Juan Pablo Duarte y Díez (January 26, 1813 – July 15, 1876) was a Dominican military leader, writer, activist, and nationalist politician who was the foremost of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic and bears the title of Father of the Nation. As one of the most celebrated figures in Dominican history, Duarte is considered a folk hero and revolutionary visionary in the modern Dominican Republic, who, along with military generals Matías Ramón Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, organized and promoted La Trinitaria, a secret society that eventually led to the Dominican revolt and independence from Haitian rule in 1844 and the start of the Dominican War of Independence.
Duarte was born on January 26, 1813 in Santo Domingo, Captaincy General of Santo Domingo during the period commonly called España Boba. In his memoirs, José María Serra de Castro described a middle aged Duarte as a man with a rosy complexion, sharp features, blue eyes, and a golden hair that contrasted with his thick, dark moustache. Duarte was born into a middle-class family that was dedicated to maritime trade and hardware in the port area of Santo Domingo. His father was Juan José Duarte Rodríguez, a Peninsular from Vejer de la Frontera, Kingdom of Seville, Spain, and his mother was Manuela Díez Jiménez from El Seibo, Captaincy General of Santo Domingo; three of Duarte's grandparents were Europeans. Duarte had 9 siblings: his eldest brother, Vicente Celestino Duarte (1802–1865), a tall, long-haired brunette man, was a store owner, woodcutter and cattle rancher who was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico; one of Duarte's sisters was Rosa Protomártir Duarte (1820–1888), a performer who collaborated with him within the Independence movement.
In 1801, the Duarte family migrated from Santo Domingo to Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. They were evading the unrest caused by the Haitian Revolution on the island. Many Dominican families left the island during this period. At the time, Puerto Rico was still a Spanish colony, and Mayagüez, being so close to Hispaniola, across the Mona Passage, had become a refuge for wealthy migrants from Santo Domingo. Migrants such as the Duartes and other natives born on the Spanish side who did not accept Haitian dictatorship, moved there.
Toussaint Louverture, governor of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), a former colony of France located on the western third of Hispaniola, arrived to the capital of Santo Domingo the previous year and proclaimed the end of slavery (although the changes were not permanent). At the time, France and Saint-Domingue (the western third of the island), were going through exhaustive social movements, namely, the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. In occupying the Spanish side of the island, Louverture was using the previous agreements between the governments of France and Spain in the Peace of Basel signed in 1795, which had given the Spanish area to France. Louverture wanted to convert the old Spanish institutions to French and re-establish the plantation economy on both sides of the island. Upon arrival in Santo Domingo Norte, Louverture immediately sought to abolish slavery in Dominican territory. Ultimately, slavery was abolished in 1822 during the Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo.
Most scholars assume that the Duartes' first son, Vicente Celestino, was born on the eastern side of the Mona Passage. The family returned to Santo Domingo in 1809, after the Spanish reconquest of Santo Domingo, led by governor-general Juan Sánchez Ramírez, that crushed French rule in Santo Domingo, returning it to Spanish rule. In 1819, Duarte enrolled in Manuel Aybar's school where he learned reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic. Due to the closure of the university by the Haitian authorities, he became a disciple of Juan Vicente Moscoso from whom he obtained his higher education in Latin, philosophy and law. After the Moscoso's exile to Cuba, he was succeeded by the priest Gaspar Hernández.
First Dominican independence, 1821
In December 1821, when Duarte was eight years old, members of a Creole elite of Santo Domingo's capital proclaimed its independence from Spanish rule, calling themselves Haití Español. Historians today call this elite's brief courtship with sovereignty the Ephemeral Independence. The most prominent leader of the coup against Spanish colonial government was one of its former supporters, José Núñez de Cáceres. These individuals were tired of being ignored by the Crown, and some were also concerned with the new liberal turn in Madrid.
The 1820s was a time of profound political changes throughout the entire Spanish Atlantic World, which directly affected the lives of the middle-class like the Duartes. It began with the conflict period between Spanish royalists and liberals in the Iberian Peninsula, which is known today as Trienio Liberal. American patriots in arms, like Simón Bolívar in South America, immediately reaped the fruits of Spain's destabilization, and began pushing back colonial troops. Even conservative elites in New Spain (like Agustín de Iturbide in Mexico), who had no intention of being ruled by Spanish anticlericals, moved to break ties with the Spanish crown.
Many others in Santo Domingo wanted independence from Spain. Inspired by the revolution and independence on the island, Dominicans mounted a number of movements and conspiracies against slavery and colonialism, from 1809 to 1821.
The Cáceres' provisional government requested support from Simón Bolivar's new government, but their petition was ignored due to the internal conflicts of the Gran Colombia.
Meanwhile, a plan for unification with Haiti grew stronger. Haitian politicians wanted to keep the island out of the hands of European imperial powers and sought to find a way to safeguard the Haitian Revolution . Haiti's President, Jean-Pierre Boyer, sent an army that took over the eastern portion of Hispaniola. The Spaniards residing in Santo Domingo, especially those of Catalan origin, welcomed the country's incorporation into the Republic of Haiti. Thus, when Boyer arrived in the city at the head of his troops, the Spanish traders sent him a letter in which they adhered to the new order that was implemented. Duarte's father was one of the Spanish merchants in the city who refused to sign the document and, according to several documents, chose to get involved in separatist conspiracies during the initial years of Haitian domination, though that movement never materialized.
On January 6, 1823, Boyer decreed that all young men between the ages of 16 and 25 would be drafted into the Haitian army. This measure caused the University of Santo Domingo to lose its students close its doors. On November 14, 1824, Boyer established French as the official, sole and obligatory language in the acts of the Courts, the Civil Registry and public notaries throughout the island. Struggles between Boyer and the old colonial helped produce a migration of planters and elite. Following the bourgeoisie custom of sending promising sons abroad for education, the Duartes sent Juan Pablo to the United States and Europe in 1828 .
On the way to the United States and Europe, Duarte was accompanied by Pablo Pujols, a Catalan merchant who was also a family friend of the Duartes. Pujols had lived in the area for some time and agreed to be young Duarte's tutor. However, as Duarte boarded the ship, the captain reproached the two travelers because the Spanish part of the island was now living under Haitian domination. He even asserted that he would only board them if Duarte told him that he felt no shame in being "Haitian". Although Duarte responded that he was Dominican, the captain harshly boasted that the Dominicans were cowards for submitting to the Haitian yoke, and therefore, was undeserving of an identity, expressing: "You have no name, because neither you nor your parents deserve to have one, because, cowardly and servile, they bow their heads under the time of their slaves." This moment completely moved the still teenaged Duarte, who would readdress years later that these humiliating words led him at that very moment resolve to fight for Dominican Independence. He then assured the captain that he would not rest until his people were free.