Francisco del Rosario Sánchez
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Francisco Del Rosario Sánchez (March 9, 1817 - July 4, 1861) was a politician and founding father of the Dominican Republic. He is considered by Dominicans as the second founding father of the 1844 Dominican War of Independence, after Juan Pablo Duarte and before Ramón Matías Mella. The Order of Merit of Duarte, Sanchez and Mella are named in honor of these founding fathers. He was the son of Narciso Sánchez and Olaya Del Rosario, who were not married at the time of his birth.
Sanchez was the son of a Spanish immigrant, and travelled to the USA and Europe. His vision of the cause was the typical republican goal of the Age of Enlightenment. Duarte's exile takes place at the last and most crucial stage of the struggle. It is when Duarte is exiled and hidden to Venezuela that the figure of Sánchez becomes the central prescence in the Dominican revolt. This is why he is considered the "real" founding father of the Dominican Republic by many authors.
Sánchez takes the lead as the prime mover of the independence movement, maintaining contact with Duarte through his relatives. While educated and having taught himself Latin and French later in life, he is mostly remembered as a man of action. In the proceedings that took place just before the proclamation of independence in February 27, 1844, Sánchez was voted by his peers in La Trinitaria as Commander in Arms and Chief of the Government Junta in the nascent republic. This was quite a recognition and testament to his virtues. He was 27 at the time, his social standing was clearly more humble than that of the men around him, and his black complexion struck a dissonant note among a group of mainly European descendants trying to rebel against the black republic of Haiti.
After a brief period of turmoil and quick political succession, Pedro Santana exiled the main architects of the Independence. Sánchez spent four years in exile and was eventually pardoned. He returned to the Dominican Republic in time to see Santana lead the Spanish Annexion, a process of reverting the Dominican side of the island back into a Spanish colony. Sánchez defied the traitors of the republican cause. In the meantime, he was captured by Santana's forces and executed in 1861.
