The Dominican Republic commemorates this Thursday the 206th anniversary of the birth of Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, one of the three Fathers of the Nation and hero of National Independence.
Sánchez was born in 1817 in the period known as España Boba, and during his childhood, adolescence and part of his youth the eastern territory of the island was occupied by Haiti (period between 1822-1844).
In his book Padres de la Patria, historian Roberto Cassá explains that “despite his humble origins, the hero obtained an outstanding education thanks to the care of his mother and, especially, his aunt María Trinidad Sánchez”.
“He learned to play musical instruments, like some of his brothers, and then he studied English with Mr. Groot and philosophy and Latin with Nicolás Lugo,” adds Cassá.
He materialized the separatist ideal, forged by Juan Pablo Duarte, who conquered him for the cause, to which he also added Matías Ramón Mella and other young people in the first half of the 19th century, when the eastern part of the island of Santo Domingo remained under the domain of the Haitian government, which had occupied it in February 1822, under the command of Jean Pierre Boyer, backed by an army.
After the exile of Juan Pablo Duarte in 1843, Sánchez chaired the meetings of La Trinitaria and expanded contacts with representatives of important sectors of the city, with the collaboration of Mella.
“Sánchez was the key figure in the preparations for the proclamation of the Dominican Republic on February 27, 1844. Finally, it was up to him to start the resistance against the Annexation to Spain in 1861”, explains the historian Roberto Cassá in his work .
Sánchez entered the Dominican Republic through Haiti in June 1861, to fight against the annexation to Spain.
The hero died shot on July 4, 1861 in San Juan de la Maguana, at the age of 44.
