Titans of History

TRUJILLO

1869–1961

I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my people, refuse reelection to the high office.

Rafael Trujillo

Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic for thirty-one years with savage brutality and a flamboyant personality cult, epitomizing the murderous military strongman (caudillo) and military clique (junta) that have dominated South American politics until the very recent rise of democracy in countries such as Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

Trujillo rose to commander of the Dominican army, overthrew the president and held power from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, when he handed over the presidency to his brother Hector.

As army supremo, “the Chief” (also known as the Goat) ruled in an absolute tyranny, backed by a savage secret police, the SIM (Military Intelligence Service). He covered himself in medals (hence his nickname, Bottlecaps), renamed the capital Trujillo City and the highest mountain Mount Trujillo, killed and tortured thousands of opponents and stole millions of dollars. In 1937 he ordered his troops to kill all dark-skinned “Haitians”—20,000 were slaughtered with machetes in what became known as the cutting or the Parsley Massacre (those who couldn’t pronounce the word perejil—the Spanish word for Parsley—were murdered).

Though he admired Hitler, Trujillo remained neutral in the Second World War and accepted Jewish refugees, yet he continued to murder his enemies, awarding himself the titles Great Benefactor of the Nation and Father of the New Dominion. But by the 1950s, Dominicans—and the US—were sickened by his excesses. After a plot against him was uncovered, Trujillo tortured and murdered the implicated Mirabal sisters; their fate—dramatized in the film In the Time of the Butterflies (2001)—horrified everyone.

CIA-backed plotters finally assassinated Trujillo in his car in 1961, a story retold by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa in his book The Feast of the Goat (2000). But the dictator’s playboy son Ramfis Trujillo seized power and tortured suspected plotters to death before his uncles, Hector and José Trujillo, returned to take over. Finally, the USA ended the monstrous reign of the Trujillo dynasty, whose members fled into exile in November 1961.