htm) (in Spanish). Instituto Dominicano
de Genealogía. Archived from the original (http://
www.idg.org.do/capsulas/febrero2009/febrero20
0921.htm) on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 15 April
2015.
2. " 'I shot the cruellest dictator in the Americas' " (h
ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-1
3560512). BBC News. 2011. Retrieved
2013-06-19.
3. "La matanza de 1937 - La Lupa Sin Trabas" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20131203001432/htt
p://www.lalupa.com.do/2012/10/la-matanza-de-
1937/). La Lupa Sin Trabas. Archived from the
original (http://www.lalupa.com.do/2012/10/la-m
atanza-de-1937/) on 3 December 2013.
4. Capdevilla (1998)
5. Crassweller (1966), p. 156
6. Eric Paul Roorda (1996). "Genocide next door:
the Good Neighbor policy, the Trujillo regime,
and the Haitian massacre of 1937". DiplomaticHistory. 20 (3): 301–319. doi:10.1111/j.1467-
7709.1996.tb00269.x (https://doi.org/10.1111%2
Fj.1467-7709.1996.tb00269.x).
7. de Galindez (1962), p. 15
8. Capdevilla (1998), p. 10
8. Capdevilla (1998), p. 10
9. Rafael Trujillo. [Internet]. 2015. The History
Channel website. Available from:
http://www.history.com/topics/rafael-trujillo
[Accessed 14 May 2015].
10. de Galindez (1962), p. 32
11. Antonio José Ignacio Guerra Sánchez (12 April
2008). "Trujillo: Descendiente de la Oligarquía
Haitiana (1 de 2)" (https://web.archive.org/web/
20140321070253/http://www.idg.org.do/capsula
s/abril2008/abril200812.htm). Santo Domingo:
Instituto Dominicano de Genealogía. Archived
from the original (http://www.idg.org.do/capsula
s/abril2008/abril200812.htm) on March 21, 2014.
Retrieved 1 May 2014.
12. Antonio José Ignacio Guerra Sánchez (24 April
2008). Instituto Dominicano de Genealogía, ed.
"Trujillo, descendiente de oligarquía haitiana (2
de 2)" (https://web.archive.org/web/2014050106
5841/http://hoy.com.do/capsulas-genealogicastr
ujillo-descendientede-oligarquia-haitiana/).
Cápsulas Genealógicas. Hoy. Archived from the
original (http://hoy.com.do/capsulas-genealogica
strujillo-descendientede-oligarquia-haitiana/) on 1
May 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
13. Eric Roorda (1998). The Dictator Next Door: The

13. Eric Roorda (1998). The Dictator Next Door: TheGood Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime inthe Dominican Republic, 1930–1945 (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=cU3tio6nXe4C&pg=PA4
8&lpg=PA48&dq=trujillo+gang+42&source=bl&o
ts=os0llmXabU&sig=cT7tFNHdzUzzfwlQi0OMFhK
QHF4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6ut1U7HKD4rH8AHh6IG
QAw&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=trujill
o%20gang%2042&f=false). Duke University
Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780822321231.
14. Diederich (1978), p. 13
15. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinasin the United States (http://www.oxfordreferenc
e.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195156003.001.0
001/acref-9780195156003-e-936?rskey=ofxhBX&
result=856&q=). Oxford University Press.
ISBN 9780195156003.
16. "Golpe de Estado a Horacio Vásquez" (http://ww
w.museodelaresistencia.org/index.php?option=co
m_content&view=article&id=244:golpe-de-estad
o-a-horacio-vasquez-&catid=65:1924-1930&Itemi
d=101) (in Spanish). Santo Domingo: Museo
Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana. 2010.
Retrieved 8 June 2013.
17. Torres, José Antonio (20 February 2010). "Golpe
de Estado a Horacio" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20130927012456/http://www.elnacional.com.d
o/semana/2010/2/20/40448/aaaa). El Nacional(in Spanish). Archived from the original (http://w
ww.elnacional.com.do/semana/2010/2/20/40448/
aaaa) on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 8 June
2013.
18. de Galindez (1962), p. 44
19. Official results: 223,731 vs 1,883. de Galindez, p.
51
20. de Galindez, p. 51, note 2.
21. Block (1941), pp. 870–872
22. Diamond (2005)
23. "LiveLeak.com - C.I.A Hit List - Rafael Trujillo - (
President of The Dominican Republic )" (http://w
ww.liveleak.com/view?i=6ed_1324575214).
24. Block (1941), p. 672
ww.liveleak.com/view?i=6ed_1324575214).
24. Block (1941), p. 672
25. de Galindez (1962), p. 306
27. Spindel, Bernard (1968). The Ominous Ear.
Award House. pp. 74–104.
28. Crassweller (1966), pp. 199–200
29. Historians Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill.
"Reminiscences of Clem S. Clarke: Oral history,
1951" (http://www.worldcat.org/title/reminiscenc
es-of-clem-s-clarke-oral-history-1951/oclc/12230
8295). New York City: Columbia University.
Retrieved 10 February 2015.
30. Capdevilla (1998), p. 84
31. Capdevilla (1998), p. 85
32. Crassweller (1966), pp. 149–163
33. Pack & Parini (1997), p. 78
34. Alan Cambeira. Quisqueya la bella (October 1996
ed.). M. E. Sharpe. p. 182. ISBN 1-56324-936-7.
35. "Rafael Trujillo and the Forgotten Genocide" (http
s://dirkdeklein.net/2016/10/02/rafael-trujillo-and-
the-forgotten-genocide/). Retrieved 27 December
2016.
36. Bell, Madison Smartt (2008). "A Hidden Haitian
World" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/0
7/17/a-hidden-haitian-world/). New York Reviewof Books. 55 (12): 41.
37. Crassweller (1966), pp. 237ff
38. Crassweller (1966), pp. 344–348
40. Crassweller (1966), pp. 73–95
41. de Galindez (1962), p. 62
44. "Reach Information Portal" (http://www.healthca
re.reachinformation.com/Rafael_Trujillo.aspx).
Healthcare.reachinformation.com. 24 March
2009. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
45. Derby, Lauren H. (2000). "The Dictator's

Bibliography
Block, Maxine (1941). Current Biography Who's News and Why. Edited by E. Mary Trow. The H. W.
Wilson Company. ISBN 9997376676.
Capdevilla, Lauro (1998). La dictature de Trujillo, République dominicaine, 1930–1961. Paris, Montreal:
45. Derby, Lauren H. (2000). "The Dictator's
seduction: gender and state spectacle during the
Trujillo regime". 23 (3). Callaloo: 1112–1146.
doi:10.1353/cal.2000.0134 (https://doi.org/10.13
53%2Fcal.2000.0134).
46. Callard, Abby;Remembering Legendary Pitcher
Satchel Paige, 2009, Smithsonian.com;
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-
institution/remembering-legendary-pitcher-
satchel-paige-16345711/?no-ist retvd 7 19 15
50. Harris, Bruce. "Moreorless: Heroes & Killers of
the 20th century" (http://www.webcitation.org/6
38oxTW2j?url=http://www.moreorless.au.com/kil
lers/trujillo.html). Archived from the original (htt
p://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/trujillo.html)
on 12 November 2011. Retrieved 12 November
2011.
51. Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana.
"Heroes del 30 de Mayo. Resenas Biograficas" (ht
tp://www.museodelaresistencia.org/index.php?op
tion=com_content&view=article&id=329:heroes-
del-30-de-mayo-resenas-biograficas&catid=40:19
61-1964&Itemid=135) (in Spanish). Retrieved
16 August 2012.
52. Diederich (1978), pp. 150f
53. Diederich (1978), pp. 235ff
54. BBC (27 May 2011). " 'I shot the cruellest dictator
in the Americas' " (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/w
orld-latin-america-13560512). Retrieved
16 August 2012.
16 August 2012.
56. Castellanos, Eddy (11 April 2008). "Solitaria, en
cementerio poco importante, está la tumba de
Trujillo" (http://www.webcitation.org/63BemmZH
x?url=http://almomento.net/news/133/ARTICLE/
8118/2008-04-11.html) (in Spanish).
Almomento.net. Archived from the original (htt
p://almomento.net/news/133/ARTICLE/8118/200
8-04-11.html) on 14 November 2011. Retrieved
14 November 2011.
57. Justice Department Memo, 1975; (http://www.g
wu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/family_je
wels_wilderotter.pdf) National Security Archive
58. CIA "Family Jewels" Memo, 1973 (see page 434)
(http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEB
B222/family_jewels_full_ocr.pdf) Family Jewels
(Central Intelligence Agency)
59. "Meeting with President de Gaulle in France -
John F. Kennedy" (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0150224092947/http://www.netplaces.com/john-
f-kennedy/promoting-the-cause-of-freedom/meet
ing-with-president-de-gaulle-in-france.htm).
Archived from the original on 2015-02-24.
60. Time (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl
e/0,9171,771671,00.html), 1939
61. Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (http://
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connec
ted/oessh/)
62. Julia Alvarez (2002). Before We Were Free. A.
Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-81544-7.

Capdevilla, Lauro (1998). La dictature de Trujillo, République dominicaine, 1930–1961. Paris, Montreal:
L'Harmattan.
Crassweller, Robert D. (1966). The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. New York: The Macmillan
Company.
Diamond, Jared (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Penguin (Non-Classics).
ISBN 0-14-303655-6.
Diederich, Bernard (1978). Trujillo, The Death of the Goat. Little, Brown, and Co. ISBN 0-316-18440-3.
de Galindez, Jésus (1962) [1956]. L'Ère de Trujillo. Paris: Gallimard.
Pack, Robert; Parini, Jay (1997). Introspections. University Press of New England. ISBN 0-87451-773-7.
External links
Works by or about Rafael Trujillo (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3A%22Trujill
o%2C%20Rafael%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Rafael%20Trujillo%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Truj
illo%2C%20Rafael%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Rafael%20Trujillo%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Tr
ujillo%2C%20R%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Rafael%20Trujillo%22%20OR%20description%3A%22
Trujillo%2C%20Rafael%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Rafael%20Trujillo%22%29%20OR%20%28%
221891-1961%22%20AND%20Trujillo%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at Internet
Archive
(in Spanish) Biography (https://web.archive.org/web/20070515190255/http://www.27febrero.com/trujillo.
htm)
The short film Interview with General Rafael Trujillo (1961) (https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.6
47563) is available for free download at the Internet Archive

Political offices
Preceded by
Rafael Estrella
(acting)
President of the Dominican Republic
1930–1938
Succeeded by
Jacinto Bienvenido Peynado
Preceded by
Manuel de Jesús Troncoso de
la Concha
President of the Dominican Republic
1942–1952
Succeeded by
Héctor Trujillo
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rafael_Trujillo&oldid=793077158"
This page was last edited on 30 July 2017, at 13:46.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark
of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

https://www.facebook.com/tin.nyunt.338/posts/141552400519874
2
Tin Nyunt·
အာဏာရွင္ေခ်းေမ်ႊးသတဲ့ာ်
ဒီမိုကေရစီေကာင္်းး္းမေကာင္်ဘခ်းက ကၽ္ေးာ္မော္ ာခင္ဘခ်ငးဘာာ္ စ္ာ္
ဘာာ္ စ္ာ္ စ္းငင် ရိ္ညိုးားာကကက္းသတႊခကးေမ်မး္ငးမာကကက္းသတႊခးၽူမ
ၽူမး္ငးမထခ်ညၽ္်ဘခ်င
ဒငေ မသတး အာဏာရွင္္းညိုးာကိုးာကကက္ေၽးသတႊခေးကေးအာဏာရွင္ကိုးရွ
ရွခို်ခင္းသတႊခေးကကိုေးာတးအူအႊးး္ငးအထခ်ႊာ္ င္တေးာတးအာဏာ
အာဏာရွင္ေခ် သေမ်းး္ငးစာ် ငရေစဲ့ို ္ေၽးသတးခကာေႊ်ေႊ်ေးကကိုး ိုိ ီ်
ိုိ ီ်းအူတအႊမ ငးးး္င
အာဏာရွင္ညိုးာကိုေးာတးေခ်ရကူႊဲ့ိုးဘာာ္ စ္ဲ့ိုလရကူႊဲ့သညိုးာေးအာဏာ
အာဏာရွင္ဲ့က္ေအာက္မွားငင် င်းေမွာက္ခသတ ခ်းသတႊခေးက သးႊဲ ိုင္မး္င
ာကူကးိုၽ္်းဒိုမီၽီကၽ္းႊမသးဲ ိုင္ငူကိုးႊူဲ့က္ႊီ်းစ္ဲ့ူို်ၽသလးစို်မို်
စို်မို်အို ္ခက ္ႊကာ်ခသတးသတးအာဏာရွင္းရာ သဲ့္းထ႐ခဂ ီဲ့ိုး
အေအကာင္်ော္ ာခင္းး္င
၁၉၃၀းေဲ့ာက္ကးိ္်ကးဲ ိုင္ငူကိုးစို်မို်အို ္ခက ္ခသတးး္ငးႊခလေရက်
ႊခလေရက်ေကာက္ ကသးိုင္်းမသအာ္ း္အႊး္ဲ ိုင္းး္ငးမသေ ်ခကင္တရွးသတးဲ့ခိီ်ေရကို
ဲ့ခိီ်ေရကိုးေကာ္ိ ီ်ေးာတးရာဲ ာ့ ၽ္်ာ္ ိ္တမးိုး္ဘခ်းရာဲ ာ့ ၽ္်ဲ့က
ရာဲ ာ့ ၽ္်ဲ့ကၽ္မသၽသလးးိုင္်ာ္ ိ္ကိုးစို်မို်အို ္ခက ္ခသတးးး္င
အႊက္း၃းဲ ွစ္ႊာရွေႊ်းသတးႊာ်ာ္ စ္ႊခးရမ္ စ္ကိုးကာၽး္း Colonel)
ရာထခ်ေ ်းး္ငး ာ္မၽ္မာဲ့ိုမာ္ ၽ္ရသ ငးေအကာက္ဲ့ိုလးကာၽး္းိုႊားေရ် င
ေရ် ငးး္္

ႊခကိုး္းိုင္ကးမစ္ဲ့စ္ထရီး military) မွားကကၽ္မၽ္ဒငး Commander)း
ာ္ စ္ေၽးသတအးကက္းၽိ္် ္းးာေးကကိုးက ကမ္်ကင္ိ ီ်ႊာ်ာ္ စ္ေၽဲ့ိုလးႊခလႊာ်မွာ
ႊခလႊာ်မွာဲ့ိ္်းအဲ့ိုအေဲ့ာက္း ္းးာေးကးစီ်ီင္ေၽိ ီ်ာ္ စ္ဲ့ိုလးကာၽး္ညို
ကာၽး္ညိုးသတးရာထခ်ေးာင္းၽိ္်ေႊ်းး္ဲ့ိုလးထင္ေၽ ငႊးသတင
ႊမီ်ေးာ္ေဲ့်ကိုးႊရ ခအ ္ဲ ွင္် ိုလဲ့ိ္်းေဒ႔ဲ့ားႊၽ္်း၃၀းေကာ္ကိုၽ္းသတ
ေကာ္ကိုၽ္းသတး ကသးစ္ ကသကိုးိငမ္်ခမ္်ေရ်းအေအကာင္်ာ္ ိ ီ်းဲ့ို ္ေ ်း
ဲ့ို ္ေ ်းး္ငးအသဒီေငကေးကကိုးဲ ိုင္ငူေးာ္ကးကခူရးး္င
စာမးး္းသတးမၽ္်မကိုးေဒငက္းာဘကသလးေ ်အ ္ခ ီ်ာ္မင္တးး္ငးမၽ္်မကိုးဲ ိုဘး္ညိုေ ်
ဲ ိုဘး္ညိုေ ်အ ္ခ ီ်ာ္မင္တ ိုလးကမ္ ၽ္်ေးကးဲ့ိုက္ဲ့ို ္းး္ငးဘကသလမရးသတ
ဘကသလမရးသတႊခေးကးဲ ိုဘး္ညိုရးး္ညိုးာကိုးအာ်ကိ ီ်းႊမိုင္်မွားႊခလမ
ႊခလမၽ္်မကိုးစာမးး္ဘသးဲ ိုဘး္ညိုရးသတး ထမညူို်မၽ္်မာ္ စ္ေအာင္းာကက် မ္
ာကက် မ္်းားသတင
ိမက႕ေးာ္ကးဲ့မ္်ေးကေးးူးာ်ေးကေးအေညာက္အအူိုေးကႊာမကးေးာင္းစ္
ေးာင္းစ္ေးာင္ကိုးအးို ၽ္းီ်ိ ီ်းႊခလၽာမိ္ေးကးဲ့ိုက္ေ ်းး္ငးႊခေႊရ
ႊခေႊရင္းအမိ္းကင္ိ ီ်းကၽ္ခသတေအာင္းသတင
ိမက႕ထသကးကာ်ဲ့ိုင္စင္း ဲ့း္ာ္ ာ်းိုင္်မွားႊခလၽာမိ္ကိုးအေ ႔ကးေရ်
ေရ်ိ ီ်မွးေအာက္ကးၽူ ငး္ေရ်ရးး္ငးဘး္ေဲ့ာက္႐ခ်ႊဲ့သညိုရင္းဘိုရာ်
ဘိုရာ်ရွခို်ေကာင္်ေးကမွား ေကာင္်ကင္မွားဘိုရာ်ႊခင္ေးော္မာ္ င္မွားထ႐ခဂ ီဲ့ို
ထ႐ခဂ ီဲ့ို္းညိုးသတးစားၽ္်ေးကးဲ့ိုက္က ္ထာ်းး္င
ိမက႕ထသမွားဲ့ွ ္စစ္ၽီးကၽ္မီ်းညိုင္်ဘိုး္ာကီ်ေးကမွာဲ့ိ္်း ကး္းင္ရွင္းထ႐ခ
ထ႐ခဂ ီဲ့ို္းညိုးသတးစားၽ္်ေးက သးထကၽ္်ဲ့င္်ေစခသတးး္င

ႊာ်ာ္ စ္ႊခး းဲ ွစ္အရကး္ေရာက္ေးာတးငငတႊာ်းအရကး္ေရာက္ိ ီညိုိ ီ်းႊခလႊာ်
ႊခလႊာ်ကိုးဂင္ၽရး္း General) ရာထခ်းးို်ေ ်းး္ငး
ကိုး္တဘာႊာကိုး္းဘာႊာာ္ ၽ္အကိ္တအက င္
အာဏာရွင္ညိုးားအသႊိ္ဲ့ိုး႐ခ်ေအကာင္ေအကာင္ၽသလးးိုင္်ာ္ ိ္ကိုးအို ္စို်
အို ္စို်းး္းး္ညိုးားႊထာ်အက ငင
ဒငေ မသတးအသဒီးအာဏာရွင္းထ႐ခဂ ီဲ့ိုးဘး္ဲ့ိုေႊႊဲ့သးႊဲ့ာ်
၁၉၆၁းခိုဲ ွစ္မွားမႊာ်စိုၽသလးိမက႕ာ္ င္ထကက္ဲ့ားး္ငးဲ့ခး၁၁းေးာ
ေးာက္အ ကသ႕ကးေစာင္တေၽိ ီ်းခ ူကခိုးိုက္ခိုက္းး္ငးအာဏာရွင္ကိုးအသဒီေၽ
အသဒီေၽရာမွားင္းႊး္ စ္ဲ့ိုက္းး္ငးမႊာ်စိုကိုးးိုင္်ာ္ ိ္ကးေမာင္
ေမာင္်ထိုး္ခသတးး္င
အာဏာရွင္အာ္မစ္ညိုးားးကး္မရင္းာ္ း္ရးႊး္ရခက္းး္ငးဲ ွစ္
ဲ ွစ္ေ ငင္်း၃၀းေကာ္အာ္မစ္းကး္ႊကာ်းသတးအာဏာရွင္စၽစ္ကိုးာ္ ိ္ႊခေးက
ာ္ ိ္ႊခေးကရေအာင္ာ္ း္ရးး္င
အာဏာရွင္ကိုးဘာေအကာင္တးမိုၽ္်ႊင္တႊဲ့သေးအာဏာ
အာဏာရွင္အာ္မစ္မးကး္ေအာင္းဘာေအကာင္တးဲ့ို ္ႊငတ္ႊဲ့သးော္ ာ ို
ော္ ာ ိုလဲ့ိုေႊ်ဲ့ာ်င
ဒီဲ့ိုအော္ခအေၽမက်ေးကမွားအာဏာရွင္ႊားကို်ကကး္ရာဲ့ိုလးေအာ
ေအာ္ေၽးသတေခက်မက်ေးကကိုေးာတးအူတအႊမးး္င
(Dictator ကိုးအာဏာရွင္ဲ့ိုလးဘာႊာာ္ ၽ္းာေးာတးာ္ ၽားမရွ
မရွေဲ့ာက္ဘခ်ထင္းး္္
းင္ိကၽ္လ-၁၅.၈.၂၀၁၇

8/15/2017 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Gaudiest Dictator - TIME
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886652,00.html 1/3
Email
Print
Share
Reprints
Follow @TIME
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Gaudiest
Dictator
Monday, Nov. 19, 1945
His Excellency, Generalissimo Dr. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo
Molina, Honorable Chief of State, Benefactor of the Nation,
President and Dictator of the Dominican Republic, is an
example of a waning Latin American type—the caudillo
(chieftain). As a blend of the Emperor Jones and the European
authoritarians, Dictator Trujillo and his ilk always seem
bizarre to North Americans. But the southern dictators must
be understood if Latin America is to be understood by the big
neighbor in the North.
Last week Dictator Trujillo was very much in the news. Within the fortnight, scathing
criticism from far & wide had pointed up the anachronism: If In Caracas, Provisional
President Romulo Betancourt announced that Venezuela would not recognize Trujillo and
his "assassins of liberty." In London, the World Youth Conference expelled the two
Dominican representatives because they did not represent a democratic country. In
Washington, potent Cuban Senator Eduardo Chibas declared that the Dominican
Government was an obstacle to democracy in the Americas.
The Glory Road. Trujillo is the end product of a U.S. military occupation. When the U.S.
TweetLike 32 Share Read Later

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886652,00.html 2/3
The Glory Road. Trujillo is the end product of a U.S. military occupation. When the U.S.
forces got out of the Dominican Republic in 1924, Trujillo was a Major in the Marine-trained
Army. By 1930 he had fought his way into the presidency.
Today he puts on a show combining the outstanding features of a waterfront goon squad and
Hollywood. Generalissimo Trujillo's car sports a five-starred, solid-gold license plate.
Newspapers and radio hysterically shout his praise. Statues of him litter the land. An electric
sign once glittered: "God and Trujillo."
The dictator's amorous capacity is notable, even in the tropic Caribbean. One of Trujillo's
friends is bediamonded, aging, Isabel Mayer. Now in her sixties, Dona Isabel is still famed
for her parties and cuisine ("Have some more sea food! It's good for men"). Trujillo was at
one of her parties when the infamous massacre of the Haitians occurred in 1937. Rumor has
it that Dona Isabel had complained that Haitian peasants, sneaking across the border, were
stealing her cattle. The Trujillo soldiery was ordered out. They smashed babies' heads
against rocks, ripped pregnant women with bayonets, slaughtered thousands of Haitians.
Hogs gorged on the rotting corpses.
Big Business. Important visitors, including touring U.S. Congressmen, have found Trujillo
the soul of affability. At home he can point to solid achievements: great advances in
irrigation and sanitation, improved roads and schools, build ing projects. Trujillo's
enterprises and taxes have helped drive living costs up. But his Government has been
"orderly."
The dictator does not filch from the public treasury. That would be picking his own pocket.
For Trujillo is the Dominican Republic. His personal monopolies include salt, tobacco,
employe insurance, beer.
Trujillo has an equal passion for owning land and for buying it on his own terms. His annual
income is estimated at $6,000,000.
Expats Fixed Deposit Plans in Thailand
We Help You Find the Best
Way to Invest Your Saving
for Fixed Returns. Free Quote
1 2Previous Page Next Page

Sign In Subscribe

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886652-2,00.html 1/2
Hostelworld
Mile Map Hostel
Ad
VISIT SITE
Email
Print
Share
Reprints
Follow @TIME
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Gaudiest
Dictator
Monday, Nov. 19, 1945
(2 of 2)
Petan & Pipi. Many of the dictator's enterprises are divided
among his brothers. Swarthy Hector ("El Negro") is Secretary
of State for War and Navy, with real estate on the side. Petan
specializes in fruit and protection, operates a radio station.
Pipi regulates prostitution. Prostitutes in the Dominican
Republic are called cueros (hides).
Once Petan slapped a levy on exports of cattle hides. Pipi objected. Their mother, one of the
First Ladies of the Land, decided the case. "None of that, Petan," she admonished. "You
know the cueros belong to Pipi."
Jitters. Despite his wealth and power. Dictator Trujillo is worried. The news from
Washington increased his jitters. Assistant Secretary of State Spruille Braden, no friend of
dictatorial bullies, had installed an old foe of Trujillo as the State Department's new chief of
the Office of American Republic Affairs. The new man: able, forthright Ellis Briggs, who had
been U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and openly hostile to the Dictator.
TECHANG®
Vibrating Screen
Ad
VISIT SITE
TweetLike 32 Share Read Later
Sign In Subscribe

8/15/2017 'I shot the cruellest dictator in the Americas' - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-13560512 1/10
Home Video World Asia UK Business Tech Science Magazine Entertainment & Arts Health More
World Africa Australia Europe Latin America Middle East US & Canada
28 May 2011 Latin America & Caribbean
Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship is considered one of the
bloodiest in the Americas
'I shot the cruellest dictator in the Americas'
Before his assassination on a dark
highway on 30 May 1961, the Dominican
dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ruled with an iron
fist for almost 30 years. Tim Mansel meets
one of the men who shot him.
Rafael Trujillo's rule is considered one of the
most brutal periods in the history of the
Dominican Republic. Taking power in 1930,
his hold over the country was absolute. He
brooked no opposition.
Those who dared to oppose him were
imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Their
bodies often disappeared, rumoured to have been fed to the sharks.
In 1937, Trujillo ordered the racially motivated massacre of several thousand Haitians living in the
country.
Share
Home News Sport Weather Shop Earth Travel

Gen Imbert went into hiding after the assassination
Gun battle
His rule ended when he was gunned down on 30 May 1961.
Antonio Imbert is 90. Fifty years ago he was
one of the seven men who ambushed and
killed Rafael Trujillo.
He is a large man with closely cropped hair
and he has put on a military uniform for my
visit.
General Imbert - he was given the military
rank later to enable him to receive a state
pension - is officially a national hero.
He is brought into the room by his wife,
Giralda, moving slowly towards a small
rocking chair. His wife lights a cigarette for him.
"What do you want to know?" he asks.
It was late evening when Trujillo was shot dead in a gun battle on the road that leads from the
capital to San Cristobal, where the dictator kept a young mistress.
In their vehicle, Gen Imbert and three other conspirators were
waiting for Trujillo's chauffeur-driven Chevrolet to come past.
Gen Imbert was driving. Other gunmen were stationed further
up the road.
The old man's memory is not what it was. But he does
remember taking up the chase as Trujillo's car sped past and he
recounts the first shots being fired.
Nobody told me to go and kill
Trujillo. The only way to get rid of
him was to kill him
Gen Imbert

He remembers Trujillo's driver slowing down and he has not forgotten the decision to pull across in
front of Trujillo's car, blocking its path.
"Then we started shooting," he says.
Trujillo and his chauffeur were armed, and fought back.
Gen Imbert recounts how he and one of the others got out of the car to get closer to their target.
"Trujillo was wounded but he was still walking, so I shot him again," he says.
At the end of the gun battle, the dictator, commonly known simply as El Jefe, was left sprawled
dead across the highway.
"Then we put him in the car and took him away," says Gen Imbert. They took his body to the house
of a plotter, where it was eventually discovered by police.
'Salvation'
Fifty years later I wonder if he is happy to have shot the Dominican dictator?
"Sure," he replies. "Nobody told me to go and kill Trujillo. The only way to get rid of him was to kill
him."
Gen Imbert is not alone in having drawn this conclusion.
In a letter to his State Department superior in October 1960, Henry Dearborn, de facto CIA station
chief in the Dominican Republic, wrote: "If I were a Dominican, which thank heaven I am not," I
would favour destroying Trujillo as being the first necessary step in the salvation of my country and
I would regard this, in fact, as my Christian duty."
'Cordial relations'

During his rule, Trujillo collected medals and titles, and expropriated property and businesses for
himself and his family. He renamed the capital city Ciudad Trujillo, and the country's highest
mountain Pico Trujillo.
Throughout this, he maintained cordial relations with the US - a picture taken in 1955 shows him in
smiling embrace with then US vice-president Richard Nixon.
But the relationship gradually soured over Trujillo's human rights record. The final straw was an
assassination attempt sponsored by Trujillo, against the president of Venezuela, Romulo
Betancourt. The US closed its embassy and withdrew its ambassador.
President Eisenhower had already approved a contingency plan to remove Trujillo if a suitable
successor could be persuaded to take over. But the new Kennedy administration withdrew formal
support for the attempt on Trujillo's life at the last minute.
The failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs
had taken place the previous month, and
President Kennedy was worried that a power
vacuum in nearby Dominican Republic could
allow another Castro to take power there.
"The Cold War had moved to the Caribbean,"
says Bernardo Vega, Dominican historian and
former ambassador to Washington.
The only material support provided by the US
for the assassination was three M1 carbines
left in the US Consulate after the withdrawal of embassy staff, and handed over with CIA approval.
Within days of the assassination, Trujillo's son Ramfis took charge and almost everyone involved in
the conspiracy and members of their extended families were rounded up.

Two of Gen Imbert's fellow conspirators were killed in gun battles while resisting arrest. The other
four were imprisoned and later shot.
A plaque near the spot where Trujillo died commemorates their sacrifice. It refers to the killing not
as assassination but as "ajusticiamiento", a Spanish word that implies justice being done.
"We Dominicans react very negatively when the people who killed Trujillo are called assassins,"
says Bernardo Vega.
"Ajusticiamiento is a way to give it a positive twist, to say that it was a good thing to do."
'Personal revenge'
Gen Imbert owes his survival to the courage of the Italian consul in Santo Domingo who allowed
him to hide in his house for six months.
He still has one of the American M1 carbines, but he won't allow me to see it. "You don't show
things like that," he says.
But he does let me see the hat he wore to disguise himself in the hectic days after the shooting.
He tells a story of how he took a public bus and the driver recognised him, but wouldn't take any
payment out of respect for what he'd done.
And his wife brings out the pair of scuffed brown brogues that he was wearing the night he shot
Trujillo.
They're surprisingly small - size seven-and-a-half - with worn patches on the soles.
"They've never been repaired," his wife tells me. "He puts them on every 30th of May and
sometimes he wears them for several days."
Share this story About sharing

8/15/2017 Literature and Dictatorship in the Dominican Republic
https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/literature-and-dictatorship-in-the-dominican-republic 1/7
US TOLL FREE: 1-800-948-5563 INTERNATIONAL: +1 (843) 849-0283 UK: +44 (0) 1334 260018
WISH LIST | MY ACCOUNT | SHOPPING CART
Book Search
blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.
Did you know?
Check your Collector's Resources
Literature and Dictatorship in the Dominican Republic
By Audrey Golden. Mar 27, 2015. 9:00 AM.
Topics: Literature, Book History, History
What can fiction teach us about political resistance during times of tyranny? While the twentieth century alone has borne witness to
acts of terror and dictatorship across the globe, numerous writers have addressed the violence that took place at mid-century in the
Dominican Republic. From 1930 to 1961, the country struggled under the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, often referred
to simply as “El Jefe.”
Under Trujillo, extreme racial and political violence led to the imprisonment and execution of tens of thousands of Dominicans and
Haitians alike. We thought we’d take a look at just a few contemporary writers who have addressed moments of terror within this
Rare Books Signed Books
First Editions Legendary Authors
Gift Ideas

regime, from the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to Junot Díaz, a prominent Dominican
American writer.
Writing About the Dictatorship Across the Decades
For many novelists who have addressed the violence that took place in the Dominican Republic
during the Trujillo regime, depicting a narrative of dictatorship hasn’t been confined to just one
historical moment.
For instance, in Vargas Llosa’s, The Feast of the Goat [La Fiesta del Chivo] (2000), the novel
traverses the decades between Trujillo’s assassination in 1961 and the 1996 narrative of a character,
Urania Cabral, who has been indelibly affected by the dictator’s violence. The novel contains three
different points of view, which are interwoven in chapters throughout the book. The first tells the
story of Urania Cabral, who returns to Santo Domingo in 1996 for the first time in more than thirty
years. After enduring a brutal sexual assault at the hands of Trujillo, Urania escaped to the United
States. A second narrative follows Trujillo through the days leading up to his assassination on May
30, 1961. A third story line traces the experiences of the assassins themselves.
Also narrating an immigrant experience, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) contends with a first-generation
Dominican American whose family history is one of imprisonment and torture during Trujillo's rule. For Oscar de León, contemporary
New Jersey is home. However, as Oscar begins to learn about the violence that his mother’s family endured under the regime, Oscar
returns to the Dominican Republic. There, he is murdered in the cane fields, much like those who became victims of the dictatorship.
While the works of Vargas Llosa and Díaz contain contemporary plots that look back to the years of the dictatorship, Julia Alvarez’s In
the Time of the Butterflies (1994) fictionalizes the acts of political resistance staged by the Mirabel Sisters during the mid-twentieth
century. Alvarez depicts the powerful struggle, imprisonment, and unjust execution of three of the Mirabel sisters, retold from the point
of view of the only surviving sister, Dedé. Since its publication, Alvarez’s novel has appeared on numerous high school and college
syllabi, and it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The 1937 Massacre in Fiction and Poetry

Some writers have reimagined the violent trends of the dictatorship, drawing out themes of
imprisonment and torture. Others have focused on particular crimes of the regime, specifically the
1937 Massacre (popularly known as the “Parsley Massacre”). In October of 1937, Trujillo ordered
the execution of tens of thousands of Haitians along the Dominican-Haitian border. The name
“Parsley Massacre” derives from the notion that Trujillo instructed his soldiers to ask persons
along the border to identify a sprig of parsley. Life or death depended on how the person
pronounced the Spanish word for parsley—perejil. The idea was this: Creole speakers wouldn’t be
able to roll the “r” of perejil, thus identifying themselves as Haitians.
Rita Dove’s poem “Parsley” contends with the violence of the massacre and violence to language:
El General has found his word: perejil.
Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining
Out of the swamp. The cane appears
in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.
And we lie down. For every drop of blood
there is a parrot imitating spring.
Out of the swamp the cane appears.
Edwidge Danticat too has used literary language to approach the 1937 massacre, first in her short story “1937,” and later in her novel,
The Farming of Bones (1998). Danticat is a Haitian-American writer whose work has been nominated for the National Book Award and
the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others. In 2009, Danticat was the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” grant.
It’s not a new idea for writers to resist and redefine the politics of dictatorship and tyranny through fiction. Whether you’re reading
writers with ties to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, other regions of the Caribbean, or other parts of the world entirely, there’s so
much to learn about the world through imaginative literature. The works of authors like Díaz, Dove, and Danticat emphasize just that.

Browse Our Books
Audrey Golden
World literature scholar and erstwhile lawyer. Lover of international travel, outdoor markets, and rare books.
×

8/15/2017 Rafael Trujillo - War Crimes, Dictator, President (non-U.S.) - Biography.com
https://www.biography.com/people/rafael-trujillo-39891 1/4
War Crimes, Dictator, President (non-U.S.) (1891–1961)
Rafael Trujillo was a dictator of the Dominican Republic for decades. He was
assassinated in 1961.
Synopsis
Dictator Rafael Trujillo was born on October 24, 1891 in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic. He became president of the
Dominican Republic in 1930 through political maneuvering and torture. He o cially held the o ce until 1938, when he
chose a puppet successor. He resumed his o cial position from 1942 to 1952, but continued to rule by force until his
assassination on May 30, 1961.
Early Life
Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was born Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina to a middle-class family on October 24, 1891 in
San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic. He and his 10 siblings were raised in a small rural town by parents of Spanish, Haitian
and Dominican descent. As a child, Trujillo attended informal schools held in various villagers’ homes. His education took
place in ts and starts and was rudimentary at best. Because Trujillo hired someone to rewrite his family history once he
came into power, the true facts of his background remain uncertain.
When Trujillo was 16 years old, he took a job as a telegraph operator. After joining a gang and committing a string of crimes,
Trujillo was arrested for forging a check and subsequently lost his job. In 1916, Trujillo married his rst wife, Aminta
Ledesima, who would give him two daughters. In light of becoming a family man, Trujillo traded in his life of crime for a
steady day job. At the end of 1916, he took a weigher position on a sugar plantation. Displaying leadership qualities, Trujillo
was later promoted to private policeman on the plantation.
Military Career
By 1919, Trujillo was restless and eager to escape the monotony of his rural life. When the U.S. Marines, then occupying the
Rafael Trujillo
NAME
Rafael Trujillo
OCCUPATION
War Crimes,
Dictator,
President (non-
U.S.)
BIRTH DATE
October 24, 1891
DEATH DATE
May 30, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH
San Cristóbal,
Dominican
Republic
PLACE OF DEATH
Cuidad Trujillo,
HOME RAFAEL TRUJILLO

By 1919, Trujillo was restless and eager to escape the monotony of his rural life. When the U.S. Marines, then occupying the
Dominican Republic, o ered him the opportunity to train as an o cer for the country's rst municipal police force, the
Constabulary Guard, Trujillo jumped at the chance.
After completing his training, Trujillo quickly rose up the ranks. In 1924 he was made second-in-command of the guard and
in June of 1925, he was promoted to commander-in-chief.
Dictatorship
In early 1930, after Dominican President Horacio Vasquez faced revolts and a provisional government had been established,
Trujillo named himself a candidate in the new presidential elections.
During Trujillo's campaign, he organized a secret police force to torture and murder supporters of the opposing candidate.
Not surprisingly, Trujillo won the election by a landslide.
Shortly into Trujillo's rst term, Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, was devastated by a hurricane. Trujillo used the disaster as an excuse to
impose martial law on all citizens. He also imposed "emergency taxes" and even seized the bank accounts of his opposition. Trujillo spent the next six
years renovating the city and building several monuments in his own honor. Upon completing renovations, Trujillo renamed Santo Domingo "Ciudad
Trujillo."
During his additional years in o ce, Trujillo continued to use his power for personal pro t. He took total control of all major industries and nancial
institutions. The country saw some improvements to its economy, but those were mainly limited to the capital city. Meanwhile, in more rural areas,
entire peasant communities were uprooted to clear the way for Trujillo’s new sugar plantation.
Trujillo himself candidly defended his reign with the assertion that, "He who does not know how to deceive does not know how to rule."
Trujillo was known to treat the Dominican Republic's Haitian migrants with particularly severity and a deliberate disregard for their civil liberties. In
1937, he went so far as to orchestrate the massacre of thousands of Haitian immigrants.
Trujillo o cially held the o ce of president until 1938, when he chose a puppet successor. He resumed his o cial position from 1942 until 1952 but
subsequently continued to rule by force until his death in 1961. Toward the end of his life, he faced growing opposition from Dominican citizens as
well as foreign pressure to relax his rule. He also started losing military support from the army, with the CIA maneuvering to have him removed from
power.
Cuidad Trujillo,
Dominican
Republic
AKA
Rafael Trujillo
NICKNAME
Generalissimo
FULL NAME
Rafael Leónidas
Trujillo Molina

Article Title
Rafael Trujillo Biography.com
Author
Biography.com Editors
Website Name
The Biography.com website
URL
https://www.biography.com/people/rafael-trujillo-39891
Access Date
August 15, 2017
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
April 23, 2014
Original Published Date
n/a

8/15/2017 Rafael Trujillo | president of Dominican Republic | Britannica.com
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rafael-Trujillo 1/7
Rafael Trujillo
PRESIDENT OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
See Article History
Alternative Title: Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina
Rafael Trujillo, in full Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (born Oct. 24, 1891, San Cristóbal, Dom.Rep.—died May 30, 1961,
Ciudad Trujillo, near San Cristóbal), dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
Trujillo entered the Dominican army in 1918 and was trained by U.S. Marines during the U.S. occupation (1916–24) of
the country. He rose from lieutenant to commanding colonel of the national police between 1919 and 1925,
becoming a general in 1927. Trujillo seized power in the military revolt against Pres. Horacio Vásquez in 1930. From
that time until his assassination 31 years later, Trujillo remained in absolute control of the Dominican Republic
through his command of the army, by placing family members in office, and by having many of his political
opponents murdered. He served officially as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952.
Competent in business, capable in administration, and ruthless in politics, Trujillo brought a degree of peace and
prosperity to the republic that it had not previously enjoyed. However, the benefits of economic modernization were
inequitably distributed in favour of Trujillo and his favourites and supporters. Moreover, the people of the country paid
for the prosperity with the loss of their civil and political liberties. Haitians living in the Dominican Republic suffered
acutely. Trujillo encouraged anti-Haitian prejudice among Dominicans, and in 1937 he ordered the massacre of
thousands of Haitian migrants.
In spite of the harsh measures that Trujillo took to protect his power, domestic opposition continued to grow during
the later years of his regime, and he also came under considerable foreign pressure to liberalize his rule. He began to
Rafael Trujillo
PRESIDENT OF DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC
ALSO KNOWN AS
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina
BORN
October 24, 1891

Media

Print

Cite

Share

Feedback

Spin Mop ชุดถังปนมอบสแตนเลส พรอมไมมอบแ…
ถังปนสแตนเลสทนทานไมแตกหัก ผามอบไมโครไ…
1,199 บาท
294 บาท
-75%
Advertisement
lose support in the army, and this led to his assassination by machine-gun ﬁre as he was driving to his San Cristóbal
farm. Many of the supposed assassins, including Gen. J.T. Díaz, were subsequently captured and executed.
Discussion of Rafael Trujillo’s assassination in 1961.
Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library
LEARN MORE in these related articles:

San Cristóbal, Dominican
Republic
DIED
May 30, 1961 (aged 69)
VIEW BIOGRAPHIES RELATED TO
CATEGORIES
government
army
president
DATES
October 24
May 30
RELATED BIOGRAPHIES
Leonel Fernández Reyna·
Minerva Bernardino·
Joaquín Balaguer·
Juan Pablo Duarte·
José Francisco Peña Gómez·
Ulises Heureaux·
Danilo Medina·
Buenaventura Báez·

Media

Print

Cite

Share

Feedback

Dominican Republic: The Trujillo regime
The dictatorship of Trujillo (1930–61) was one of
the longest, cruelest, and most absolute in
modern times. Trujillo maintained complete
control of the military, appointed family
members to key of ce...
READ THIS ARTICLE

Joaquín Balaguer
...1932 and 1957, he held numerous executive
and diplomatic posts in the Dominican
government under the Trujillo regime. As
secretary of education under Hector Trujillo,
brother of dictator General Ra...
READ THIS ARTICLE

in crime
The intentional commission of an act usually
deemed socially harmful or dangerous and
speci cally de ned, prohibited, and
punishable under criminal law. Most countries
have enacted...
READ THIS ARTICLE

in general
Title and rank of a senior army of cer, usually
one who commands units larger than a
regiment or its equivalent or units consisting of
more than one arm of the service. Frequently,...
READ THIS ARTICLE

in president
In government, the of cer in whom the chief
executive power of a nation is vested. The
president of a republic is the chief of state, but
his actual power varies from country...
READ THIS ARTICLE

Antonio Guzmán Fernández·
Juan Bosch·

Media

Print

Cite

Share

Feedback
Rafael Trujillo
PRESIDENT OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
SPOTLIGHT · DEMYSTIFIED · QUIZZES · GALLERIES · LISTS · ON THIS DAY · BIOGRAPHIES


LESSON FROM DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to LESSON FROM DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO

Similar to LESSON FROM DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO (20)

More from MYO AUNG Myanmar

More from MYO AUNG Myanmar (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (17)

LESSON FROM DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO