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Dominican Restoration War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dominican Restoration War
Date16 August 1863 – 15 July 1865

Dominican liberal victory

Dominican Republic Dominican Republic Spain Kingdom of Spain
Commanders and leaders
Dominican Republic Gaspar Polanco
Dominican Republic Gregorio Luperon
Dominican Republic Santiago Rodríguez
Dominican Republic Benito Moncion
Dominican Republic Pedro Antonio Pimentel
Dominican Republic José María Cabral
Spain Isabel II
Spain Pedro Santana
Spain José de la Gándara
15,000–17,000 51,000 Spanish
12,000 Dominican auxiliaries[1]
Casualties and losses
4,000 dead[1]
38 artillery pieces captured
10,888 killed or wounded in action[1]
20,000–30,000 dead from disease[1]

The Dominican Restoration War was a guerrilla war between 1863 and 1865 in the Dominican Republic between nationalists and Spain, who had recolonized the country 17 years after its independence. The war resulted in the restoration of Dominican sovereignty, the withdrawal of Spanish forces, the separation of the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo from Spain, and the establishment of a second republic in the Dominican Republic.








Santiago Rodríguez
Gaspar Polanco, Commander-in-Chief of the Battle of Santiago
Gregorio Luperón
Pedro Santana

On August 16, 1863, a new group under the leadership of Santiago Rodríguez made a daring raid on Capotillo near Dajabón and raised the new Dominican flag on the Capotillo hill. This action, known as El grito de Capotillo, was the beginning of the war.

Town after town in Cibao joined the rebellion, and on September 3, a force of 6,000 Dominicans under Commander-in-Chief General Gaspar Polanco besieged Fort San Luis and its 800 Spanish soldiers in Santiago, capturing it on September 13. The rebels established a new government the following day, with José Antonio Salcedo as self-appointed president, and immediately denounced Santana, who was now leading the Spanish forces, as a traitor.[2]:212 Salcedo attempted to engage the U.S. for assistance, but was rebuffed.[5]:18

Spain had a difficult time fighting the rebels. Over the course of the war, they would spend over 33 million pesos and suffer over 10,000 casualties (much of it due to yellow fever[5]:19). Santana, who had previously been revered as a superb military tactician, found himself unable to break the Dominican resistance. In March 1864, he pointedly disobeyed orders to concentrate his forces around Santo Domingo and was rebuked and relieved of his command by Governor-General José de la Gándara, who ordered Santana to Cuba in order to face a court-martial. However, Santana died suddenly before this happened.[2]:215–16

La Gándara attempted to broker a cease-fire with the rebels. He and Salcedo agreed to discuss peace terms, but in the middle of negotiations, Salcedo was overthrown and assassinated by the disaffected group of Restoration commanders led by Gaspar Polanco. Polanco was concerned that Salcedo was taking negligent actions against the Spanish authorities, made numerous costly military mistakes and was planning to recall former pro-annexation president Buenaventura Báez, whom the rebels hated as much as they hated the Spanish for his actions before Santana's July 1857 coup.[2]:216–17 Although Báez had initially opposed Spanish annexation, once it began he lived in Spain on a government subsidy and had the honorary rank of field marshal in the Spanish Army. It was not until near the end of the war that he returned to the Dominican Republic.[5]:21

In Spain, the war was proving to be extremely unpopular. Combined with other political crises that were happening, it contributed to the downfall of Spanish Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell in 1866. Spain's Minister of War ordered the cessation of military operations on the island while new Prime Minister Ramón María Narváez brought the issue before the Cortes Generales.[6]

Polanco's reign was short-lived. After an ill-fated attack on the Spanish position in Monte Cristi and efforts to establish a tobacco monopoly on behalf of his friends, he himself was overthrown by a movement supported by his own brother General Juan Antonio Polanco, Pedro Antonio Pimentel and Benito Moncion who appointed Benigno Filomeno de Rojas as president and Gregorio Luperón as vice-president in January 1865. Given the respite in fighting, the provisional junta organized a new constitution, and when that was adopted, General Pedro Antonio Pimentel became the new president effective March 25, 1865.[2]:217[5]:20

By this time, the outcome of the American Civil War was no longer in serious doubt. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Cortes now had to consider the probability of eventual U.S. intervention and decided it did not want to fund a war for a territory it did not really need. On March 3, 1865, Queen Isabella II signed the annulment of the annexation. By July 15, there were no more Spanish troops left on the island.[6]


Monument to the Dominican War of Restoration
Monument to the Dominican War of Restoration

Although many Dominican cities were destroyed and agriculture across the country (apart from tobacco) halted during the war years, the War of Restoration brought a new level of national pride to the Dominican Republic. The Dominican victory also showed nationalists in Cuba and Puerto Rico that Spain could be defeated. On the other hand, in local politics, leadership during the war was concentrated in the hands of a few regional caudillos, or strongmen, who could command the loyalty of the regions and who were more intent on bettering themselves and their followers than the nation as a whole. This system of political power persisted until the late 20th century.[4]

Dominican politics remained unstable for the next several years. Pimentel was president for only five months before he was replaced by José María Cabral. Cabral in turn was ousted by Buenaventura Báez in December 1865, but retook the presidency in May 1866. His negotiations with the United States about the possible sale of land around Samaná Bay proved to be so unpopular that Báez was able to regain the presidency once more in 1868.[5]:21–24

In intra-island relations, the war marked a new level of cooperation between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Until now, Haiti had considered the island of Hispaniola to be "indivisible" and had unsuccessfully attempted to conquer the eastern half several times before. The war forced Haiti to realize that this goal was essentially unattainable, and was instead replaced by years of border disputes between the two countries.[7]

August 16 is commemorated a national holiday in the Dominican Republic, as well as the day the Dominican president is sworn into office every four years.[8]

See also


  1. ^ a b c d e Clodfelter (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015. p. 306.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Moya Pons, Frank (May 1998). The Dominican Republic: a national history. Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55876-192-6. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  3. ^ "War of Restoration in the Dominican Republic 1861–1865". Armed Conflict Events Database. Dupuy Institute. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  4. ^ a b Figueredo, D. H.; Argote-Freyre, Frank (2008). A brief history of the Caribbean. Infobase Publishing. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8160-7021-3. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  5. ^ a b c d e Atkins, G. Pope; Wilson, Larman Curtis (1998). The Dominican Republic and the United States: from imperialism to transnationalism. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-1931-5. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  6. ^ a b Moya Pons, Frank (2007). History of the Caribbean: plantations, trade, and war in the Atlantic world. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 246. ISBN 978-1-55876-415-6. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  7. ^ Miguel, Pedro Luis San (September 2005). The imagined island: history, identity, & utopia in Hispaniola. UNC Press Books. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-0-8078-5627-7. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  8. ^ "Lifestyle Cabarete - What is Restoration Day?". Lifestyle Cabarete. August 12, 2015. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
This page was last edited on 8 January 2021, at 16:54