Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
ernments were threatening to use force to collect defaulted
loans. Citing the need to avert European intervention, the
United States assumed control of Dominican customs receipts
in 1905. Amid continuing disorder, a force of 750 United States
Marines landed in 1912, and in 1916 they were authorized by
President Woodrow Wilson to take full control of the Dominican
government (see From the United States Occupation
(1916-24) to the Emergence of Trujillo (1930), ch. 1).
The marines disbanded the regional militias and ruled the
nation directly for eight years, acting as police in cities and in
rural areas. As part of its effort to build effective institutions of
government in the Dominican Republic, the United States
formed a new Dominican Constabulary Guard of about 2,000
officers and men to replace the old national army. Up to this
time, both the civilian and the military elites had been drawn
from the same wealthy landowning class. Intense resentment
among the elites against the United States presence, however,
made it impossible to find recruits for the new constabulary
among the landowning class. The ranks became filled by the
lower strata of Dominican society and, as a result, the new force
had neither ties nor debts to the traditional elite. The most
notable representative of the new military leadership was
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, who entered the Dominican
Constabulary Guard in 1919 as a second lieutenant. By curtailing
the power of regional caudillos, the constabulary gave the
country a sense of political unity and provided the structure for
the emergence of a new elite that would eventually control
political life.
In 1924, after the Dominican Republic had adopted a new
constitution and had elected a civilian president, the United
States forces withdrew. The same year, the constabulary was
renamed the Dominican National Police, a somewhat misleading
title for what had become more a military entity than a law
enforcement organization. By that time, Trujillo had risen to
the rank of major and had assumed one of the nation's two
field commands. He had also emerged as one of the most influential
voices within the force, increasingly able to mold its
development to suit his personal ambitions. In 1928 when the
National Police was renamed the National Army (Ejercito
Nacional), Trujillo became a lieutenant colonel and army chief
of staff. In this role, Trujillo was the most powerful individual
in the nation even before his election to the presidency in 1930
(see The Trujillo Era, 1930-61, ch. 1)
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