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Rafael Trujillo

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Rafael Trujillo (b. 24 October 1891–d. 30 May 1961) was the archetypal Latin American dictator. In control of the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination thirty-one years later, Trujillo remains a controversial figure, as he was during his lifetime. The literature about him and his government tends to be either harshly critical or ardently favorable. However he is viewed, Trujillo has been the subject of a large volume of work, much of it produced during the self-proclaimed “Era of Trujillo” to praise the dictator, publicize his efforts to modernize the Dominican Republic, and heighten its people’s national pride and self-awareness. At the same time, the increasing number of critics of his regime—political exiles, foreign diplomats, and investigative journalists among them—countered the flood of pro-Trujillo publications with their own exposés of his brutal regime. The trujillato, or era of Trujillo, ended in assassination in May 1961, but the impact of Trujillo’s long-term domination of the Dominican Republic and his influence in the Caribbean was felt for years afterward, stimulating postmortem scholarship analyzing his regime. Beginning in the early 1980s, Bernardo Vega’s Fundación Cultural Dominicana in Santo Domingo began publishing compilations of Dominican and US government documents revealing further details of Trujillo’s domestic repression and foreign policy. In more recent decades, several fictional evocations of Trujillo have gained international attention and acclaim, broadening public awareness of him and casting him in a starkly unfavorable light. At the same time, a range of more nuanced scholarly studies have been published about him, which are based on new research, questioning claims that his power came from oppression and not popular support, and that he was a puppet of the United States and not an independent geopolitical operator. A half-century after his death, Trujillo remains the subject of deeply divided opinions among scholars and in the popular culture.
  4.  
  5. Reference Works
  6.  
  7. There is no objective compendium of factual data covering the entire trujillato. However, many of the publications of Bernardo Vega could serve as reference works for specific periods of time, such as Vega 1988 and Vega 1995 (both cited under Relations with Haiti and the Haitian Massacre of 1937), and Vega 1999 (cited under Relations with the United States). The Trujillo regime itself published a comprehensive series of books in 1955 titled La Era de Trujillo (Rodríguez Demorizi 1955), written by a group of the regime’s most active authors, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its namesake’s rise to power.
  8.  
  9. Rodríguez Demorizi, Emilio, ed. La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. 20 vols. Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
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  11. Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi, a prolific historian during and after the Trujillo regime, edited this official history and wrote two volumes: Cronología de Trujillo and Bibliografía de Trujillo. Other subjects include an overview of the Era of Trujillo, a general history of the country, finances, foreign relations, the Haitian frontier, the military, public works, social policies, the University of Santo Domingo, and education.
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  13. Trujillo and His Regime
  14.  
  15. Rafael Trujillo controlled the Dominican Republic for more than three decades, exercising his immense power with great energy, flamboyance, and violence. He made himself the object of fascination within his own country and attracted international attention for his longevity and his personal excesses. With the collaboration of his family and a constantly shifting political circle, but also with the support of a large segment of the population, Trujillo became virtually synonymous with the Dominican Republic. The extent of this conflation of man and nation can be gauged by the re-christening of its ancient capital Santo Domingo, the oldest city in the Western Hemisphere, to make it eponymous with Trujillo, only six years after his coming to power. Long after “Ciudad Trujillo” disappeared from maps and the city reverted to its original name upon the dictator’s death, Trujillo’s influence on the country remained strong. His military establishment became the arbiter of political power in the chaotic years following his death and then supported the rise to power of Joaquín Balaguer, Trujillo’s most durable political ally. The former titular head of state, Balaguer returned to the presidency from 1966 to 1978, the repressive “Twelve Years” period, and then again between 1986 and 1996, preserving much of the trujillato’s legacy of authoritarian rule, though in a less grandiose fashion.
  16.  
  17. General Overviews
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  19. Derby 2009 and Turits 2003, both prize-winning books, are the best studies of the Trujillo regime, offering broad context from Dominican history and persuasive interpretations of Trujillo’s power. Derby explains the Dominican public’s fascination with the dictator. Turits shows how Trujillo gained the support of the peasantry and certain sectors of the elite through his modernizing of agricultural policies. Galíndez Suárez 1973 is a dissertation on the Trujillo dictatorship; it cost the author his life, and the work is still worth reading. Bosch 1961 is a vivid account by a leading opponent of the regime and future president of the Dominican Republic. Moya Pons 2010 includes a succinct chapter on Trujillo’s reign. Wiarda 1968 is dated but still valuable, contending that Trujillo began as a traditional caudillo, or political-military leader, and ended as a modern totalitarian. Capdevila 1998 is a worthy treatment in French. Franco 1992 is an example of the despotism-imposed genre of Trujillo studies, which comprises many less-notable works published in the Dominican Republic.
  20.  
  21. Bosch, Juan. Trujillo: Causas de una tiranía sin ejemplo. 2d ed. Caracas, Venezuela: Libreria Las Novedades, 1961.
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  23. A perceptive analysis by a founder of the Dominican Revolutionary Party and president of the country after Trujillo, the last chapters of which assess the impact of the regime.
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  25. Capdevila, Lauro. La dictatura de Trujillo (République Dominicaine, 1930–1961). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998.
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  27. An authoritative account of the Trujillo regime. In French.
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  29. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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  31. This fascinating study, based on exhaustive and innovative research, examines the many ways that Trujillo dominated the public arena in the Dominican Republic and the private lives of Dominican citizens. Chapters detail the rise of “Ciudad Trujillo,” state spectacle, the use of public denunciation and panegyric, Trujillo’s image as a dandy and womanizer, popular belief in his supernatural power, and the messianic cult of Oliverio Mateo ("Papá Liborio").
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  33. Franco, Franklin J. La Era de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1992.
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  35. A scholarly treatment by an accomplished Dominican historian, published by the leading publisher in the Dominican Republic of literature on the Trujillo regime.
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  37. Galíndez Suárez, Jesús. The Era of Trujillo, Dominican Dictator. Edited by Russell H. Fitzgibbon. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973.
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  39. Basque exile Galíndez held a position in the Trujillo government before leaving for graduate studies at Columbia University, where he wrote this insightful book (originally his dissertation). His disappearance from New York and kidnapping by Trujillo’s agents became an international scandal. Abridged from the original Spanish edition, La Era de Trujillo: Un estudio casuistico de dictadura latinoamericana (Santiago, Chile: Editorial del Pacifico, 1956).
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  41. Moya Pons, Frank. The Dominican Republic: A National History. 3d ed. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2010.
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  43. The best general history of the Dominican Republic offers a good brief introduction to the Era of Trujillo in national context.
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  45. Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  47. This sweeping study of Trujillo’s broad social support makes extensive use of Dominican and US archival sources and oral history interviews, showing how the regime courted the countryside with modernizing policies. The book traces the development of the Dominican peasantry from the colonial period through the century after independence. It then shows how Trujillo’s program of rural transformation won over the peasantry.
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  49. Wiarda, Howard J. Dictatorship and Development: The Methods of Control in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968.
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  51. Classic study of the Dominican Republic under Trujillo attributes the regime’s durability to a “honeycomb” of power, whereby organizations at all levels of the Dominican state penetrated into every aspect of national life, converting a traditional strongman figure into a modern totalitarian dictator.
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  53. Trujillo’s Writings
  54.  
  55. The Trujillo regime produced a large volume of writing, much of it in Trujillo’s own name. Much of it in turn was actually the work of others, in particular Balaguer, and included speeches, essays, promotional material, school curricula, and ideological treatises. Balaguer 1985 is a compilation of the future president’s work for the dictator. Trujillo 1992 contains excerpts from one of the few speeches translated into English. Trujillo 1948–1953 is a multivolume compendium of writings from the first half of his time in power. Trujillo 1955 is one of the twenty volumes of “La Era de Trujillo,” published to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his coming to power. Trujillo 1956 offers the most important documents in a single volume. Trujillo 1933, while reprinted in Trujillo anthologies, is most striking as an artifact of totalitarian governance in its pamphlet form.
  56.  
  57. Balaguer, Joaquín. La palabra encadenada. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Taller, 1985.
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  59. A collection of speeches, essays, and other writing by the leading trujillista intellectual.
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  61. Trujillo, Rafael L. “Cartilla Civica para el pueblo dominicano.” Santiago, Dominican Republic: Impresora La Información, 1933.
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  63. The dictator’s most ubiquitous political statement, this primer set forth rules for conduct and right thinking early in the regime, continuing in many subsequent editions and forms.
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  65. Trujillo, Rafael L. Discursos, mensajes y proclamas. 11 vols. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Editora Montalvo, 1948–1953.
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  67. Exhaustive compilation of Trujillo’s public pronouncements and essays on every subject, for every event, up to 1953. Includes works previously compiled in Trujillo, La Nueva Patria Dominicana, 1934, and La Nueva Patria Dominicana: Suplemento, 1935, among others.
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  69. Trujillo, Rafael L. Obras de Trujillo. Archivo General de la Nación. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Editora Montalvo, 1956.
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  71. At less than 300 pages, one of the most selective of the many Trujillista anthologies published over the years.
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  73. Trujillo, Rafael L., and Joaquín Balaguer, ed. La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Vol. 1 of El pensamiento vivo de Trujillo: Antología. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
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  75. Joaquín Balaguer selected the contents (much of which he composed in the first place), edited, and wrote an introduction for this collection, part of the twenty-volume official history of the Dominican Republic under Trujillo.
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  77. Trujillo, Rafael L. “The Evolution of Democracy in Santo Domingo.” In Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America. Edited by Hugh M. Hammill Jr., 218–233. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
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  79. Trujillo’s speech to a Pan-American Sanitary Conference in Ciudad Trujillo, October 1950, outlined his political philosophy, representing his dictatorship as a vehicle for democratic development. Reprinted in Spanish and English, Trujillo apparently regarded this discourse highly. Full text in Trujillo, The Evolution of Democracy in Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Sección de Publicaciones, Dirección General de Estadística, 1955), translated by Otto Vega.
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  81. Memoirs
  82.  
  83. Revelatory autobiographies from people close to Trujillo range from condemnatory to apologist. Balaguer 1988 is the best known, by the highest-ranking memoirist. Almoina 1950 was written by the dictator’s former secretary. Javier García 1986 comes from another National Palace insider. Espaillat 1963 is the account of an embittered general. The perspective of a frustrated US diplomat can be seen in Briggs 1964. Trujillo’s son-in-law, a celebrity playboy, left Rubirosa 2000. Published recollections continue to appear across the full spectrum of attitudes toward Trujillo, including Mirabal 2009, from the surviving sister of the martyred Mirabal sisters, or “The Butterflies,” as they were known, and Trujillo 2010, from his daughter Angelita.
  84.  
  85. Almoina, José. Yo fuí secretario de Trujillo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editora y Distribuidora del Plata, 1950.
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  87. Trujillo’s private secretary went into exile to publish first a pseudonymous exposé, then this insider account under his own name, details of which upset the dictator enough to dispatch agents to murder the author.
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  89. Balaguer, Joaquín. Memorias de un cortesano de la “era de Trujillo.” Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Corripio, 1988.
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  91. The best-known memoir of the period and its aftermath, by Trujillo’s principal political ally, published while Balaguer was president of the Dominican Republic.
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  93. Briggs, Ellis O. Farewell to Foggy Bottom: The Recollections of a Career Diplomat. New York: David McKay, 1964.
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  95. A former US ambassador to the Dominican Republic recorded the experiences there that formed his unfavorable opinion of the regime.
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  97. Espaillat, Arturo. Trujillo: The Last Caesar. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1963.
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  99. Written by a former general and top intelligence officer who fell out of favor, this account includes excruciating detail of how the regime operated, and collapsed.
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  101. Javier García, Manuel de Jesús. Mis 20 años en el Palacio Nacional junto a Trujillo y a otros gobernantes dominicanos. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Taller, 1986.
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  103. This witness to the late trujillato penned his recollections after the dictator’s fall, offering valuable details about Palace intrigues and Trujillo’s methods of governance.
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  105. Mirabal, Dedé. Vivas en su jardín. New York: Vintage: 2009.
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  107. The long-awaited autobiography of the surviving Mirabal sister. The author’s four sisters, known as “The Butterflies,” became the most famous of the countless victims of the Trujillo regime, and later symbols of women’s rights in Latin America.
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  109. Rubirosa, Porfirio. Mis memorias. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Letra Gráfica, 2000.
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  111. Trujillo’s one-time son-in-law and playboy alter-ego became the most famous of his circle, perhaps even better known than Trujillo himself, for marrying heiresses and embodying the “Latin lover” persona. See Derby 2009 (cited under Culture and others) for his full significance.
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  113. Trujillo, Angelita. Trujillo, mi padre: En mis memorías, Angelita. Miami: MATD Endeavors, 2010.
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  115. Controversial publication by Trujillo’s younger daughter, who seems to have been shielded very effectively from the darker aspects of her father’s regime.
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  117. Contemporary Exposés
  118.  
  119. A large amount of investigative reportage appeared in print during the Trujillo regime, among the first of which was Villard 1937. Hicks 1946, Thomsen 1936, and Sinks 1940 are notable for their coverage of the first half of the period. The best of the numerous indictments penned by Dominican exiles are Almoina 1999, Bosch 1959 and Ornes 1958.
  120.  
  121. Almoina, José (pseud., Gregorio R. Bustamante). Una satrapîa en el Caribe: Historia punctual del déspota Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Cole, 1999.
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  123. Trujillo’s exiled private secretary published this damning account under a pseudonym, then put out his memoirs under his own name, and was later murdered by Trujillo regime assassins.
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  125. Bosch, Juan. Trujillo: Causas de una tiranía sin ejemplo. Caracas, Venezuela: Librería Las Novedades, 1959.
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  127. The founder in exile of the Dominican Revolutionary Party and future short-lived elected president of the country, Bosch summed up and vigorously excoriated the waning Trujillo regime.
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  129. Hicks, Albert C. Blood in the Streets: The Life and Rule of Trujillo. New York: Creative Age Press, 1946.
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  131. The first book-length denunciation of Trujillo in English recounted some of the growing number of outrages committed by his regime.
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  133. Ornes, Germán E. Trujillo: Little Caesar of the Caribbean. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1958.
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  135. This exiled former editor revealed what he knew about the dictator’s private life and the inner workings of the Trujillo regime in this widely available volume.
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  137. Thomsen, Charles A. “Dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.” Foreign Policy Reports (15 March 1936): 30–40.
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  139. The first scholarly examination of the consolidated Trujillo regime, and its implications for US and regional relations.
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  141. Sinks, Alfred H. “Trujillo, Caribbean Dictator.” American Mercury, October 1940, 164–171.
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  143. The magazine founded by journalist and critic H. L. Mencken turned its attention to Trujillo’s growing excesses.
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  145. Villard, Oswald Garrison. “Santo Domingo, 1937.” The Nation, 20 March 1937, 323–324.
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  147. Civil-rights and anti-imperialist activist Villard condemned the Trujillo regime in the pages of the leading progressive magazine.
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  149. Biographies
  150.  
  151. There are no comprehensive, balanced biographies of Rafael Trujillo. Considering the large number of fictional treatments of Trujillo, there are relatively few biographies of him of any sort. Crassweller 1966 remains the best, filled with fascinating and mainly accurate details, but it is negative to the point of ridicule. On the other hand, a huge output of sycophantic official life stories appeared during Trujillo’s lifetime in both Spanish and English, but these are useful mainly to gauge the subject’s vanity, rather than to gain a balanced picture of him. Cruz Álvarez 1930 was first to publish one of these exaggerated life stories. Balaguer 1934 is by the most important of Trujillo’s intellectual supporters, a future president, and a skilled and prolific writer. An early example sent into wide circulation abroad was Besault 1936. Nanita 1939, Nanita 1951 and Nanita 1957 are masterpieces of this genre of biographical panegyric, by a man who made a career of writing Trujillo biographies. Fernández Mato 1945 practically deifies the dictator. Vega y Pagán 1956 traces his military career.
  152.  
  153. Balaguer, Joaquín. Trujillo y su obra: Apuntes sobre la vida y la obra política de un jefe de estado. Madrid: Sáez Hermanos, 1934.
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  155. The prolific future president contributed this smoothly composed paean to the early Trujillo regime.
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  157. Besault, Lawrence de. President Trujillo: His Work and the Dominican Republic. Washington, DC: Washington Publishing, 1936.
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  159. The first biography in English financed by Trujillo was this very attractive publication, written by a mysterious self-promoter whose shady reputation did little to enhance that of his patron and subject.
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  161. Crassweller, Robert D. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
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  163. The best Trujillo biography is still indispensable forty-five years after its publication, not only because no serious competitors have appeared in that time, but because it is packed with lurid details divulged in an engaging prose style. It has nothing good to say about its subject, and has no footnotes or bibliography.
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  165. Cruz Álvarez, Arquimedes. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo: Notas Biográficas. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Cromos, 1930.
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  167. The first Trujillo biography, published the year he seized power.
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  169. Fernández Mato, Ramón. Trujillo, o, la transfiguración dominicana. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Veritas, 1945.
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  171. The conflation of the man and the state into one, a tendency of trujillista literature, is the salient feature of this tribute.
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  173. Nanita, Abelardo René. Trujillo: A Full Size Portrait. Translated by M. A. Moore. Santiago, Dominican Republic: El Diario, 1939.
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  175. An unintentionally comedic profile of Trujillo, including his taste in clothes and fondness for animals, with many pages devoted to defending the 1937 Haitian Massacre. Published in Spanish as Trujillo de cuerpo entero (Santiago, Dominican Republic: El Diario, 1939).
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  177. Nanita, Abelardo René. Trujillo. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1951.
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  179. Nanita was the master of trujillista praise, demonstrated here in his most grandiloquent Spanish.
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  181. Nanita, Abelardo René. Trujillo: The Biography of a Great Leader. New York: Vantage, 1957.
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  183. The most widely published of the English-language, Trujillo-sponsored life stories, this one emphasizing his international stature in the wake of the 1955 World Peace Fair in Ciudad Trujillo.
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  185. Vega y Pagán, Ernesto. Military Biography of Generalísimo R. L. Trujillo M. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Editorial Atenas, 1956.
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  187. A close look at the dictator’s rise in the military, with close attention paid to the glowing evaluations of his US Marine Corps mentors and his enormous collection of military decorations, one of Trujillo’s obsessions.
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  189. Fiction
  190.  
  191. Fictional evocations of Trujillo abound. While not itself a work of fiction, López-Calvo 2005 is an excellent guide to that literature, including many less well-known but deserving works by Dominican authors. The most widely acclaimed, and rightfully, is Vargas Llosa 2001, which is also very historically accurate. García Márquez 1976 was inspired in part by Trujillo. Alvarez 1995 and Díaz 2007 also earned critical acclaim; Alvarez beautifully evokes the Mirabal sisters, while Díaz captures some of the conflicts of the Dominican-American community. Prestol Castillo 1973 is about the 1937 Haitian Massacre. Trujillo’s son-in-law wrote Estévez 2002, about Trujillo’s prodigal son Ramfis. Vásquez Montalbán 1992 imagines the life and demise of a published critic of the Trujillo regime.
  192.  
  193. Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Penguin, 1995.
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  195. Beautifully evokes the martyred Mirabal sisters.
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  197. Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007.
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  199. A riveting novel of the transcultural Dominican-American community, and the curse cast upon it by Trujillo.
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  201. Estévez, Luis José Leon. Yo, Ramfis Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Letra Gráfica, 2002.
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  203. This imagined memoir of Trujillo’s son Ramfis was written by Trujillo’s brother-in-law, the husband of his sister Angelita, who had an inside perspective on the Trujillo clan.
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  205. García Márquez, Gabriel. The Autumn of the Patriarch. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
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  207. While the protagonist is an amalgam of Latin American strongmen, Trujillo is prominent among them in this experimental novel by the Nobel Prize–winning Colombian author.
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  209. López-Calvo. God and Trujillo: Literary and Cultural Representations of the Dominican Dictator. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
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  211. All but the most recent works are treated in this perceptive and erudite study.
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  213. Prestol Castillo, Freddy. El masacre se pasa a pie. Santo Domingo, Domincan Republic: Ediciones Taller, 1973.
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  215. A classic dramatization of the 1937 Haitian Massacre.
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  217. Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Feast of the Goat. Translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
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  219. Peruvian Nobel Prize laureate and author interweaves the life story of a fictional protagonist with a historically accurate depiction of the Trujillo regime and the conspiracy to assassinate Trujillo in this best-selling novel.
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  221. Vásquez Montalbán, Manuel. Galíndez. Translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. New York: Atheneum, 1992.
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  223. An experimental work that hews as closely to nonfiction as possible, given the mysterious end to the real-life Galíndez, one of Trujillo’s victims.
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  225. Films
  226.  
  227. The best documentary on Trujillo, in three parts, is Fortunato 2004–2006. The best known cinematic portrayal of Trujillo is The Feast of the Goat (Llosa 2009), based on the best-selling novel (Vargas Llosa 2001, cited under Fiction). There are also film evocations of the Mirabal sisters: In the Time of the Butterflies (Barosso 2001) based on the novel by Julia Alvarez, and Trópico de Sangre (Delancer 2010), a recent Dominican production.
  228.  
  229. Barosso, Mariano, dir. In the Time of the Butterflies. MGM, 2001.
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  231. While this made-for-TV movie has star power in Salma Hayek as Minerva Mirabal and Edward James Olmos as Trujillo, it was filmed in Mexico City and does not evoke the Dominican Republic well.
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  233. Delancer, Juan, dir. Trópico de Sangre. Kemasi Films, 2010.
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  235. This Dominican production tells the story of national heroines the Mirabal sisters, with focus on charismatic Minerva Mirabal, played by Michelle Rodríguez, with Juan Fernández as Trujillo.
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  237. Fortunato, René, dir. El Poder del Jefe. DVD, 3 parts. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Videocine Palau, 2004–2006.
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  239. Makes extensive use of archival footage and still photography to cover the entire Trujillo regime, one decade at a time.
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  241. Llosa, Luis, dir. The Feast of the Goat. DVD. Mexico City: Videomax, 2009.
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  243. Spanish production that condenses a complex novel into a two-hour movie without complete success, stars Tomás Milián as Trujillo and Isabella Rossellini as Urania Cabral, the fictional protagonist.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Trujillo’s Rise to Power
  246.  
  247. Trujillo’s early life is fairly obscure, cloaked in the myth-making of his coterie of official biographers, but his career in the military, beginning with the US Marine Corps, left an official record. His favorable evaluations from superior officers are reproduced in Vega y Pagán 1956, while Millett and Soloman 1972 and Vega 1995 cover the proceedings of his court-martial for raping a teenager. The USMC occupation of the Dominican Republic is the subject of Calder 1984. Fellowes 1923 concerns the training of the Dominican constabulary.
  248.  
  249. Calder, Bruce. The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican Republic During the U.S. Occupation of 1916–24. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
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  251. The best book on the Marine occupation that propelled Trujillo to power.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Fellowes, Lieutenant Edward A. “Training Native Troops in Santo Domingo.” Marine Corps Gazette, December 1923, 215–233.
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  255. A straightforward article by a Marine officer who trained the Dominican constabulary, published while Trujillo was rising in its ranks.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Millett, Richard, and Marvin Soloman. “The Court Martial of Lieutenant Rafael L. Trujillo.” Revista/Review Interamericana (Fall 1972): 396–404.
  258. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. As is this succinct article shows, the overwhelming evidence against Trujillo was not enough to convince his Marine superiors to convict him of raping a teenage girl in a church steeple with her father outside the locked door.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Trujillo ante una corte marcial por violación y extorsión en 1920. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1995.
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  263. This volume reproduces Spanish translations of Trujillo’s court-martial proceedings, showing the evidence that he raped a teenage girl, yet was acquitted by his Marine superiors.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Vega y Pagán, Ernesto. Military Biography of Generalisimo R. L. Trujillo M. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Atenas, 1956.
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  267. This laudatory product of the Trujillo regime’s publicity mill reproduced all the glowing evaluations he received from his Marine supervisors, along with a detailed account of his rise in the ranks, and his acquisition of a large collection of military decorations.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. The Armed Forces
  270.  
  271. The Dominican military, which was essentially an extension of Trujillo himself, has received considerable scholarly attention. The most comprehensive treatment is Peguero 2004. Ayuso 2005 is more recent. Rivera Cuesta 1986 places Trujillo’s military into the broader context of Dominican politics. Vega 1992 covers the relationship between the US and Dominican militaries extensively. Roorda 1998 examines the rise of Dominican air power, while Roorda 2007 looks specifically at World War II. Vega y Pagán 1953 gives the trujillista view.
  272.  
  273. Ayuso, Juan José. “Todo por Trujillo”: Fuerzas armadas y militares: Un proceso político desde 1930. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Ediciones La Trinitaria, 2005.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. Slender though comprehensive study from a leading Dominican press begins with Trujillo’s seizure of power.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Peguero, Valentina. The Militarization of Culture in the Dominican Republic, from the Captains General to General Trujillo. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. The bulk of this book pertains to the Trujillo regime, with findings based on armed forces records, with ample useful data.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Rivera Cuesta, Marcos. Las Fuerzas Armadas y la politica dominicana. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Talleres de Artes Gráficas, 1986.
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. The author rose through the ranks of the military under Trujillo, became part of the junta that later took power, and was chief of staff of the Dominican Army at the time of the April 1965 Constitutionalist Revolution.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Roorda, Eric Paul. “The Cult of the Airplane among U.S. Military Men and Dominicans during the U.S. Occupation and the Trujillo Regime.” In Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Edited by Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, 269–310. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
  286. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287. Follows the growth of Trujillo’s air force, which became the most powerful in the Caribbean, and explores the popular fascination with aircraft that he fostered.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Roorda, Eric Paul. “The Dominican Republic: The Axis, the Allies, and the Trujillo Dictatorship.” In Latin America during World War II. Edited by Thomas M. Leonard and John F. Bratzel, 75–91. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
  290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. A brief treatment of prewar alliance-building, Trujillo’s declarations of war, wartime espionage in the Dominican Republic, and the war at sea near its coast.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Vega, Bernardo. Trujillo y las Fuerzas Armadas norteamericanas. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1992.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. The close connections between military men in the United States and the Trujillo regime are delineated in this thick volume, all the way from the future dictator’s days as a Marine protégé to after his fall from power. Indispensable source on Trujillo’s military career, his relations with the United States, and the development of the powerful Dominican military.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Vega y Pagán, Ernesto. Síntesis histórica de la guardia dominicana. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Atenas, 1953.
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  299. An official history of the National Guard, which became the Dominican Army. Trujillo often tasked the writer with writing on military subjects, including Trujillo himself.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Secret Police and State Violence
  302.  
  303. The state security apparatus that Trujillo constructed inflicted much of the violence that came to characterize his regime, obscuring its accomplishments. As such, it has been the subject of considerable scholarship. Vega 1985 and Vega 1986 contain documents from the presidential archive detailing techniques of repression, while Vega 2001 is a case study of two of Trujillo’s best-known victims, Almoina and Galíndez. Cassá 2000 is a biography of the best-known victim of all, Minerva Mirabal. Cassá 2007 treats the revolutionary conspiracy that launched doomed exile invasions in 1959. Collado 2002 brings together undocumented tales of Trujillo’s cruel methods, which became worse as his regime endured in power. Jiménes Grullón 1981 recounts the sufferings of Trujillo’s political enemies, first published by one of them while in exile in 1946.
  304.  
  305. Cassá, Roberto. Minerva Mirabal: La revolucionaria. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Tobogan, 2000.
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  307. Recent biography of the most famous opponent and victim of the Trujillo regime—Minerva Mirabal, of the celebrated “Butterfly” Mirabal sisters—by one of the most prolific historians of the Dominican Republic.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Cassá, Roberto. Los orígenes del Movimiento 14 de Junio. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Comisión Permanente de Efemérides Patrias, 2007.
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  311. One of the leading Dominican historians recounts the conspiracy that led to an attempted exile invasion in June 1959, which Trujillo’s powerful armed forces crushed.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Collado, Lipe. Anécdotas y crueldades de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Collado, 2002.
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  315. The author assembled some of the most gruesome of the Trujillo regime’s excesses and peculiarities in this publication, one of several books concerning Trujillo that he has published on his own press, limiting their availability but not their value to researchers.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Jiménes Grullón, Juan Isidro. Una gestapo en America: Vida, tortura, agonía y muerte de presos políticos bajo la tiranía de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Alfa y Omega, 1981.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. The author, one of the founders of the anti-Trujillo Dominican Revolutionary Party, originally published this horrifying account of the dictatorship’s secret police and political prisons while in exile in Havana in 1946.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Vega, Bernardo. Control y represión en la dictadura trujillista. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1986.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. This thin tome reproduces documents from Trujillo’s personal papers in the National Palace archives, which detail the Trujillo regime’s methods of censoring communications, controlling travel, and keeping diplomats, students, and exiles under surveillance.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Vega, Bernardo. Almoina, Galíndez y otros crímenes de Trujillo en el extranjero. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 2001.
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  327. This brief account focuses on the cases of the two most famous murdered exiles from the Trujillo regime: Almoina, Trujillo’s former secretary who wrote a revealing memoir, and Galíndez, who wrote a critical dissertation on the Trujillo regime. The book also contains accounts of lesser-known victims, such as Mauricio Báez, and photographs attributed to sources, unusual for Vega’s works.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Unos Desafectos y Otros en Desgracia: Sufrimientos Bajo la Dictadura Trujillista. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1985.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. This slender volume contains excerpts from the official police case files of many dissidents and others identified as threats by Trujillo’s security apparatus.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Ideology
  334.  
  335. The ideology of the Trujillo regime relied in part on a revision of Dominican history that valorized Hispanic heritage and denied African influences. Incháustegui 1955 is the prime example of this. The dictatorship also emphasized the importance of civil discipline under strong leadership as a prerequisite to modernization and democracy. Trujillo assembled a coterie of intellectuals to articulate his vision of a New Fatherland, whose work Mateo 1993 perceptively interprets. Peña Batlle 1954 is one such official overview of the regime’s political positions. Moya Pons 1999 assesses the work of Incháustegui, Peña Batlle, and other politicized historians of the Trujillo regime. Vega 1985 examines the regime’s extreme right-wing tendencies and associations.
  336.  
  337. Incháustegui Cabral, Joaquín. Historia dominicana. Vol. 3 of La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. The pre-eminent historian of the Dominican Republic during the Trujillo period wrote this sprawling revision of the nation’s history as part of the regime’s 25th anniversary commemoration. In the trujillista retelling of the past, Dominican national identity takes shape in the Spanish mold, discounting or effacing African and Haitian influences.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Mateo, Andrés L. Mito y cultura en la Era de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Librería La Trinitaria e Instituto del Libro, 1993.
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  343. The most sophisticated and objective interpretation of the ideology of the regime and the pro-Trujillo intellectuals who constructed it in their writings.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Moya Pons, Frank. “Historiography of the Dominican Republic.” In General History of the Caribbean. Vol. 6, Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean. Edited by B. W. Higman, 388–416. London: UNESCO, 1999.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. Chapter by a Dominican historian of sweeping erudition provides a concise guide to trujillista revisionism within the wider context of Dominican historiography.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Peña Batlle, Manuel Arturo. Política de Trujillo. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1954.
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  351. This interpretation of Trujillo’s political positions by one of the leading authors and diplomats in his government outlines the “New Fatherland” construction of the regime, which emphasized the material progress and civil order achieved under his leadership, generally justifying dictatorship and racism. Contains many verbatim pronouncements by the dictator.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Vega, Bernardo. Nazismo, fascismo y falangismo en la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1985.
  354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. An amalgam of narrative history and transcribed documents from various archives, along with tables of events and personalities, this volume provides a wealth of detail on the wartime environment in the Dominican Republic.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. The Dominican State
  358.  
  359. Many scholars, particularly in the field of political science, have characterized the powerful and long-lived Trujillo government in very different ways. Betances 1995 offers a concise overview that places the Trujillo years in the context of Dominican politics and society. Wiarda 1968 is a classic study of how Trujillo built a “honeycomb” of power. Cordero Michel 1987 emphasizes Trujillo’s capitalist development and independent foreign policy. Hartlyn 1998 demonstrates the many “sultanistic” aspects of Trujillo’s rule. Bosch 1989 is a thorough indictment of the Trujillo state by its principal opponent. Krohn-Hansen 2009 is an anthropological case study of state formation. LeGrand 1995 provides a case study of the influence of the Trujillo government on a large foreign-owned sugar plantation. The priorities of the Dominican state during the Era of Trujillo—the Trujillo family, public works, bids for international attention—were reflected on the postage stamps issued by the regime, which can be seen on the Virtual Philatelic Museum of the Dominican Republic, 1865–2000.
  360.  
  361. Betances, Emilio. State and Society in the Dominican Republic. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. Analyzes the formation of the Dominican state since the late 19th century.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Bosch, Juan. La fortuna de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Alfa y Omega, 1989.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Bosch, a major figure in Dominican political history and a prolific historian and political theorist, portrayed the Dominican state as an extension of Trujillo, who became the owner of the country’s economy, its government, and its military.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Cordero Michel, José R. Análisis de la Era de Trujillo. 5th ed. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Universitaria, 1987.
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  371. Revising the view of the Trujillo regime as depending on United States support and inhibiting Dominican economic growth, this well-respected historian’s interpretation points to the development and autonomy of the state he constructed.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Hartlyn, Jonathan. “The Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic.” In Sultanistic Regimes. Edited by H. E. Chehabi and Juan José Linz, 85–112. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. One of the leading political scientists specializing in the Dominican Republic, this widely published author finds in Trujillo the near-ideal of a state with “sultanistic” tendencies: domination by the ruler, his relatives, and his circle; the “absence of perversion of legal-rational norms; and “rampant corruption and venality.”
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Krohn-Hansen, Christian. Political Authoritarianism in the Dominican Republic. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
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  379. This anthropological study, carried out in the environs of La Descubierta in the southwest region of the Dominican Republic, employs oral history to argue that the authoritarian state under Trujillo and Balaguer stemmed from and strengthened traditional forms of masculinity and paternalism, bringing about a new form of state-system, one generally approved of by people in that rural community.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. LeGrand, Catherine. “Informal Resistance on a Dominican Sugar Estate: The Ozama Plantation during the Trujillo Regime.” Hispanic American Historical Review 75.4 (Fall 1995): 555–596.
  382. DOI: 10.2307/2518036Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. This absorbing study of a large Canadian sugar plantation, based on company records, demonstrates the many forms of popular resistance to foreign domination and support for Trujillo that sugar workers enacted.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Virtual Philatelic Museum of the Dominican Republic, 1865–2000.
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. Maintained at the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra, this impressive gallery of Dominican postal history includes images of every postage stamp issued while Trujillo was in power, most of them picturing Trujillo himself, members of his family, public works he constructed (bridges, public buildings, hotels), or a cause espoused by him (Columbus Lighthouse, Peace Fair).
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Wiarda, Howard J. Dictatorship and Development: The Methods of Control in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. The classic study in English on the Trujillo regime divides it into three periods, arguing that it began in the traditional caudillo mold; expanded to become authoritarian rule; and finally became such a “honeycomb” of power, reaching into every aspect of public and private life, that the Dominican Republic became a totalitarian state, negatively changing it forever.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Political Parties
  394.  
  395. The vehicle for bringing about the dictatorship’s enforced harmony was the Dominican Party, originally the Trujillo Party, the only legal party, except for a brief postwar period when opposition parties formed, only to be crushed again within a short time. Derby 2009 shows how the Dominican Party expanded into the private lives of all Dominicans. Campillo-Pérez 1986 covers all Dominican elections since 1848, including those involving Trujillo. Vega 1987 is a collection of documents concerning the regime’s “interlude of tolerance” toward Communists in 1946.
  396.  
  397. Campillo-Pérez, Julio G. Historia electoral dominicana, 1848–1986: El grillo y el ruiseñor. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Corripio, 1986.
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. Originally published in 1966, the fourth edition of this important contribution to Dominican political history covers elections from independence until 1986.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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  403. Elaborates on the central role of the Dominican Party in nearly every aspect of public and private life during the Era of Trujillo, drawing extensively from the party’s internal records in the Dominican National Archives.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Un interludio de tolerancia: El acuerdo de Trujillo con los comunistas en 1946. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1987.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Thick compendium of official documents from the records of the National Palace and the office of the Generalissimo himself, many of them reproduced from photocopies, details the brief period of political latitude allowed in 1946.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. The Economy
  410.  
  411. The sugar industry began to dominate the Dominican economy during the US Marine occupation and grew larger under Trujillo, who gained personal control over most of it. Virtually every other sector of the economy also came to be monopolized or substantially controlled by Trujillo or a member of his family. Ayala 1999 offers the regional background of the sugar industry. Hall 2000 provides a closeup of Dominican sugar policy and diplomacy. Cassá 1981 is the most complete study of the Dominican economy under Trujillo’s management. Clausner 1973 examines rural development. Moya Pons 1990 looks at industrialization policies. Hoffnung-Garskof 2008 traces the meteoric rise of Santo Domingo and its ties to New York. Two trujillista works provide useful data, if not objectivity: García Bonnelly 1955 gives the official record of Trujillo’s public works, while Herrera 1955 details the finances of the regime.
  412.  
  413. Ayala, César. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Study of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic shows the relatively late consolidation and industrialization of the Dominican sugar industry and its control by a small group of US corporations and individuals.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Cassá, Roberto. Historia social y económica de la República Dominicana. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Alpha y Omega, 1981.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. This authoritative survey is the best resource on Dominican economic history, placing the Trujillo period into national perspective.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Clausner, Marlin David. Rural Santo Domingo: Settled, Unsettled and Resettled. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. This history of land and agrarian issues in the Dominican Republic covers the period 1850 to 1960.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. García Bonnelly, Juan Ulises. Las obras públicos en la era de Trujillo. Vol. 4 of La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. One of the twenty volumes of the trujillista magnum opus La Era de Trujillo, this one elaborates on the program of public works pursued by the regime, which helped to stimulate the Dominican economy and muster popular support for it. A good source for gauging the dimensions of that effort.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Hall, Michael R. Sugar and Power in the Dominican Republic: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Trujillos. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. A detailed account of the sugar industry during the late stages of Trujillo’s government, when most sugar land had come under its control, and the issue of the Dominican quota of the US sugar market became one of the dictator’s foreign policy preoccupations.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Herrera, César A. Las finanzas de la República Dominicana. Vol. 2 of La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Though part of the official history of the regime, this volume contains financial data unavailable elsewhere.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Hoffnung-Garskof, Jesse. A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. History of the incredible growth of Santo Domingo/Ciudad Trujillo since 1950 and its entwinement with New York City, through the mass migration of Dominicans and the creation of a transcultural community between the two metropolises.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Moya Pons, Frank. “Import-Substitution Industrialization Policies in the Dominican Republic, 1925–61.” Hispanic American Historical Review 70.4 (1990): 539–577.
  442. DOI: 10.2307/2516573Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. This important article shows how an industrial elite emerged over the course of Trujillo’s period in power as a result of his import-substitution industrialization policies.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. The Trujillo Family
  446.  
  447. In addition to dominating most sectors of the Dominican economy, Trujillo’s rambunctious family drew international attention for their lavish exploits at home and especially abroad. Campillo-Pérez 1997 discusses Trujillo’s Haitian lineage. Derby 2009 is especially revealing on the exploits of Trujillo’s offspring, as well as Trujillo’s one-time son-in-law Porfirio Rubirosa, who became his international playboy alter-ego, as seen in Levy 2005. Vega 1985 contains Trujillo family correspondence. Ferreras 1990 concerns the many women in the dictator’s life, while Ferreras 1991 is a four-volume collection of salacious anecdotes about him and his circle.
  448.  
  449. Campillo-Pérez, Julio G. “Trujillo y su parentela de origen haitiano.” Clio: Órgano de la Academia Dominicana de la Historia 157 (1997): 81–86.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. Rafael Trujillo was the great-grandson of a Haitian woman. This article in the leading Dominican historical journal details the Trujillo family’s Haitian antecedents, and the dictator’s denial of it.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. Part of this excellent book encapsulates the racy history of “prodigal daughter” Flor de Oro Trujillo and her first husband, Porfirio Rubirosa, who became a serial suitor of starlets and heiresses. Offers a succinct interpretation of the macho Dominican “tiger-cock” persona, which Trujillo and Rubirosa personified. Also profiles daughter Angelita as “Queen” of her father’s world’s fair, and his reckless son Ramfis.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Ferreras, Ramón Alberto. Trujillo y sus mujeres. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editorial del Nordeste, 1990.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. The gossip king of the trujillato details the wives and principal mistresses among the countless women involved with Trujillo, a notoriously predacious womanizer.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Ferreras, Ramón Alberto. Cuando la era era era. 4 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editorial del Nordeste, 1991.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. This salacious four-volume compendium of gossip about Trujillo, his family, and his closest cronies has no equal in the literature. Lacking scholarly citations, it is nonetheless revealing of popular fascination with the Trujillo clan.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Levy, Shawn. The Last Playboy: The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. This gossipy retelling of Rubirosa’s picaresque life is the most widely available among several accounts of his exploits, most of which are in Spanish.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Vega, Bernardo. Los Trujillos se escriben. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1985.
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  471. This slim volume reproduces a variety of Trujillo family correspondence, much of it in the form of photocopies, directly from Trujillo’s personal archives.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Social Policies
  474.  
  475. While he is known for his harsh repression, Trujillo’s social policies gained wider support for him than has generally been acknowledged. Álvarez Aybar 1955 and Oscar 1955 offer the official accounts of social policy and education under Trujillo. Ferreras 1976 and Zeller 2000 discuss feminism and women’s labor. Cassá 1990 examines the labor movement. Inoa 1994 and Turits 2003 concern rural development.
  476.  
  477. Álvarez Aybar, Ambrosio. La política social de Trujillo. Vol. 8 of La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. One of the twenty volumes setting forth the accomplishments of twenty-five yeas of Trujillo’s rule, this one extols its social policies in broad terms.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Cassá, Roberto. Movimiento obrero y luchasocialista en la República Dominicana (desde los orígenes hasta 1960). Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Taller, 1990.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. An eminent historian of the Dominican Republic traces the labor movement and socialism in the Dominican Republic in this well-researched volume.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Ferreras, Ramón Alberto. Historia del femenismo en la República Dominicana: Su origen y proyección social. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Cosmos, 1976.
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  487. While suppressing many other forms of expression, Trujillo allowed feminism to gain strength in the macho culture of the Dominican Republic, with the formation of Dominican Feminist Action in 1931, and women’s right to vote in 1942. This neglected aspect of the regime is the subject of this study.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Inoa, Orlando. Estado y campesinos al inicio de la Era de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Libreria la Trinitaria, 1994.
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  491. The original study of the Trujillo regime’s relationship to the Dominican peasantry, one of the main bastions of its support.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Oscar, Armando. La obra educative de Trujillo. Vol. 10 of La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
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  495. Educational reform was a priority of the Trujillo regime, to inculcate the Dominican population into its basic precepts, which emphasized civil discipline, as evidenced in this contribution to the 25th-anniversary history of the Era of Trujillo.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  499. This important revision of Trujillo’s base of support shows that his social policies, which took their cue from his slogan, “my best friends are workers,” succeeded in garnering widespread and long-lived support for his government in the Dominican countryside.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Zeller, Neici. “El regimen de Trujillo y la fuerza laboral feminina en la República Dominicana, 1945–1951.” In La República Dominicana en el umbral del siglo XXI: Cultura, política y cambio social. Edited by Ramonina Brea, Rosario Espinal, and Fernando Valerio Holguín, 429–445. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, 2000.
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  503. Women workers were among those who pursued liberal social agendas during the relatively relaxed political climate in the Dominican Republic after World War II, but their actions were circumscribed by the regime, as this research relates.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Religion
  506.  
  507. The Trujillo regime allied with the Catholic Church, then had a falling out with it, as detailed in Betances 2007. García 1986, Lundius and Lundahl 2000 and Derby 2009 all explore the messianic cult of Dios Olivorio and its revival in the 1961 Palma Sola utopian community, which the Dominican military eradicated in 1963.
  508.  
  509. Betances, Emilio. The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America: The Dominican Case in Comparative Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
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  511. This is the only book-length study of the complicated relationship between Trujillo and the Catholic Church, culminating in his violent campaign against priests critical of his political repression during the waning days of his regime.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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  515. The chapter “Papá Liborio and the Morality of Rule” is an excellent brief account of the complicated phenomenon of Liborismo, which predated and outlived the Trujillo regime, and which offers deep insights into the nature of its relationship with the Dominican people.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. García, Juan Manuel. La masacre de Palma Sola: Partidos, lucha y el asesinato del general, 1961–1963. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Alfa y Omega, 1986.
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  519. This book-length study focuses on the 1961 revival of Liborismo and its violent demise at the hands of the Dominican military in 1963.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Lundius, Jan, and Mats Lundahl. Peasants and Religion: A Socioeconomic Study of Dios Olivorio and the Palma Sola Movement in the Dominican Republic. London: Routledge, 2000.
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  523. A densely textured treatment of the messianic movement fostered by the peasant prophet called Papá Liborio, who was assassinated by US Marines in 1922, and which revived after Trujillo’s assassination, only to be crushed again by military force.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Race
  526.  
  527. Race and racial relations, always complicated subjects in the Dominican Republic, became even more so during Trujillo’s rule. The Dominican Republic gained its independence from Haiti in 1844 after a twenty-two-year occupation, and shared a porous border with the neighboring “Black Republic” until the trujillato violently closed the frontier. Trujillo’s rise to power displaced or co-opted the light-skinned Dominican political elite and brought to the highest circles of influence some very darkly complected individuals, including notably his brother “Negro.” Trujillo was concerned enough about his own racial identity that he tried to lighten the appearance of his mulatto complexion by using pancake makeup on his face. Trujillo’s preoccupation with the racial identity of the Dominican Republic, both its history and its population, were in his governance in many ways. Government authors and education authorities systematically associated the Dominican past, its people, and its culture with Spain, never Africa, in their voluminous works. Trujillo’s immigration policy tried to “whiten” the Dominican population by facilitating European and Puerto Rican arrivals, while restricting Haitian immigration to closely controlled sugar cane workers. Most notoriously, the Haitian Massacre of 1937 reflected the racist nature of the regime and publicized it to the rest of the world. Contentious relations between the Dominican Republic and Haiti through 2011 are owed in part to Trujillo, who reinforced a negative paradigm of the two states as being locked perpetually in conflict. Wucker 1999 is a recent reassertion of that view; Matibag 2003 is a comprehensive argument against it. Turits 2003 recounts the destruction of the peaceful Dominican-Haitian borderlands community as a result of the Haitian Massacre of 1937, among other topics related to race during the Trujillo regime. Franco 1970 is a classic work on racial identities. Derby 2009 considers race identity and social classes during the trujillato. Peguero 2004 considers racialism in the Dominican military. Sagás 2002 shows connections between race, politics, and culture in the Dominican Republic during and after Trujillo’s time. Candelario 2007 elucidates Dominican conceptions of race from a sociological perspective.
  528.  
  529. Candelario, Ginetta. Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
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  531. This intriguing study looks at racial categories as expressed in a variety of contexts, with the chapters on travel narratives and the Museo del Hombre in Santo Domingo (opened by Trujillo’s ally Balaguer in 1974), of most interest for connections to Trujillo.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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  535. The most compelling interpretation of Trujillo’s persona, this book considers the interplay between race and social status, and the dictator’s manipulation of his own shifting racial identification, particularly in chapter 5, “Clothes Make the Man.”
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Franco, Franklin. Los Negros, los mulatos y la nación dominicana. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: La Quita, 1970.
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  539. A brief, classic study of racial history and identity going back to the colonial era and continuing through the Era of Trujillo, written by an accomplished historian and sociologist, originally published in 1969, but still a valid and useful analysis.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Matibag, Eugenio. Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint: Nation, State and Race on Hispaniola. New York: Palgrave, 2003.
  542. DOI: 10.1057/9781403973801Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. This sweeping view of Haitian-Dominican relations corrects the over-simplified “cock-fight theory” popularized by Wucker 1999, which claims that the two states are prone by nature to conflict. An activist scholar, the author sees that destructive interpretation as one of the causes for their under-development, especially that of Haiti. Chapters addressing Haitians in Dominican literature, “transcultural dictatorships,” and the border are particularly germane.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Peguero, Valentina. The Militarization of Culture in the Dominican Republic from the Captains General to General Trujillo. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. Study of the military contains a chapter on racial considerations in promotions.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Sagás, Ernesto. Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002.
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  551. Examines the link between race, politics, and culture in the Dominican Republic, including consideration of Trujillo’s racial policies and predilections, and the influence they subsequently have had.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  555. Examines racism going back to colonial Black Codes, with an emphasis on the racist nature of Trujillo’s agriculture, land distribution, and immigration policies. The book views the Haitian Massacre of 1937 within the broad spectrum of the Trujillo regime.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Wucker, Michelle. Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. New York: Hill and Wang, 1999.
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  559. This journalist’s highly readable account of race relations received wide attention, reinforcing the same argument made by Trujillo’s historians, concurs that Haitians and Dominicans do not mix. Matibag 2003 provides a convincing rebuttal, with an eye toward improved relations between the two nations.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Culture
  562.  
  563. The Trujillo regime fostered the arts and popular culture in a variety of ways, inevitably turning all of them toward exalting the dictator. Derby 2009 is the first place to turn on the popular culture of the trujillato. Mateo 1993 is the best overview of trujillista intellectual culture. Austerlitz 1997 contains a chapter on merengue music during the Trujillo regime, as Pacini 1995 does for bachata. Collado 2000 is a book-length examination of denunciation in the Dominican press. Derby 1998 interprets food. Ruck 1998 delineates the Dominican national enthusiasm for baseball, first formed into a professional league by Trujillo. Veloz Maggiolo 1996 evokes daily life during the regime.
  564.  
  565. Austerlitz, Paul. Merengue: Dominican Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.
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  567. Music is important in Dominican history and culture, and merengue is the most important Dominican music. This excellent study shows how Trujillo promoted the merengue music industry and deployed merengue orchestras and radio hits literally to sing his praises.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Collado, Lipe. El Foro Público en la Era de Trujillo: De cómo el chisme fue elevado a la categoría de asunto de estado. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Collado, 2000.
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  571. The “Public Forum” column in the leading daily newspaper became the medium through which careers and reputations were ruined upon the whim of the dictator, as detailed in this production of this perceptive and prolific author’s own press.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Derby, Lauren. “Gringo Chickens with Worms: Food and Nationalism in the Dominican Republic.” In Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Edited by Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, 451–493. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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  575. This completely original essay on the subject of Dominican cuisine and nationhood says a great deal, some of it about the Trujillo years.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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  579. The author integrates an amazing array of sources into this award-winning book, elucidating the appeal of trujillista popular culture like no other work. Highlights of this erudite interpretation include chapters on the belle époque that preceded the Trujillo regime; the urban enhancements of the reconstructed and renamed Ciudad Trujillo after a hurricane in 1930; and the elaborate ceremonies that punctuated the regime.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Mateo, Andrés L. Mito y cultura en la Era de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Librería La Trinitaria e Instituto del Libro, 1993.
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  583. This pathbreaking intellectual history complicates the image of Trujillo’s circle as one comprising only thugs, elucidating the important role played by a cadre of thinkers and writers who collectively validated their patron’s authority with their eloquent and learned defenses of it.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Pacini Hernández, Deborah. Bachata: A Social History of Dominican Popular Music. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
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  587. Before merengue, now a global dance beat to which millions gyrate, there was bachata. This study contains a lively chapter on the role of the countrified dance beat and its practitioners during the Trujillo days, when all public forms of expression promoted the dictatorship in some way.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Ruck, Rob. The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
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  591. This is the best history of Dominican baseball, with information on the development of the sport during the Trujillo years, and a chapter on the Hall of Fame great Juan Marichal, who came to personify Dominican baseball.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Veloz Maggiolo, Marcio. Trujillo, Villa Francisca y otros fantasmas. Santo Domingo, Dominica Republic: Colección Banreservas, 1996.
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  595. This powerful evocation of the Trujillo regime is based on the author’s memories of growing up in its cultural environment, offering a street-level perspective on its ubiquitous, almost magical, nature.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Foreign Relations
  598.  
  599. Trujillo craved international attention, and he got it. While warmly courting the friendship of some neighboring countries, he picked fights with others, becoming a threat to regional solidarity and stability. Dominican foreign policy hinged on Trujillo’s personal preferences. He built a large foreign policy establishment to carry out his policies and to enhance his international reputation. His worst aggression, the 1937 Haitian Massacre, has received more attention than any other single event.
  600.  
  601. General Accounts
  602.  
  603. There is no survey of the foreign relations of the Trujillo regime in English, and Arias Nuñez 1991 is the sole study of Trujillo’s foreign policy in Spanish. Díaz Ordoñez 1955 is the official account.
  604.  
  605. Arias Nuñez, Luis. La política exterior en la Era de Trujillo. Santiago, Dominican Republic: Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, 1991.
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  607. This is a thin volume lacking a broad evidentiary foundation, but it is the only book that attempts to provide a broad assessment of the foreign policy of the entire Trujillo period.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Díaz Ordoñez, Virgilio. La Era de Trujillo: 25 años de historia dominicana; La política exterior de Trujillo. 3 vols. Edited by Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi. Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic: Impresora Dominicana, 1955.
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  611. This obsessive three-volume collection rationalizes Trujillo’s genocidal Haitian border policy and magnifies his diplomatic accomplishments. Published as part of the twenty-volume glorification of the regime, the work exemplifies the effort to promote Trujillo as a great statesman prior to his World Peace Fair the year of publication.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Relations with the United States
  614.  
  615. The dominant regional power, the United States had complex and problematic relations with the Trujillo dictatorship. Atkins and Wilson 1972 is the classic overview. Rabe 1988 and Rabe 1999 place the Dominican Republic under Trujillo in the broader context of US–Latin American relations. Roorda 1998 covers the first half of the Trujillo regime. Hall 2000 focuses on the salient importance of sugar in Trujillo’s foreign policy. Vega 1991a and Vega 1991b engage Trujillo’s dealings with the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Vega 1999 sheds light on the end of the Trujillo regime, particularly US complicity in his assassination.
  616.  
  617. Atkins, G. Pope, and Larman C. Wilson. The United States and the Trujillo Regime. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1972.
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  619. A balanced account, this is an excellent introduction to the subject.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Hall, Michael R. Sugar and Power in the Dominican Republic: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Trujillos. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
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  623. This detailed study of the intricacies of sugar diplomacy demonstrates the great importance that Trujillo attached to the Dominican quota of the US sugar market, and the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations’ use of the sugar quota as a tool of foreign policy.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Rabe, Stephen. Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anti-Communism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
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  627. A leading scholar of US foreign policy places Trujillo into the broader context of Latin American Cold War relations.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Rabe, Stephen. The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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  631. The thesis of this study by one of the leading scholars of US foreign policy is that JFK tried to find a middle way between Castro on the Left and Trujillo on the Right, fearing that the example of Cuba could destabilize the Caribbean region, which was the most important for US national security.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Roorda, Eric Paul. The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930–1945. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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  635. An examination of US-Dominican relations during the first half of the Trujillo regime, this book attempts to show that Trujillo was no stooge of US policy, but rather pursued his own foreign policy objectives, playing factions within the US foreign policy establishment off of one another.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Vega, Bernardo. Eisenhower y Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1991a.
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  639. This publication includes commentary on all the major bilateral issues between the Eisenhower administration and the Trujillo regime, with many photographs that lack attribution.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Vega, Bernardo. Kennedy y Los Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1991b.
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  643. This publication includes commentary on all the major bilateral issues between the Kennedy administration and the Trujillo regime, with many photographs that lack attribution.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Los Estados Unidos y Trujillo: Los días finales, 1960–1961; Colección de documentos del Departamento de Estado, la CIA y los archivos del Palacio Nacional Dominicano. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1999.
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  647. This two-volume compendium of information concerning Trujillo’s last seventeen months in power is a valuable resource, but like most of the editor’s work, would be more useful to the researcher with proper citation of textual sources and images.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Relations with Haiti and the Haitian Massacre of 1937
  650.  
  651. The massacre of several thousand, maybe tens of thousands, of ethnically Haitian individuals living in the Dominican Republic in 1937 exposed the brutality of the Trujillo regime to a global audience, and has received more attention than any other aspect of Trujillo’s foreign relations. Courlander 1937 and Reynolds 1938 broke the story. Castor 1987 provides the broad context of Dominican-Haitian migration. Derby and Turits 1992, Derby 1994, Turits 2002, and Turits 2003 collectively historicize the Haitian Massacre. Vega 1988 and Vega 1995 together provide a vast documentary record.
  652.  
  653. Castor, Suzy. Migración y relaciones internationals: El caso haitiano dominicano. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Universitaria, 1987.
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  655. This broad study of Haitian migration places the 1937 Massacre into its historical context.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Courlander, Harold. “Not in the Cables: Massacre in Santo Domingo.” New Republic, 24 November 1937, 67.
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  659. The first journalistic account of the massacre still has power.
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Derby, Lauren H. “Haitians, Magic and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian–Dominican Borderlands, 1900–1937.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36 (July 1994): 488–526.
  662. DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500019216Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. This nuanced study foregrounds the Haitian Massacre by evoking the fluid, transnational space along the frontier within which the bloody event of 1937 unfolded.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Derby, Lauren, and Richard Turits. “Historias de terror y los terrores de historia: la masacre haitiana de 1937 en la República Dominicana.” Estudios Sociales 26 (April–June 1992): 65–76.
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  667. This brilliant essay shows that the Haitian Massacre was part of a broad trujillista effort to rewrite Dominican history and underwrite Trujillo’s authority.
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Reynolds, Quentin. “Murder in the Tropics.” Collier’s, 22 January 1938, 15–16.
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  671. This brief, sensational account of the slaughter gained wide attention.
  672. Find this resource:
  673. Turits, Richard. “A World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed: The 1937 Haitian Massacre in the Dominican Republic.” Hispanic American Historical Review 82.3 (2002): 589–635.
  674. DOI: 10.1215/00182168-82-3-589Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675. This important article places the Haitian Massacre within the wider trujillista effort to cast the Dominican nation as a Hispanic culture, one which denied and demonized African and Haitian elements.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  679. This important study demonstrates the broad popular appeal of Trujillo’s modernization policies, which had a racist edge. The Haitian Massacre is the subject of chapter 5, “Bordering the Nation: Race, Colonization, and the 1937 Haitian Massacre in the Dominican Republic.”
  680. Find this resource:
  681. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Trujillo y Haití: 1930–1937. Vol. 1. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1988.
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  683. The first volume of an exhaustive compilation of the documentary record from various archives, along with tables of information and the editor’s interjections, this one covering the period between Trujillo’s seizure of power and the eve of the 1937 Haitian Massacre.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Trujillo y Haití: 1937–1938. Vol. 2. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1995.
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  687. The second volume of an exhaustive compilation of the documentary record from various archives, along with tables of information and the editor’s interjections, it is devoted to the 1937 Haitian Massacre and its aftermath.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Immigration and Jewish Refugees
  690.  
  691. The immigration policy of the Trujillo government favored light-skinned applicants in an effort to “whiten” the Dominican population, argues Gardiner 1979. In 1938, the Trujillo regime offered to cooperate with the international effort to aid Jewish refugees from Europe, providing land for a group of them to settle in the Dominican Republic. The story of the Jews of Sosúa, an abandoned banana plantation that became a place of refuge, is beautifully told in Wells 2007. Turits 2003 treats immigration and agricultural colonization, including Japanese immigration in the late 1950s.
  692.  
  693. Gardiner, C. Harvey. La Política de Inmigración del Dictador Trujillo: Estudio sobre la creación de una imagen humanitaria. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Universidad Nacional Henríquez Ureña, 1979.
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  695. Survey of the Trujillo regime’s immigration policy, by which the dictator hoped to project a humanitarian image through efforts such as the Jewish refugee settlement at Sosúa.
  696. Find this resource:
  697. Turits, Richard Lee. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  699. This authoritative work on the subject of Dominican-Haitian relations examines Haitian immigration, including the 1937 Haitian Massacre, and agricultural colonies in the border region established by immigrants, including Japanese immigrants who arrived in the late 1950s.
  700. Find this resource:
  701. Wells, Allen. Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR, and the Jews of Sosúa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
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  703. Exhaustively researched portrait of the Jewish refugee settlement established at lovely Sosúa, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, in 1940. The author’s father helped build the colony into a prosperous, close-knit dairy farming community. Balanced account credits the Sosúa settlement for providing haven to hundreds, though falling short of Trujillo’s grandiose offer to settle 100,000.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Invasion Attempts and the Caribbean Legion
  706.  
  707. Ameringer 1995 is the best source concerning the attempts to invade the Dominican Republic and topple Trujillo, all of which the dictator either preempted through diplomacy or crushed with superior arms.
  708.  
  709. Ameringer, Charles D. The Caribbean Legion: Patriots, Politicians, Soldiers of Fortune, 1946–1950. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
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  711. Trujillo made countless enemies. Many fled into exile and then plotted against his regime, often joined by like-minded Leftists from other nations in the region. Some of them formed a shadowy organization called the Caribbean Legion. The author looks at the fizzled 1946 Cayo Confites plot, the failed 1947 Luperón amphibious assault, and the three Castro-inspired attacks of June 1959.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Assassination
  714.  
  715. The death of Trujillo on the coastal highway near Ciudad Trujillo on 30 May, 1961, gunned down by two carloads of conspirators, continues to be a source of fascination. Diederich 2000 is a fascinating book-length treatment. United States Senate 1975 is the record of hearings held on the assassination. Balcácer 2008 is a more recent account based on Dominican sources. Grimaldi 1999 spotlights the role of the United States. Blum 2003 is brief account. Rabe 1999 places the event into the context of United States foreign policy. Vargas Llosa 2001 is a compelling and factually accurate fictional evocation. Vega 1999 is a massive two-volume collection of pertinent documents from archives in the United States and the Dominican Republic.
  716.  
  717. Balcácer, Juan Daniel. Trujillo: El tiranicidio de 1961. Bogotá, Colombia: Taurus, 2008.
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  719. The most recent account of the conspiracy to kill Trujillo, based on more recent Dominican sources.
  720. Find this resource:
  721. Blum, William. “Dominican Republic 1960–1966: Saving Democracy from Communism by Getting Rid of Democracy.” In Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since WWII. By William Blum, 175–184. London: Zen Books, 2003.
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  723. The best succinct account of CIA complicity in the assassination.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Diederich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Dictator. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2000.
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  727. Originally published in English in 1978, this well-written narrative is still in print as the authoritative account of the conspiracy leading up to the assassination of Trujillo, the event itself, and its chaotic and bloody aftermath.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Grimaldi, Victor. Tumbaron al Jefe. 3d rev. ed. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Amigo del Hogar, 1999.
  730. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  731. The United States’ role in Trujillo’s assassination is the focus of this well-researched study.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Rabe, Stephen. The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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  735. This analysis of US policy toward Latin America during the Kennedy administration by a leading scholar in the field places the Trujillo assassination into a broad regional context.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report. 94 Congr., 1st sess. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975.
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  739. The indispensable Church Committee report includes a chapter on the Trujillo assassination, based on documents some of which are still classified.
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Feast of the Goat. Translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
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  743. One of the factually accurate plot strands in this complex evocation of the trujillato by the Nobel Prize–winning author follows the growing conspiracy to kill the dictator, providing intimate, accurate portraits of the principals and details of their horrible demises.
  744. Find this resource:
  745. Vega, Bernardo, ed. Los Estados Unidos y Trujillo: Los días finales, 1960–1961; Colección de documentos del Departamento de Estado, la CIA y los archivos del Palacio Nacional Dominicano. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1999.
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  747. This collection of more than 1,500 pages of information concerning the last year and a half of the Trujillo regime is a valuable resource, but it lacks intelligible citations to the sources that the editor compiles and comments upon.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. Legacy
  750.  
  751. After thirty-one years of near-absolute control of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo left an enduring legacy that is still at issue, and undeniably potent, up to the present day. Martin 1966 is a diplomat’s first-person account of the chaos that ensued after Trujillo’s assassination and at the time of the 1965 US occupation of Santo Domingo. Gleijeses 1978 is the best account of the 1965 Consitutionalist Revolt and US invasion. McPherson 2003 also contains an excellent chapter on the invasion. Wiarda and Kryzanek 1977 draws a parallel between Trujillo and Balaguer, who came to power as a result of the 1965 intervention. Cassá 1986 closely examines the “Twelve Years” period of the Balaguer regime beginning in 1966. Hartlyn 1998 emphasizes the watershed elections of 1978 and 1996, both of which ended periods in office for Balaguer. Krohn-Hansen 2001 deconstructs the meaning of Columbus, who fascinated both Trujillo and Balaguer, in the Dominican Republic. Gregory 2007 examines globalization in a Dominican resort town.
  752.  
  753. Cassá, Roberto. Los doce años: Contrarrevolución y desarrollismo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Alfa y Omega, 1986.
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  755. The most complete account of the violent “Twelve Years” period—Balaguer’s most repressive—by an accomplished Dominican historian. The book examines the regime’s campaigns against its political opponents, as well as the ambitious program of urban and rural development that Balaguer pursued to muster public support.
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Gleijeses, Piero. The Dominican Crisis: The 1965 Constitutionalist Revolt and the American Intervention. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
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  759. The best study of the aftermath of the Trujillo regime, this incredibly detailed study shows how the Constitutionalist Revolt of 1965 was a backlash against Trujilllo’s legacy of repression and militarism.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. Gregory, Steven. The Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
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  763. This study includes a case study of the seaside town of Boca Chica, where the Trujillo government built the first resort hotel. The subsequent development of international tourism there is among the transnational processes examined in this deeply insightful book. The work also contains a chapter on Haitians in the Dominican Republic, whose inferior status is another legacy of Trujillo.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. Hartlyn, Jonathan. The Struggle for Democratic Politics in the Dominican Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
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  767. This detailed study by an accomplished political scientist emphasizes the watershed elections of 1978, which ended the repressive “Twelve Years” period of the Balaguer regime, and of 1996, which ended Balaguer’s second, ten-year period in office.
  768. Find this resource:
  769. Krohn-Hansen, Christian. “A Tomb for Columbus in Santo Domingo: Political Cosmology, Population and Racial Frontiers.” Social Anthropology 9.2 (2001): 165–192.
  770. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8676.2001.tb00144.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  771. This article argues that Christopher Columbus—his image and his bones—has been central to constructions of Dominican nationality since the 1870s, when his bodily remains reputedly were rediscovered in the Santo Domingo cathedral. The project of building a tomb for Columbus in the form of a massive lighthouse was Trujillo’s first effort to gain international attention, which Balaguer finished in 1992.
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Martin, John Bartlow. Overtaken by Events: The Dominican Crisis from the Fall of Trujillo to the Civil War. New York: Doubleday, 1966.
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  775. The author, a journalist, was appointed US ambassador to the Dominican Republic after the death of Trujillo in May 1961, staying until late 1963. He then returned as a special envoy at the time of the US invasion in 1965. His memoir of the period draws from this experience, as well as from his background research.
  776. Find this resource:
  777. McPherson, Alan. Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.–Latin American Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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  779. Anti-Americanism in the Dominican Republic is among the case studies here. Resentment of the US invasion and occupation of Santo Domingo in 1965 stemmed from the popular perception that it prevented the return to power of Juan Bosch. He was voted into office in a free election in 1962, seen at the time as a transition from dictatorship to democracy.
  780. Find this resource:
  781. Wiarda, Howard J., and Michael J. Kryzanek. “Dominican Dictatorship Revisited: The Caudillo Tradition and the Regimes of Trujillo and Balaguer.” Revista/Review Interamericana 7 (Fall 1977): 417–435.
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  783. This article underscores the connection between Trujillo and one of his major legacies, Balaguer. Written near the end of the repressive “Twelve Years” period, the resemblance between the two, seen here as departures from the Latin American strongman mold, is stronger than it would be later, when Balaguer aged into his less-threatening “blind caudillo” persona.
  784. Find this resource:
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