Dr. Leonardo Conde, dean of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez, released the third volume of the book History of the Dominican Nation entitled “The Autocracy of Trujillo 1930-1961”, sponsored by the university. The event was attended by Rector Architect Miguel Fiallo Calderón, and Architect Raúl De Moya Español, President of the Pedro Henríquez Ureña University Foundation (FUDPHU) and of the Governing Council of UNPHU.
The author of the book reviewed both the main lights of Trujillo’s autocracy and its main shadows. Among the first mentioned by the author were the recovery, through the Trujillo-Hull Treaty of 1940, of the control of Dominican customs that the United States had been exercising since 1905. Also included the acquisition by Trujillo of a sugar heritage that produced 66% of the country’s sugar, the transfer of control of the sugar enclave inserted into the national territory that in 1960 generated more than 50% of the country’s total exports and about 40% of its industrial sales from the two foreign corporations that produced and exported the majority of the country’s sugar to the nation (even if it was through Trujillo).
Dr. Conde also highlighted as a light of Trujillo’s autocracy the fact that he built more public works and introduced more new institutions, new regimes, and regime reforms than any other Dominican government (including those on social and labor security), the fact that the number of schools increased fivefold between 1936 and 1960 and reduced illiteracy in the country from eighty percent of the population in 1936 to forty percent by 1956.
The shadows of autocracy mentioned by the author included the conversion of public education into an instrument of political propaganda of autocracy and the constant transfers of public officials and reorganizations of State secretariats often determined by the sudden outbursts of Trujillo.
Finally, the author pointed out that the transformations took place at the cost of very serious abuses, persecutions, extortion, embezzlement, murders, and the virtual reduction of the country to a fiefdom managed for the benefit of a man and his close associates.
The activity took place on September 13, 2023, in the Max Henríquez Ureña Hall of the University. Vice-chancellors, deans, directors, professors, students, and Dominican historians were present.
