Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: Historical Setting
tie-ranching estates, even as exports of coffee and cocoa
expanded. Yet, onerous terms on the major external loan, corruption
and mismanagement, and a decline in world sugar
markets, all exacerbated both domestic budget deficits and
external balance of payments shortfalls.
Despite the dictator's comprehensive efforts to repress opposition—his
network of spies and agents extended even to foreign
countries—opposition eventually emerged centered in
the Cibao region, which had suffered under Heureaux's policies
favoring sugar interests in Santo Domingo and San Pedro
de Macoris. An opposition group calling itself the Young Revolutionary
Junta (Junta Revolucionaria de Jovenes) was established
in Puerto Rico by Horacio Vasquez Lajara, a young
adherent of Luperon. Other prominent members of the group
included Federico Velasquez and Ramon Caceres Vasquez. The
three returned to their plantations in the Cibao and began to
lay the groundwork for a coordinated rebellion against the
widely detested Heureaux. The impetuous Caceres, however,
shot and fatally wounded the dictator when he passed through
the town of Moca on July 26, 1899. Caceres escaped unharmed.
Growing Financial Dependence and Political Instability
Heureaux left two major legacies: debt and political instability.
It was these legacies that finally helped usher in the United
States military occupation of 1916. In the six years after Heureaux's
assassination in 1899, the country experienced four
revolts and five presidents. National politics came to revolve
primarily around the conflict between the followers of Juan
Isidro Jimenes Pereyra, called jimenistas, and the followers of
Horacio Vasquez Lahara, called horacistas; both men and both
groups had been involved in plots against Heureaux.
After a brief period of armed conflict, Vasquez headed a
provisional government established in September 1899. Elections
brought Jimenes to the presidency on November 15. The
Jimenes administration faced a fiscal crisis when European
creditors began to call in loans that had been contracted by
Heureaux. Customs fees represented the only significant
source of government revenue at that time. When the Jimenes
government pledged 40 percent of its customs revenue to
repay its foreign debt, it provoked the ire of the San Domingo
Improvement Company. A United States-based firm, the
Improvement Company, had lent large sums to the Heureaux
regime. As a result, it not only received a considerable percent-
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