Juan Pablo Duarte

Juan Pablo Duarte y Díez (January 26, 1813 – July 15, 1876)[1] is one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic. He was a visionary and liberal thinker who along with Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Matías Ramón Mella is widely considered the architect of the Dominican Republic and its independence from Haitian rule in 1844. His aspiration was to help create a self-sufficient nation established on the liberal ideals of a democratic government.

The highest mountain in the Caribbean is named Pico Duarte in his honor, as are Juan Pablo Duarte Square in New York City, and many other noteworthy landmarks, suggesting his historical importance for Dominicans. His vision for the country was quickly undermined by the conservative elites, who sought to align the new nation with colonial powers and turn back to traditional regionalism. Nevertheless, his democratic ideals, although never fully fleshed-out and somewhat imprecise, have served as guiding principles, mostly in theory, for most Dominican governments. His failures made him a political martyr in the eyes of subsequent generations.

Contents

[hide] 1 Early years

2 The struggle for independence

3 See also

4 References

5 External links

Early years[edit]

Duarte was born in Santo Domingo, Captaincy General of Santo Domingo[1] during the period commonly called España Boba.

Duarte's father was Juan José Duarte, from Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, Spain, and his mother was Manuela Díez Jiménez from El Seybo. She was the daughter of a Spanish father and Dominican mother. In 1802 Duarte and Diez emigrated from Santo Domingo to Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.[2] They were evading the imposition of French rule over Santo Domingo. This transformation of the island's colonial experience became apparent the previous year, when Toussaint Louverture, governor of Saint Domingue (now Haiti), a colony of France located on the western third of Hispaniola, took control of Santo Domingo, located on the island's eastern two-thirds. At the time, France and Saint Domingue were going through exhaustive social movements, namely, the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. In occupying the Spanish side of the island the legendary governor was following the indications accorded by the governments of France and Spain in the Peace of Basel signed in 1795, which had given the Spanish area to France.

Upon arrival in Santo Domingo, Louverture immediately restricted slavery, although complete abolition of slavery in Santo Domingo came in 1822, and in addition began converting the old Spanish colonial institutions into French Revolutionary venues of liberal government. Puerto Rico was still a Spanish colony, and Mayagüez, being so close to Hispaniola, just across the Mona Passage, had become a refuge for the likes of the Duartes and those Spanish colonists who did not accept French rule. Most scholars assume that the Duartes' first son, Vicente Celestino, was born here at this time on the eastern side of the Mona Passage. The family returned to Santo Domingo in 1809, however, after the War of Reconquista returned Santo Domingo to Spanish control.

The struggle for independence[edit]

La Trinitaria was the organizer of the formation and independence of the Dominican Republic.

In 1821, when Duarte was eight years old, the Creole elite of Santo Domingo proclaimed its independence from Spanish rule, and renamed the former Spanish colony Haití Español. The most prominent leader of the coup against the colonial government was one of its former supporters, José Núñez de Cáceres. The select and privileged group of individuals that he represented were tired of being ignored by the Crown, and some were also concerned with the new liberal turn in Madrid. Their deed was not an isolated event. The 1820s was a time of profound political changes throughout the entire Spanish Atlantic World, which affected directly the lives of petite bourgeoisie like the Duartes. It began with the conflictive period between Spanish royalists and liberals in the Iberian Peninsula, which is known today as the Trienio Liberal.

American patriots in arms, like Simón Bolivar in South America, immediately reaped the fruits of the metropolis' destabilization, and began pushing back colonial troops, like what happened in the Battle of Carabobo, and then in the consequential Battle of Ayacucho. Even conservative elites in New Spain (like Agustín de Iturbide in Mexico), who had no

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