The Third Dominican Republic [1] was a predecessor of the Dominican Republic and existed from 12 July 1924 with the departure of American troops after the end of the first American occupation, until 28 April 1965 with the disembarkation of American troops after the start of the April 1965 War and the second American occupation. This period is also known as the Age of Trujillo, because of the strong influence exerted by the Trujillo regime over much of these 41 years.
The Dominican Republic is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with Haiti, making Hispaniola one of only two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that is shared by two sovereign states. It is the second-largest nation in the Antilles by area at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi), and second-largest by population, with approximately 11.4 million people in 2024, of whom approximately 3.6 million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.
The recorded history of the Dominican Republic began in 1492 when the Genoa-born navigator Christopher Columbus, working for the Crown of Castile, happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who called the eastern part of the island Quisqueya (Kiskeya), meaning "mother of all lands." Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, the Taíno population in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island drastically decreased through genocide. With fewer than 50,000 remaining, the survivors intermixed with Spaniards, Africans, and others, forming the present-day tripartite Dominican population. What would become the Dominican Republic was the Spanish Captaincy General of Santo Domingo until 1821, except for a time as a French colony from 1795 to 1809. It was then part of a unified Hispaniola with Haiti from 1822 until 1844. In 1844, Dominican independence was proclaimed and the republic, which was often known as Santo Domingo until the early 20th century, maintained its independence except for a short Spanish occupation from 1861 to 1865 and occupation by the United States from 1916 to 1924.
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, nicknamed El Jefe ), was a Dominican military commander and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of his life as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents. His rule of 31 years, known to Dominicans as the Trujillo Era, was one of the longest for a non-royal leader in the world, and centered around a personality cult of the ruling family. It was also one of the most brutal; Trujillo's security forces, including the infamous SIM, were responsible for perhaps as many as 50,000 murders. These included between 12,000 and 30,000 Haitians in the infamous Parsley massacre in 1937, which continues to affect Dominican-Haitian relations to this day.
Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño was a Dominican politician, historian, writer, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. To this day, he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He founded both the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1973.
Porfirio Rubirosa Ariza was a Dominican diplomat, race car driver, soldier and polo player. He was a supporter of dictator Rafael Trujillo, and was rumored to be a political assassin under his regime. Rubirosa made his mark as an international playboy for his jetsetting lifestyle and his legendary sexual prowess with women. His five spouses included two of the richest women in the world.
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Martínez, better known as Ramfis Trujillo Martínez, was the son of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, after whose 1961 assassination he briefly held power. Nominally an army general, he lived the life of a reckless and spoiled playboy like his friend and sometime brother-in-law Porfirio Rubirosa. Remembered for his ruthlessness and cruelty, he went into exile in Spain, where he died after crashing a sports car.
The first United States occupation of the Dominican Republic lasted from 1916 to 1924. It aimed to force the Dominicans to repay their large debts to European creditors, whose governments threatened military intervention. On May 13, 1916, Rear Admiral William B. Caperton forced the Dominican Republic's Secretary of War Desiderio Arias, who had seized power from President Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra, to leave Santo Domingo by threatening the city with naval bombardment. The Marines landed three days later and established effective control of the country within two months. Three major roads were built, largely for military purposes, connecting for the first time the capital with Santiago in the Cibao, Azua in the west, and San Pedro de Macorís in the east; and the system of forced labor used by the Americans in Haiti was absent in the Dominican Republic.
The Parsley massacre was a mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern frontier and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops from different areas of the country carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. As a result of the massacre, virtually the entire Haitian population in the Dominican frontier was either killed or forced to flee across the border. Many died while trying to flee to Haiti across the Dajabón River that divides the two countries on the island; the troops followed them into the river to cut them down, causing the river to run with blood and corpses for several days. The massacre claimed the lives of an estimated 14,000 to 40,000 Haitian men, women, and children. Dominican troops interrogated thousands of civilians demanding that each victim say the word "parsley" (perejil). If the accused could not pronounce the word to the interrogators' satisfaction, they were deemed to be Haitians and killed.
Major General Antonio Cosme Imbert Barrera was a Dominican military general of the Dominican Army and was President of the Dominican Republic from May to August 1965.
The Dominican Civil War, also known as the April Revolution, took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office. The second coup prompted General Elías Wessin y Wessin to organize elements of the military loyal to the dictator Reid ("loyalists"), initiating an armed campaign against the "constitutionalist" rebels.
Manuel de Jesús María Ulpiano Troncoso de la Concha was an intellectual and President of the Dominican Republic from 1940 until 1942. Prior to ascending to the presidency, he was vice-president from 1938 to 1940. His term began upon the death of President Jacinto Peynado. He also served in 1911 during the reign of the Council of Secretaries.
The Dominican Republic has gone through 39 constitutions, more than any other country, since its independence in 1844. This statistic is a somewhat deceiving indicator of political stability, however, because of the Dominican practice of promulgating a new constitution whenever an amendment is ratified. Although technically different from each other in some particular provisions, most new constitutions contained only minor modifications of those previously in effect. Sweeping constitutional innovations were relatively rare.
Elías Wessin y Wessin was a Dominican politician and Dominican Air Force general. Wessin led the military coup which ousted the government of Dominican President Juan Bosch in 1963, replacing it with a triumvirate. Wessin was also a key figure in the ensuing Dominican Civil War, which led to a United States military intervention into and occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1965.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
The nations of the Dominican Republic and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1890. Both nations have over the years joined several multilateral forums and are members of the Association of Caribbean States, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
Tourism in the Dominican Republic is an important sector of the country's economy. More than 10 million tourists visited the Dominican Republic in 2023, making it the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean and putting it in the top 5 overall in the Americas. The industry accounts for 11.6% of the nation's GDP and is a particularly important source of revenue in coastal areas of the country. The nation's tropical climate, white sand beaches, diverse mountainous landscape and colonial history attracts visitors from around the world. In 2022, the nation's tourism was named the best-performing nation post-pandemic with over 5% visitors more in comparison to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Rafael Ángel Brache Ramírez was a politician, civil servant, and diplomat from the Dominican Republic. His career in national politics spanned from 1914 to 1935, after which he spent much of his life in exile.
Dominican Republic–Spain relations are the bilateral relations between the Dominican Republic and Spain. Both nations are members of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language and the Organization of Ibero-American States.
The 1963 Dominican coup d'état was a coup d'état that took place on September 25, 1963 against President Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic. Juan Bosch had been the first democratically elected president after the assassination of the former dictator Rafael Trujillo, but he faced criticism due to his policies, which were seen as leftist. This led to a coup that replaced his government with a military junta; which itself would be replaced with a civilian junta.
The Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic (DOMREP) was a peacekeeping operation established in 1965 by the UN to observe the ceasefire agreement between the two de facto authorities in the Dominican Republic during the Dominican Civil War. DOMREP was instructed to report any breaches of the agreements between the Constitutionalists led by Juan Bosch and Francisco Caamaño, and Loyalists commanded by Elías Wessin y Wessin and backed by the United States. Once the new Dominican constitutional government was formed, DOMREP withdrew.
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