[1924 - 1961] The Trujillo Era

The year is 1924. The last of the U.S. Marines are departing the Dominican Republic, leaving behind a nation grappling with the fragile concept of self-rule and a newly organized National Guard. In the ranks of this American-trained force is a man named Rafael Trujillo. He is shrewd, ambitious, and possesses a charisma that both charms and chills. While President Horacio Vásquez enjoys a period of relative peace and public works projects, Trujillo is methodically, ruthlessly, climbing the ladder of power. By 1928, he is the Guard's commander-in-chief, holding the nation's military power in his hand.

The facade of democracy shattered in 1930. When Vásquez attempted to extend his presidential term, a move that violated the constitution he helped write, the political class erupted. A so-called 'civic movement' marched on Santo Domingo. It was a coup in all but name. All eyes turned to Trujillo. Would the army defend the government? With calculated genius, Trujillo declared his forces 'neutral.' By doing nothing, he did everything. The government collapsed. In the ensuing presidential election, Trujillo was the only viable candidate. His private gang, a brutal collection of thugs known as 'La 42,' terrorized, intimidated, and even assassinated his opponents. The official results were a farce of mathematics: Trujillo won with more votes than there were eligible voters. In August 1930, his era began.

Just three weeks into his presidency, fate delivered Trujillo a gift in the form of a monster. On September 3, 1930, the category 4 Hurricane San Zenón slammed into Santo Domingo, obliterating the city. The capital, largely built of wood and tin, was reduced to splinters and corpses. An estimated 4,000 people died, and 20,000 were injured. Amid the chaos and despair, Trujillo declared martial law. He suspended the constitution and seized absolute control, presenting himself as the nation’s sole savior. He organized relief efforts, cleared debris, and began to rebuild. But this was not just reconstruction; it was a rebranding of the nation in his own image. The rebuilt capital, now made of stern concrete and adorned with the Art Deco and monumental styles he favored, was renamed Ciudad Trujillo. It was the first, and most audacious, step in forging a nationwide cult of personality.

Under Trujillo, the Dominican Republic became a nation-sized shrine to one man. The slogan 'Dios y Trujillo' – God and Trujillo – was emblazoned on signs in cities and villages. An electric sign in Ciudad Trujillo proclaimed it 24 hours a day. His portrait was a mandatory fixture in every home, office, and classroom. School children began their day not with a pledge of allegiance to their flag, but by chanting, 'Trujillo is the benefactor of the fatherland.' He named the country's highest peak, Pico Duarte, after himself, renaming it Pico Trujillo. Provinces, streets, bridges, and public squares bore his name or the names of his family members. He controlled the economy with the same suffocating grip, creating state or personal monopolies over essential goods like salt, rice, meat, milk, and tobacco. He amassed a personal fortune estimated to be near $800 million by the time of his death, all while the average Dominican lived in poverty. He was the state, and the state was his personal business.

This megalomania was built on a dark foundation of racial ideology. Trujillo, himself of partial Haitian descent, was obsessed with 'blanquismo,' or whitening the nation. He saw the large population of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent living along the border as a cultural and racial contamination. In the fall of 1937, he decided to 'remedy' this 'problem.' Over five horrific days, he unleashed his army on the borderlands in an act of genocide that would become known as the Parsley Massacre. The test for who lived and who died was chillingly simple. Soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley, 'perejil' in Spanish, and demand the suspect say the word. The distinct Haitian Kreyòl pronunciation, which softens the rolling 'r' sound, was a death sentence. Men, women, and children were hunted down and slaughtered with machetes, bayonets, and clubs. The final death toll is unknown, but estimates range from 15,000 to 20,000 souls. The world barely registered the crime. Trujillo agreed to pay a paltry indemnity of $525,000 to the Haitian government, a fraction of which was ever delivered, and faced no other significant consequences.

To the outside world, especially during the 1940s and 50s, the Dominican Republic could appear as a model of anti-communist stability and progress. Trujillo built roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools. He paid off the country's foreign debt. In 1955, he hosted the extravagant 'Fair of Peace and Fraternity of the Free World' to showcase his modern, orderly nation. But beneath this polished veneer lay a kingdom of terror, enforced by the dreaded Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, the SIM. The SIM was everywhere. They were the anonymous man on the street corner, the friendly neighbor, the telephone operator. Fear was the air Dominicans breathed. A misspoken word, a joke told to the wrong person, a failure to display sufficient enthusiasm for 'El Jefe' (The Chief) could lead to a visit from the SIM. Their unmarked Volkswagen Beetles, known as 'cepillos' (little brushes), would arrive in the dead of night, and a person would simply vanish. The phrase 'se lo llevaron'—'they took him'—was a common and dreaded whisper. Many ended up in torture centers like La Cuarenta, from which few returned.

By the late 1950s, the cracks in Trujillo's fortress were beginning to show. His international standing crumbled after his agents kidnapped and murdered Jesús de Galíndez, a Columbia University lecturer and critic of his regime, from the streets of New York City in 1956. Then came the Mirabal sisters. Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa were educated, charismatic women from a respected provincial family who became central figures in the underground resistance movement, the Clandestine Movement of the 14th of June. Minerva, in particular, was famously defiant, having once publicly slapped the dictator's face when he made unwanted advances at a party. Their revolutionary code name was 'Las Mariposas'—The Butterflies.

Trujillo could not tolerate their defiance. On November 25, 1960, as the three sisters and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz, were returning from a visit to their imprisoned husbands, they were ambushed by SIM agents. They were led into a sugarcane field, separated, and brutally beaten and strangled to death. Their bodies were then placed back in their jeep, which was pushed off a cliff to make their deaths look like an accident. The ruse fooled no one. The murder of the Mirabal sisters, beloved and respected women, was a strategic error of catastrophic proportions. It outraged the nation, turning even staunch conservatives and the previously compliant Catholic Church against the regime. The Butterflies, in death, became a more powerful symbol of resistance than they had ever been in life.

International condemnation, which had been simmering for years, finally boiled over. After Trujillo was implicated in a failed assassination attempt against the President of Venezuela, the Organization of American States voted unanimously to impose severe economic and diplomatic sanctions. El Jefe was isolated, a pariah on the world stage, and his enemies were circling. On the night of May 30, 1961, a group of seven conspirators, a mix of military men and civilians who had once been part of his inner circle, waited for him along a lonely stretch of highway outside the capital. As Trujillo's unescorted blue Chevrolet Bel Air approached, the assassins opened fire, riddling the car with bullets. The dictator who had ruled for thirty-one years through blood, fear, and propaganda died on the pavement. The era of Trujillo was over, but the shadow he cast upon the Dominican Republic would be long and dark for decades to come.