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Speaker 1: Whats looming my sword of damacles. This is Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: a podcast about the doom looming over each of us

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Speaker 1: that could get could sweep down and just just shatter

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Speaker 1: our worlds at any second. My guest today to talk

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Speaker 1: about the feeling of having doom looming directly over her

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Speaker 1: head is Kataboo. Kat you talk you right up. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: we were just talking about your apartment and the looming

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Speaker 1: death art that's over your head right now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great, it's terrifying.

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Speaker 1: I hate it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like I'm nervous. But I've also promised that if

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Speaker 3: this thing hanging over your head falls on you, that

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Speaker 3: I will promise to vindicate you and post it wherever

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Speaker 3: your heart desires.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate having Sophie as an avenger for me.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Cat do you are a researcher who studies and

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Speaker 1: also professionally makes fun of Fox News on the tiktoks,

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Speaker 1: TikTok and other platforms. Kat, where can people find you? First? Off,

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Speaker 1: before we get in here, because they should in fact

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Speaker 1: find you, track you down?

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Speaker 2: You foind me on TikTok and YouTube. I do long

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Speaker 2: form and short form content and then I'm also signing

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Speaker 2: up for like the billion other sites that are popping up, and.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna, you're gonna get on threads.

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Speaker 2: Got him on threads, and it's just I forget that

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Speaker 2: it exists, and then I have to post a TikTok

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Speaker 2: there and just like I'm making so many.

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Speaker 3: Things, got on threads, and then I was like, I

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Speaker 3: don't want to be here, and then I and then

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Speaker 3: so I think there's an account I've never used it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: do you know any kat.

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Speaker 1: You are you are in the in the business of

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Speaker 1: professionally surveilling. You might say a whole bunch of people

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Speaker 1: who would really like to be either dictators or the

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Speaker 1: direct employees of dictators.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's a perfect way to describe them.

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Speaker 1: So today I thought we would talk about one of

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Speaker 1: the og right wing dictators. We are talking at about

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Speaker 1: like a classic, like one of one of the all timers.

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Speaker 1: This guy is like, he's not the Jordan of right

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Speaker 1: wing dictators, because that's got to be that's got to

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Speaker 1: be our boy Hitler. But he's like he's like the

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Speaker 1: Scottie Pippen of right wing dictators for sure. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we are talking about Rafael trueheo.

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Speaker 3: I'm not really proud of you for knowing two basketball

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Speaker 3: players names. First of all, Yeah, I feel like I

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Speaker 3: feel like I've trained you and you've done well. It's

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Speaker 3: only taken six years.

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Speaker 1: Look, I know other basketball players like Magic, Magic, Magic Jimmy,

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Speaker 1: something like that.

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Speaker 2: Right, I think that's.

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Speaker 1: Are we good? Yeah? Yeah, so he says we're right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Magic Jimmy, Scottie Pippin, the Big Bopper. That sounds right.

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Speaker 1: What do you know about Rafael Truo?

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Speaker 2: I know nothing about Raphael trueO.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do you know much about the Dominican Republic, which

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Speaker 1: is the country that he he dictated.

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Speaker 2: Very basics of like geography and.

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Speaker 1: Vibes that is that is perfect. That is basically what

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Speaker 1: I knew about the Dominican Republic before. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: did some episodes on Haiti on Papa Doc and Baby

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Speaker 1: Doc a year or so ago, which is where I

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Speaker 1: really did my first deep dive into the history of

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Speaker 1: the island. That both of those countries are on Hispaniola.

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Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting because like the Dominican Republic

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Speaker 1: was very nearly a state, like it came within a

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Speaker 1: hair's breadth of being part of the United States, probably

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Speaker 1: would have been wound up more like Puerto Rico is

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Speaker 1: in terms of like its legal status. We are absolutely

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Speaker 1: central to everything that has happened in the history of

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Speaker 1: the Dominican Republic, and most of us are like you

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Speaker 1: know you and like I was, you know before I

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Speaker 1: started reading on this topic, like it's just not a

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Speaker 1: we like Americans barely hear about it. Right when you do,

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, someone had a wedding in the Dominican right,

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Speaker 1: Like that's that's I think the normal amount of knowledge

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Speaker 1: most Americans have, which is fucked up because we we've

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Speaker 1: caused a lot of problems over there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I feel like that's the case with

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Speaker 2: a lot of these types of places where you don't

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Speaker 2: hear anything, and then you're like, oh, we are completely

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Speaker 2: responsible for their demise.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it with the Dominican Republic and with Haiti.

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Speaker 1: A big part of it is that they are so

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Speaker 1: close to us, right like it is, it is close

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Speaker 1: enough that it could have realistically been part of the

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Speaker 1: United States from a like like in the from a

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Speaker 1: political standpoint, like it's not further away than a number

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Speaker 1: of like other island possessions that our country has taken

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Speaker 1: over the years. And we do take possession of the

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Speaker 1: Dominican Republic for a period.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have the fun game was it us

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Speaker 3: or was it now?

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Speaker 1: No, in this case, it's it's us in Spain and

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Speaker 1: France who are like the ones really and Haiti. Actually

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Speaker 1: Haiti gets some fucking around in the Dominican Republic too.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna have a fun time talking about this

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Speaker 1: because before we before we discuss Rafaeltrahio, who is true.

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Speaker 1: He's interesting because he's both like, in some ways a

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Speaker 1: kind of traditional strong man dictator, but in some ways

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Speaker 1: he might be like one of the smartest dictators that

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Speaker 1: I've come across in terms of how he builds and

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Speaker 1: uses power and how he manipulated his population and exercised

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Speaker 1: control over them. He's really unique in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: There's some very interesting aspects of how he kind of

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Speaker 1: wields power that are unique to him. So this is exciting.

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Speaker 1: We're going to have a good time talking about this horrible,

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Speaker 1: horrible man who did a genocide.

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Speaker 2: Can I ask ahead of time, how long did he

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Speaker 2: rule or is that like a spoiler?

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Speaker 1: Almost thirty years? Okay, so damn when you go when

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Speaker 1: you're into dictators, and Sophie and I are big dictator stance.

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Speaker 1: Love them. There's, like I would say, broadly speaking, three

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Speaker 1: kinds of dictators. You've got your flash in the pan dictators, right,

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Speaker 1: your guys who like takeover and they're there for a

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Speaker 1: couple of years and then they get cooed or assassinated, right,

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Speaker 1: and they're out pretty quick.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: Even Hitler kind of is a short termer, right, Like

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Speaker 1: he's only in there about twelve years. And then you've

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Speaker 1: got what I would say is like, you know, the

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Speaker 1: the the dictator equivalent of like living to like eighty

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Speaker 1: or so, which is around thirty years. That's Stalin, that's Maw,

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Speaker 1: That's where true hello is. And then every now and then,

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Speaker 1: it's very rare for one of these guys to last

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Speaker 1: more than thirty years. And that's when when you're when

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Speaker 1: you're in like the thirty to thirty five year range

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Speaker 1: reigning is a dictator that's like absolute goat tier in

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Speaker 1: terms of you know, holding power. You know, those guys

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Speaker 1: are are are tough sons of bitches. But Trujillo was like,

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Speaker 1: right at twenty nine years, so that's a pretty good

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Speaker 1: run as dictators go. He's not he's not bad. Probably

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be talking about these guys like they're like they're

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Speaker 1: like they're your buddies. I don't know how else to

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Speaker 1: do it at this point.

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Speaker 3: You know, you you called him Scottie Pippen, which is.

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Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, he's he's a Pippinesque character. So let's

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Speaker 1: talk some history and geography both. As I said, the

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Speaker 1: Dominican Republican Haiti are on the island of Hispaniola, which

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Speaker 1: is famous for being the first place that Columbus discovered. Today,

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Speaker 1: Haiti is about a third or so of the island,

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Speaker 1: and the Dominican Republic lays over the bulk of the island. Now,

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Speaker 1: initially all of Hispaniola was claimed by Spain, right, but

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Speaker 1: you know, Spain, they lost interest pretty quickly because people started,

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Speaker 1: they started quote unquote discovering the rest of South America,

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Speaker 1: and like, Hispaniola didn't have a lot of silver, and

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Speaker 1: that's kind of was their whole thing for a while.

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Speaker 1: It was like how much silver can we get to

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Speaker 1: wreck our own economy via terrible inflation, Like let's really

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Speaker 1: fuck ourselves over for the rest of time by importing

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Speaker 1: way too much fucking silver. So Hispaniola kind of comes

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Speaker 1: a backwater after this initial burst of excitement because you know, Spain,

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Speaker 1: they got their Peru, they got Mexico, They're all all

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Speaker 1: up in all those blazes, right. So the first slaves

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Speaker 1: start being brought to Hispaniola as a of the fact

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Speaker 1: that like the initial folks that they are working because like,

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Speaker 1: since there's not a huge that you know, they do

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Speaker 1: have some silver mines they have, you know, they're mining

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Speaker 1: some other stuff and they've got some agricultural plantations set up.

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Speaker 1: And initially the people that they're using to work these

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Speaker 1: plantations are the indigenous Tino and Carib peoples. But they

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Speaker 1: kill a huge number of those people, right, like the

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Speaker 1: majority of the folks who had lived their pre contact.

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Speaker 1: So this importation of slaves two Hespaniola starts because they're like, well,

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Speaker 1: we need more laborers. Right by the start of the

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, friedman on the island outnumbered enslaved people. So

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Speaker 1: it's not initially what it's going to become, this kind

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Speaker 1: of like massive slave plantation system that actually takes a

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Speaker 1: little while to really get going. Most slave ownership on

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Speaker 1: Hispaniola was more intimate and smaller in scale than the

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Speaker 1: vast plantations that would come to dominate Haiti or the

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Speaker 1: American South. Right masters rarely had much more than one

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Speaker 1: or two enslaved people who engaged in small scale wage

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Speaker 1: labor alongside them and their families. Since cash was in

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Speaker 1: short supply. Most slaves on the island in this early

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Speaker 1: period were taken through piracy. They were also often stolen

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Speaker 1: French colonial slaves, so like literally like French boats full

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Speaker 1: of slaves would come by and people would you know,

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Speaker 1: raid them and take people off of them. In sixteen

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Speaker 1: ninety seven, there's a big kerfuffle and Spain and France

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Speaker 1: have a treaty over Hispaniola, and this is where France

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Speaker 1: gets what's going to become Haiti. And the chunk of

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Speaker 1: Hispaniola that becomes Haiti is the colony of San Domain, Right,

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Speaker 1: that's the name of the French colony that's going to

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Speaker 1: wind up rebelling and becoming Haiti. And the French treated

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Speaker 1: their possessions on Hispaniola just like they treated their possessions

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Speaker 1: on all of the other Caribbean islands where they were involved,

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Speaker 1: So they would just started importing huge numbers of enslaved people,

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Speaker 1: primarily demand sugar plantations, right, that's the big fucking business

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Speaker 1: in this period of time, and it's a pretty shitty

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Speaker 1: thing to farm. You don't want to be a sugar farmer.

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Speaker 1: It's a not a long life. Now, the Spanish colony

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Speaker 1: that is going to become, you know, kind of the

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Speaker 1: center of what becomes the Dominican Republic, is called Santo Domingo.

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Speaker 1: So you've got the French San Domain and you've got

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Speaker 1: the Spanish Santa Domingo, which is a little bit confusing,

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Speaker 1: which is why we're going to start calling the Dominican

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Speaker 1: Republican Haiti very soon here. And the economy in Santa

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Speaker 1: Domingo is very different from Haiti. Haiti is turning into

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Speaker 1: this like slave plantation economy. In Santa Domingo. There is

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Speaker 1: still slavery, but it's again it's on a much smaller scale.

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Speaker 1: Much of the economy, rather than being based around like

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Speaker 1: sugar plantations, is cattle ranching, some tobacco growing, and kind

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Speaker 1: of small scale export of wood in animal hides. And

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Speaker 1: Spain is not thrilled with this state of affairs because

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Speaker 1: it's a lot less profitable than San domin Right, Like

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Speaker 1: this kind of like all this small scale stuff is

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Speaker 1: not making the sort of money that San Domain is

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Speaker 1: making France, but Spain is kind of it's very difficult

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Speaker 1: to actually govern beyond like the city of San Domain.

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Speaker 1: So you've got this this city that is effectively the colony,

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Speaker 1: and then anytime you're outside of the walls of the

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Speaker 1: city and the hinterland and these hills and mountains and stuff,

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Speaker 1: it's basically ungovernable, right. And this kind of population of

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Speaker 1: what's going to become the Dominican Republic fills up very

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Speaker 1: quickly with a mix of you've got some freed slaves,

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Speaker 1: some escaped slaves from what's going to become Haiti. They

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Speaker 1: intermarry with indigenous peoples and with poor whites, and they

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Speaker 1: create this kind of creole subculture of ungovernable cowboy bandit types. Right.

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Speaker 1: That's like the majority of the population, because the city

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Speaker 1: is always going to have more people in it, but

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Speaker 1: that's the majority of the land mass is kind of

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Speaker 1: these the very small numbers of these sort of like yeah,

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Speaker 1: cowboy bandit type folks. Historian Lauren Derby writes that they

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Speaker 1: quote hunted wild cattle in the interior and sold smoked

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Speaker 1: meat and tobacco to contrabandists based on neighboring Latortu Island,

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Speaker 1: locally termed Montero's. These proto peasants were the Dominican equivalent

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Speaker 1: of the hibbarro, the Puerto Rican backlands highlander. This contraband

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Speaker 1: economy of black masterless men was so successful that Spanish

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Speaker 1: authorities had to resort to draconian measures to contain it.

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Speaker 1: In sixteen oh six, for example, Governor Assorio torched northern

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Speaker 1: settlements to the ground in a failed effort to curb

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Speaker 1: contraband by forcing rural inhabitants to move closer to Santa Domingo.

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Speaker 1: The fact that many of the wealthiest pirates in this

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Speaker 1: pan Antillean maritime community, warmerlados, such as the highly successful

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Speaker 1: Domingo Sanchez Moreno, probably double e galled the crown. So

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Speaker 1: this is a like number one sounds kind of dope.

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Speaker 1: Like these people have built like a pretty interesting culture

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Speaker 1: for themselves, and the only way that Spain can keep

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Speaker 1: a lid on it is like by periodically massacring huge

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Speaker 1: numbers of them, right, Like that's all you can do

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Speaker 1: is you march your army into the interior and kill

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Speaker 1: and burn whatever you can. But they can kind of

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Speaker 1: just sort of bounce when they see the army coming.

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Speaker 1: And it's not easy to march an army into the

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Speaker 1: antia rear of Hispaniola and have them not die of

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Speaker 1: all sorts of wild ass diseases. So it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like again a little bit like of an anarchy in

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Speaker 1: most of these.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like an ideal society to be good. It sounds perfect, Yes,

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Speaker 2: that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: Fucking cowboys fucking making beef jerky presumably, Yeah, it sounds great.

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Speaker 1: Hella tobacco, Yeah, it sounds dope. So while sand Do

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Speaker 1: mag exists under this pretty horrifying racial caste system like

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Speaker 1: slavery as awful as it's going to exist basically anywhere

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Speaker 1: during like the period of the African slave trade, Santa

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Speaker 1: Domingo is a lot less controlled and as a result

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Speaker 1: kind of a lot less awful, and so it doesn't develop,

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Speaker 1: which is not to say that it's you know, there

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Speaker 1: aren't there isn't slavery. There aren't a lot of like

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Speaker 1: abusive social structures that exist, but it doesn't develop the

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Speaker 1: same preconditions for revolution that you get in Sandomang, right,

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Speaker 1: And as we all know, in Sandomang enslaved people have

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Speaker 1: themselves a revolution starting at the tail end of the

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, and in one of history's great upsets, they

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Speaker 1: win their freedom from France. Now, this is how we

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Speaker 1: get Haiti, and the rest of the world has never

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Speaker 1: stopped punishing Haiti for this, right We talk about this

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Speaker 1: again in our episodes on Papa Doc and Baby Doc.

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Speaker 1: But basically Haiti's history from this point is being continually

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Speaker 1: fucked over by everyone else on the planet close to it,

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Speaker 1: not far from it, up to the present day. So

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Speaker 1: in Haiti, you know, they're dealing with, after this period

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Speaker 1: of revolution, pretty continuous incursions from the French until they

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Speaker 1: finally forced Napoleon to get the fuck out of there,

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Speaker 1: and the process of getting Napoleon out and of you know,

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Speaker 1: ensuring their liberty means that they build up a pretty

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Speaker 1: good army, like Haiti has by kind of the late

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Speaker 1: period of fighting off the French repeatedly, they have a

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Speaker 1: pretty like powerful military. And they are also by the

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Speaker 1: point they're done fighting the French for the most part,

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Speaker 1: they're kind of they're deeply traumatized, right, They've had all

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Speaker 1: of these horrific wars. They are basically constantly aware of

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Speaker 1: the fact that all of Europe and all of the

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Speaker 1: Western world wants them back in fucking chains, and so

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Speaker 1: they're pretty paranoid. And the thing that they start to

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Speaker 1: focus on once France is less of a threat is

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Speaker 1: the fact that they've got this neighbor, right, They've got

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Speaker 1: Santa Domingo sitting on most of their island, and it's

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Speaker 1: a possession of Spain and Spain if you're not up

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Speaker 1: on your Napoleonic history, for one thing, Spain is kind

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Speaker 1: of briefly a part of Napoleon's empire, at least chunks

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Speaker 1: of Spain are. So the Haitians are like, well, I

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Speaker 1: don't really like that they're just sitting there a possession

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Speaker 1: of Europe, right, it feels like this they could this

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Speaker 1: could be really bad for us. So why don't we

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Speaker 1: Why don't we take them over? Right? Why don't we

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Speaker 1: deal with Santa Domingo. And to make a long story short,

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Speaker 1: Haiti invades and they occupy Santa Domingo for about twenty

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Speaker 1: two years from the early to the mid eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: and like all occupations, it's not pleasant, right, Like very

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Speaker 1: rarely do you like occupy a country with soldiers, and

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Speaker 1: everyone is like, we really like being occupied by your soldiers.

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Speaker 1: This is a good time for everyone, right, instant of.

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Speaker 2: Deming being is like being occupied by the Spanish at

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Speaker 2: the same time.

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Speaker 1: Or are they just no, No, the Haitians kicked the

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Speaker 1: Spanish out for about twenty years, okay.

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Speaker 2: So it's just occupation, occupation, cool, super fun everyone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's colony, which is an occupation to a

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Speaker 1: military occupation. And then in eighteen forty four the Dominican

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Speaker 1: Republic becomes a thing because they fight a war with

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Speaker 1: Haiti and they kick the Haitians out and declare their independence.

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Speaker 1: And they managed to keep their independence for about fifteen

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Speaker 1: years until the Spanish come back and take them over

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Speaker 1: again for like four or five years. So it's not

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Speaker 1: a not a super stable history here, right, pretty messy,

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Speaker 1: Like could you I already feel tired just thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: You can imagine how exhausted someone who was like born

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Speaker 1: in eighteen hundred in the Dominican Republic would be by

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Speaker 1: like eighteen fifty. Right, It's just this carousel of assholes

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Speaker 1: taking your place over, right.

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Speaker 2: I think about like being a kid like right at

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Speaker 2: the beginning of that, and it's like today kids for

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Speaker 2: people that remember like pre nine to eleven, you know,

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Speaker 2: and then you just get to see everything change. I

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Speaker 2: feel like that's so much more exhausting. And you have

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Speaker 2: like five occupations. That sounds super fun, like a really

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Speaker 2: fun fifty years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly how everyone in the Dominican Republic feels.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure.

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Speaker 1: So the US Civil War is over and Washington is

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Speaker 1: like they're not thrilled with everything that's been happening in

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Speaker 1: the Dominican Republic because it's pretty you can get from

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Speaker 1: DC to the Dominican real fast, right, it is not

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Speaker 1: far away from the continental United States. And if you

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Speaker 1: know much about America in like the late eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: we've got this kind of big attitude that like, we

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Speaker 1: don't want Europe fucking around and what we consider to

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Speaker 1: be our backyard and all of Latin America and the

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Speaker 1: Caribbean is basically our backyard in our eyes, right in

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Speaker 1: this period of time. I'm not saying this is right,

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Speaker 1: this is just how DC is thinking about things. And

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Speaker 1: so a lot of American politicians are like, well, we

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Speaker 1: don't like the Europeans are not doing clearly not doing

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Speaker 1: a good job keeping things stable in the Dominican Republic,

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Speaker 1: and this place is in our sphere of influence. So

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty five we have US a vote on

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Speaker 1: whether or not to annex the Dominican Republic, and it

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Speaker 1: fails by a single vote. So US influence will remain

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Speaker 1: kind of indirect after this point for a while, but

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Speaker 1: it's not going to stay indirect forever. But you can

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Speaker 1: see just how close it came to like presumably probably

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Speaker 1: being like a possession like Puerto Rico is in a

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Speaker 1: legal sense, you know, like that's kind of I think

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Speaker 1: a realistic way to look at how it might have

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Speaker 1: gone down. Who knows, but the constant warring between the

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Speaker 1: Dominican republican Haiti and they have there are regular conflicts

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Speaker 1: between the two countries kind of in the through the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, means that politics in the Dominican Republic early

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Speaker 1: on is just kind of a succession of strongman generals, right,

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Speaker 1: because when you're dealing with all of this sort of

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Speaker 1: governmental turnover, all that really matters is like can you

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Speaker 1: keep other people out right? Can you actually effectively defend

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Speaker 1: the country. And within Dominican politics, there's a vicious split

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Speaker 1: between these kind of liberal and conservative parties, all of

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Speaker 1: which are headed by these sort of strong man military types.

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Speaker 1: And when we say liberal and conservative, and I'm not

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Speaker 1: talking in like the modern US, since the Conservatives, broadly speaking,

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Speaker 1: a big thing that they are advocates for is being

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Speaker 1: annexed by the United States, right, because they're looking at

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Speaker 1: number one, how powerful the US is, particularly after the

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Speaker 1: Civil War, and going like, well, shit, they can probably

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Speaker 1: stop this constant turnover, right, Like, things would probably be

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Speaker 1: a lot more stable, we would probably be in better

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Speaker 1: economic shape if they were to come over. Whereas liberals

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Speaker 1: are like, we don't want to be governed by yet

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Speaker 1: another foreign power. We would like to be something that

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Speaker 1: approximates a modern state. And these liberals will usually give

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Speaker 1: the US Constitution as kind of the ideal example of

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Speaker 1: the structure of a government that they want. But there's

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Speaker 1: pretty universal agreement among these political elites that even though

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Speaker 1: they like the idea of how the US government is

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Speaker 1: supposed to be set up, they don't believe that Dominican

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Speaker 1: peasants can be democratic citizens. Right. And these kind of rich,

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Speaker 1: educated people who are a very small fraction of the

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Speaker 1: population are like, well, these like these are uneducated, wild cowboys.

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Speaker 1: You can't have them, you can't give them any rights, like,

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't know what to do with them. That is

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Speaker 1: very much the attitude that these people have. They're not

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Speaker 1: like nice folks, right. This attitude is well represented by

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Speaker 1: the words of Americolgo, a Dominican writer. In one of

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Speaker 1: these kind of intellectuals, he argued that the state needed

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Speaker 1: to lead from the top down until the citizenry could

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Speaker 1: be educated to a higher degree responsibility. He called the

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Speaker 1: peasants quote degenerate due to racial mixture, a tropical environment,

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Speaker 1: and a poor diet. Thus, he said, the working class

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Speaker 1: of the Dominican Republic can never be governing but rather

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Speaker 1: governed classes. So pretty rough stuff.

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Speaker 2: Hill, Yeah, they wouldn't know what to do with autonomy,

401
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:21,679
Speaker 2: Like you want to know what to do with the

402
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Speaker 2: idea of doing things to yourself?

403
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Speaker 1: Like best these guys. Best, these guys, just let us,

404
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Speaker 1: you know, run things. We've been doing so well prior

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Speaker 1: to this point.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously I'm the one that can fix this.

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Speaker 1: Just just me, no one else. Now, there is when

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Speaker 1: we talk about sort of white supremacy, which a lot

409
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Speaker 1: of these attitudes are influencing things, but it's not the

410
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Speaker 1: same as you're going to get in like the American South,

411
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Speaker 1: or as you're going to get in Europe not all

412
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Speaker 1: that far after this point. There is this kind of

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Speaker 1: attitude among a lot of elites that like, you can

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Speaker 1: whiten the population in some ways, and that's going to

415
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Speaker 1: become more of a thing later on, Right, So just

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Speaker 1: keep that in your head because we will be talking

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Speaker 1: about that once the thirties come around. Here. Outside the

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Speaker 1: urban parts of the Dominican Republic, politics revolved very heavily

419
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Speaker 1: around little strongmen who are like, in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: kind of many dictators over you know, a few towns,

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Speaker 1: a chunk of the countryside, and you know, the best

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Speaker 1: of them were kind of able to keep areas of

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Speaker 1: the interior relatively stable and protect their peasants from banditry

424
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Speaker 1: and unrest. Depending on the book, you'll hear these guys

425
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Speaker 1: kind of referred to as either cadillos or caciques, which

426
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Speaker 1: is a casique is an older word taken from the

427
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Speaker 1: social order on the island in the days kind of

428
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Speaker 1: before Columbus arrived, right, And it's kind of it kind

429
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Speaker 1: of gets applied to these more modern figures. Who are

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Speaker 1: they are in every sense of the word. Their warlords, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, small scale ones, but not that's an accurate

432
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: way to look at them. Now. I found a lot

433
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: of interesting sources for this episode, but the strangest and

434
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 1: most entertaining is a biography of Trujio written by one

435
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: of his generals, the guy who wound up running his

436
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 1: intelligence division for a while. This dude's name is Arturo Espiat,

437
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:13,120
Speaker 1: and Arturo was the son of one of the two

438
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 1: or three wealthiest countries or families in the Dominican Republic,

439
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: and so his family are some of these warlord types

440
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: right in this sort of pre Trujio era. And he

441
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,160
Speaker 1: is an untrustworthy piece of shit, which you can tell

442
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 1: because he opens his book by repeatedly denying he tortured anybody.

443
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: And I want to reach you a quote from this

444
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: because it's really good. I remained neither a shame nor

445
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 1: regretful of my years as an intelligence officer. I earned

446
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: my nom de guerre Navahita, the Blade, not because I

447
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: was guilty of any atrocities. The name stemmed from my

448
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: tendency to plunge straight to the heart of any problem

449
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 1: or situation. I believed in direct simple action. However, there

450
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 1: is not a single Dominican who has ever or can

451
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: come forward to prove that I caused him to be tortured,

452
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:58,400
Speaker 1: Nor can any Dominican family charge that one of its

453
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: members died at my hands or my I don't know, bro,

454
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: I feel like people who don't torture anyone never need

455
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 1: to say.

456
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 2: That I'm not guilty of any atrocity. Sure is raising

457
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 2: a lot of questions.

458
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: I also love they called me I was the head

459
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: of intelligence. They called me the Blade, not because of

460
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: any cutting I did. I was just so cool and

461
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:21,440
Speaker 1: smart and strong.

462
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

463
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. They called me the dick kicker. No, no, no,

464
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 1: not for any violent reason, totally unrelated like okay, the Blade.

465
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: So with the caveat that Arto is very untrustworthy source.

466
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: He is a local and a local who gives us

467
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: an attitude of how the upper crust the kind of

468
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: like these these sort of like high up in kind

469
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: of like warlord types wanted to see themselves and talk

470
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: about themselves right. So he gives us an idea of

471
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: how elites and Dominican society in this period wanted to

472
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 1: pretend that things worked right, and the way that he

473
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: frames this period of Dominican history is that these regional

474
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 1: strongmen were kind of ungovernable by the central government and

475
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: would periodically overthrow it to put their own guy in charge.

476
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 2: Quote.

477
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: The Dominican government was never strong enough to resist the caciques.

478
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: The army was merely a handful of ill trained conscripts.

479
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: Recruitment was simple. From time to time, the government would

480
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: call on loyal casiques for volunteers. The local chiefs would

481
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: then round up a batch of unhappy youths and send

482
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: them to the capitol. Sometimes it was necessary to use

483
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: force when Casique handcuffed his volunteers to a huge rope

484
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: and send them to the army with this message, here

485
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: are your volunteers. Please return the rope. Man, I got

486
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: plenty of boys, but ropes cost money, homie, Like, bro, I.

487
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 2: Only got so much fucking rope over here, Like you

488
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 2: got it. It's like giving tupperware, you know, Like I

489
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 2: want you to enjoy the thing I made, but it

490
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 2: got please return it, like don't keep it.

491
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is treating like sending them conscripts like a

492
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,719
Speaker 1: covered dish, Like no, no, enjoy that, man, it's really good.

493
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: The good conscripts but could you could you send me

494
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: back the bowl? Ye?

495
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 2: Next day, I see you, just like make sure you

496
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 2: don't forget it, and I need a last time. But

497
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: like I need that fucking rope man.

498
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, very funny. Now you know who always sends back

499
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: the bowl? Cat good?

500
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 2: I don't know.

501
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: Please tell me the sponsors of our podcast. Uh if

502
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: they send you boys, which you can order, you can

503
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: have boys sent to you, you know, you know, conscripts

504
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,959
Speaker 1: or whatever. Uh, just send back the role, That's all

505
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: they ask Sophie.

506
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 3: Sophie is that the aggressive head shacking or was doing

507
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 3: would not translate on this audio medium.

508
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,479
Speaker 1: But no, see what I have to deal with here,

509
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: Cat unbelievable.

510
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 3: Respectfully, you're welcome.

511
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: Ads, we're back, and we're talking about falling in love

512
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: with a magician, which I hope to do one day. Sure,

513
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, how could what could be better than loving

514
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: a magician? You know, getting to live in Las Vegas? Uh,

515
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: probably getting sowt in half.

516
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 2: You're talking about dating a really successful magician. Though I

517
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 2: feel like most magicians don't work in Las Vegas.

518
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: I feel like both the least and the most successful

519
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: magicians work in Las Vegas. There's a big. There's a

520
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 1: lot of parts of Vegas you could work.

521
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 2: You don't want to date magician. You want to do

522
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 2: either the worst out there at the best.

523
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to date the shittiest magician because that'll

524
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: always feel good about myself.

525
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 2: Is there better?

526
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: No? No, No, I want I want my magician partner

527
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 1: to come home at the end of a long day

528
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, yeah, I made some podcasts. People

529
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: like them, and they'll be like, yeah, I got stabbed

530
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: on Fremont Street, you know, trying to trying to busk.

531
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 2: And then they're like and then they look at you

532
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 2: and they go pick a card, should I guess something

533
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 2: in your ear? And it's their entire earnings of the day.

534
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 2: It's just like eighty two cents.

535
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which which they got from? Ah, I forgot

536
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 1: all the names of the casinos on Fremont Street. Anyway, Yeah, kat,

537
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: you ready to get back into this little history lesson.

538
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 2: I don't even know how ready I am.

539
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. So, the upside of the state of affairs

540
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: that exists in the Dominican Republic in the late eighteen

541
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: hundreds is that the caciques have a lot of power

542
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: and there are generally options for Dominicans outside of the

543
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: urban areas if they don't like who they're living under. Right,

544
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: So there's mobility, but there's poverty. You know, you can

545
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: kind of just be like this guy sucks. I'm going

546
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: to like hike for two days, and then you know

547
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: there'll be a different strong man or no one at all,

548
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: and you know, I can try to figure out my shit.

549
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: But it's basically impossible for the government to set up

550
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: large scale agriculture or to trade or do anything that

551
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: would allow them to function the way that like a

552
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: nation functions, because everything outside of the capital is just

553
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: like a mix of banditry and like small scale peasant

554
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: farmers and stuff. It's very unstable. From an early age,

555
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: the Dominican economy, such as it is, relied heavily on

556
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: the United States, and this was a calculated choice by

557
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: several of the more liberal general types who wound up

558
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: running the country in the late eighteen hundreds. In eighteen

559
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: ninety one, they signed a reciprocity treaty that made the

560
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: United States officially the main trading partner of the country.

561
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: We leased one of their ports so that our navy

562
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 1: would be able to do boat stuff there, and we

563
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: started handing out loans to them right because the government

564
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: is trying to get into a more stable position so

565
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: that they can govern the Dominican Republic. And we're like, oh,

566
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: we got money. We'll give you guys money to do that.

567
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: Don't worry. The terms are not ruinous. We are absolutely

568
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: not working on a way to fuck you over, just

569
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: like we did Deahiti. Next door promises, Pinky swears, sounds

570
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: of it. This is never going to happen again, Kat,

571
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: But all of the money we give them winds up

572
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,719
Speaker 1: in the hands of local strongmen, and none of it

573
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: goes towards like helping regular people or making the country

574
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: function better. I know it won't happen again. Not so weird,

575
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: Yeah it would be. It would be crazy if after

576
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: this we just flew a palette of billions of dollars

577
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: in cash to a country let's call it smarrak and

578
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: then lost it all. Like that would be wild if

579
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: we'd done that. All good stuff, good stuff. So in

580
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: a yeah, the US is like, ah, you got to

581
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: pay us back for all these loans that just got

582
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: robbed by your you know, the assholes running the country.

583
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: You know what We're going to do for you guys,

584
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: because you're such good clients. We're going to appoint a

585
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: private company to handle getting you to pay back your

586
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: foreign debt, and we do that in eighteen ninety two. This,

587
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: you know, leads to a series of events that in

588
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: nineteen oh four culminates in the United States creating the

589
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: Santo Domingo Improvement Company. Now, the job of this country

590
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: is to take control of their entire custom system, to

591
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: regulate customs for the Dominican Republic at all of their ports,

592
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: skimming money off of the top through these like in

593
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: export taxes and shit to repay debts to American Like

594
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: at this point, a lot of it's privately owned American

595
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: companies that can't be met by the Dominican government. By

596
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five, the United States controls all custom houses

597
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: in the country. So we're just like running you know,

598
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: all of that stuff for the Dominican Republic, not for them.

599
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: We're running it so that we can skim off the

600
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: top money that would otherwise theoretically go into like taxes

601
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: and shit.

602
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 2: You know, I can't be right that bring this sound like.

603
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: Us, Yeah, that doesn't sound like the thing. We'll keep

604
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: doing forever now because this and let's be fair here, we're,

605
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: as we often are, just copying the British right, because

606
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: they are the goats at this sort of thing. No

607
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: one's ever been better at it.

608
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 2: Did we have a revolution because we hated how they

609
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: did this?

610
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 1: Well, we thought that we could do a better job

611
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: of doing it. Eventually it was the long con, and

612
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: by god, did it work out, you know. So all

613
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: of this stuff ends up being basically a big con

614
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: to suck the wealth of the Dominican Republic out of

615
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: its neck like you know, vampires, and no amount of

616
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: throttling the customs houses was enough to actually pay down

617
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: their debt, which by nineteen sixteen had ballooned to more

618
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: than thirty million dollars, which was a lot of money

619
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: in those days. Economic collapse brings about political unrest. The

620
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: President of the Dominican Republic is assassinated in nineteen eleven,

621
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixteen President Yemenez has a little civil

622
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: war with the former Minister of War. The US government

623
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: looks at all this unrest in the Dominican Republic, which

624
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: we absolutely had not helped to cause, and are like, boy,

625
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: they might not be able to repay all of this

626
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: additional money that they now owe us in excess of

627
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: the money that they ever borrowed from us. You know

628
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: what we should do. You know, also nineteen sixteen, we're

629
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: kind of worried if things get any more unstable, Germans

630
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: could come in, right, the Germans could take over the

631
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic, and that'll be bad for everybody, mainly US.

632
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,239
Speaker 1: So we do a thing that we're going to do

633
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: repeatedly from this point forward.

634
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 2: Cant we yeah, uh, Pavid guy and back him.

635
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: Not quite yet. First we send in the Marines.

636
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry.

637
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to read a quote from a write

638
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: up by Thought Company summarizing US intervention here in the

639
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: Dominican The US soldiers moved quickly to secure their hold

640
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: on the Dominican Republic. In May, Rear Admiral William B.

641
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: Caperton arrived in Santo Domingo and took over the operation.

642
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: General Arius decided to oppose the occupation, ordering his men

643
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: to contest the American landing at Puerto Plata on June first.

644
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: General Arius went to Santiago, which he vowed to defend.

645
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: The Americans sent a concerted force and took the city

646
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: that wasn't the end of the resistance. In November, Governor

647
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: Juan Perez of the city of San Francisco di Maceroy

648
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: refused to recognize the occupation government hold up in an

649
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: old fort. He was eventually driven out by the Marines.

650
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: And so you know, we take over. And if you're

651
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: anywhere kind of from your late twenties on, you and

652
00:33:58,040 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: most of us have watched the US and vaden Ocaia

653
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: by a couple of countries, and what happens in the

654
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic is more similar to like what we do

655
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: in Iraq than what goes on in Afghanistan. Right, we

656
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: set up a military government and we have the Marines

657
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: start training and equipping a local military so that we

658
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: can leave and have a country that will be, in

659
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: our eyes kind of a pliant client state. Right, that's

660
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: the goal here, right, so that we can get some

661
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 1: fucking money out of them again, right, Like that's what

662
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:30,320
Speaker 1: we're doing in this case. Now, this concludes the historical

663
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: background portion of the story. So as we've left off

664
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: the historical background, the US Marines are occupying the country

665
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: and we are trying to get it into a stable

666
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: enough position that we can continue sucking on it like

667
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: the vampires we are. So let's move back over to

668
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: our bastard for the week. Finally, Raphael Truhio, because he

669
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: is going to be one of the young Dominican men

670
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: that the US Marines pick out of poverty and obscurity

671
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,959
Speaker 1: and are like, here's a gun we.

672
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 2: Need you to keep.

673
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: Thinks, don't do anything bad with it.

674
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 2: Pick a random guy and be like, hey, don't fuck

675
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 2: over the entire don't be a megalomaniac that takes over

676
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 2: an entire country.

677
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: Here's a bunch of dudes with guns.

678
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 2: Be cool, be cool, be chill, do the right thing,

679
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 2: just like us.

680
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like us, like we always do with our guns. So.

681
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: Raphael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was born in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic,

682
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: on October twenty fourth, eighteen ninety one. He was the

683
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 1: fourth of eleven children, most of whom survived to adulthood.

684
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 1: So his parents were doing something right. You know, that's

685
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: not bad in this period of time for somebody coming

686
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: out of poverty. Now, despite an impressive name, he did

687
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: not come from impressive surroundings. His hometown was a small

688
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: village on the Southern Coast, and his father, Pepito, is

689
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: generally described like one biographer literally just calls him a

690
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: non entity. He is not a big deal, you might say,

691
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: and he's not really around a lot. You get the idea, now.

692
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: Trujillo would later commission court biographers to tell a very

693
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: different version of his upbringing, one that is more rarefied

694
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: and that paints his family is coming from the upper

695
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,879
Speaker 1: middle class. This is not accurate, right, this is him.

696
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: He's kind of insecure about his origins and he will

697
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: he will exaggerate them as a as a you know,

698
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: an adult in power. Most there's not a lot of

699
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: great context as to his early life, his childhood, but

700
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,399
Speaker 1: all of the credible biographers that I've read tend to say, like, yeah,

701
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: they were pretty poor, right, Like, they were not unusually poor.

702
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 1: They were not like, you know, the worst off, but

703
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: they were not They did not come from the upper

704
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: middle class. The Truiello children went shoeless because there was

705
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: no money in the family for shoes. His dad was

706
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: a minor postal clerk and often went without income because

707
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: he had sold his salary for a short term loan,

708
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 1: which is a thing that a lot of men who

709
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: work for the government do right, You'll basically be like,

710
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: I need money, now, I will give you, you know,

711
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: interest basically, and so you get my salary for a

712
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: period of time. It's a really it winds up being

713
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: a pretty abusive situation. I probably don't need to explain how,

714
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: but like a lot of guys get trapped in this

715
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: in this period of time.

716
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 2: Why do you think he didn't like, not even you

717
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 2: just describe, but like, why why didn't he exaggerate like

718
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 2: how poor he was or talk about how poor he was?

719
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 2: Because I feel like that's a typical right wing tactic

720
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 2: of like, you know, I came from nothing and now

721
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:26,919
Speaker 2: I'm this guy.

722
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: It is in our culture, right, he has a it's

723
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: really important for him to feel like and to seem

724
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: like like it's going to be important to him to

725
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: act as if he is coming like a gentleman, right,

726
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: that he is coming from kind of this more upper class,

727
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: not like super rich, but that he's coming from something.

728
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: You know, he he will always be kind of insecure

729
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: about his surroundings. It is worth noting that's very much

730
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: a thing in American right wing politics. It's not always

731
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: the case, right, and in this in the Dominican culture,

732
00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: Like that's just not a thing trueho feels would benefit him.

733
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: Or it's unclear to me because I'm not obviously I'm

734
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: not an expert. It's unclear to me if it's more

735
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 1: that he didn't think it would benefit him, or that

736
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: he just legitimately had hang ups right, Like he's just

737
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: actually kind of ashamed of his humble circumstances and didn't

738
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: want to be honest about them.

739
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 2: Does it mean it's a dom story, like he grew

740
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 2: up from nothing?

741
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: Ye?

742
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 2: I think yeah, like is a big part of like

743
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 2: this legend built around him.

744
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It is interesting that Truillo's not going

745
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:32,959
Speaker 1: to really take that tactic. But the the like true

746
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: hel biography that I read that was like done by

747
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: like basically was telling the version of his story that

748
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: he wanted told. Talk like makes a big deal about

749
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:44,479
Speaker 1: how they were like you know, middle class to upper

750
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: middle class. His family was doing well, whereas his more

751
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: credible biographers are like, no, they were as poor as

752
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:55,359
Speaker 1: everyone around them was. So, yeah, they were poor enough

753
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: that like because his dad is regularly going without income

754
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: because he's sold his salary for a loan. His older

755
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,399
Speaker 1: brothers have to do cattle wrestling to make ends meet,

756
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 1: which is also really common. A lot of people would

757
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: will do this because there's both wild cows and just

758
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: like farms outside of the city. So you bust in

759
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: one night, you cut down a fence, you steal a

760
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: cow or two. That's food, that's money. You know.

761
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 2: I thought you met like wrestling cows.

762
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: No, that would that would do They would not have

763
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: like it would be cool if you could do it.

764
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: I have known a lot of cows in my life

765
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: and none that I would want to wrestle with. It

766
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: would be pretty rad if you could do it. So

767
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:40,919
Speaker 1: one of the few privileges he enjoyed as a little

768
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: kid was that his grandmother, Ersina, was very well educated,

769
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: and she ensured that Raphael and his siblings learned to read. Later,

770
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 1: he would attend grammar school, but his attendance was a

771
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:54,440
Speaker 1: regular since he he very nearly died of diphtheria as

772
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: a little kid, so he doesn't get to do a

773
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: lot of school. And aside from these broad strokes, we

774
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: you don't know a lot about his childhood. It's pretty

775
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: likely that he's dropped out of school by the fourth grade,

776
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: so most of the education that he does get comes

777
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: from his grandma, who I think was pretty much self taught,

778
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: just like a very smart person, and who sees it

779
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: as important that he learned to read and that his

780
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: siblings learned to read. And one of Trujillo's better biographies,

781
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 1: Trujillo Little Caesar of the Caribbean, German Ornez writes quote,

782
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: but if the children did not learn much as school,

783
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: at school, the dusty street was separated. In those days,

784
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: the monotonous rows of San Cristobal shacks provided them with

785
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 1: an excellent schooling in lawlessness. To survive the rowdyism of

786
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: the neighborhood kids, a boy had to be tougher than

787
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: the others, or, at least, as in the Trujillo's case,

788
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: he had to belong to a large, clannish family. In

789
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: frequent street brawls, the solid front of the Trujillo boys

790
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: proved good enough to lick all opposition, a fact they'd

791
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:55,280
Speaker 1: never forgot later in life. From such an environment, Rafael

792
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: emerged as a resourceful, headstrong character. As a boy, Trujillo

793
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 1: was always in trouble. Recall one of his neighbors always

794
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: trying to cheat someone always bragging about how he would

795
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: one day make big money without much effort. I do

796
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: think that's cool that, Like he had a lot of brothers,

797
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: so they kind of worked as a gang together. They're like, well,

798
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: if we're gonna get into a fight, like, at least

799
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: I've got siblings, I could Collin. I love that.

800
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like when you're a girl with

801
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 2: like brothers, like you have someone to bag you up.

802
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: Greguez would just having a bunch of brothers starting.

803
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,479
Speaker 1: To gang, yeah, getting in trouble. Yeah, in this case,

804
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: kind of a literal gang. Although because they're poor, the

805
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: thing that he becomes kind of a gangster about is

806
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: very silly. So his nickname around town is Chapeta, which

807
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: is kind of the colloquial term for bottle caps. It

808
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that literally, but it's like what people call

809
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: bottle caps. And he gets that nickname because he collects

810
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: bottle caps and for some unknown reason he became like

811
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: an obsessive order of caps from sodas and beers. He

812
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 1: hated the nickname, but like he got the nickname because

813
00:41:57,840 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: not only did he collect these, but he would like

814
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: beat people up to take their bottle cap, Like he

815
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: would get his brothers to get back. He was like

816
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 1: running a bottle cap racket so that he could.

817
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:08,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he just like hoarded them like he wasn't

818
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 2: selling them or anything.

819
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: That part is unclear to me. He probably, I assume

820
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,439
Speaker 1: he traded when he couldn't fight for them. But he's

821
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: he's very into collecting bottle caps and he's willing to

822
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: do violence in order to expand his collection, which is

823
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:21,959
Speaker 1: pretty funny.

824
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 2: From imagining him being like a funko pop, like beating

825
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 2: people up for funko pops.

826
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a little bit like that. It's less

827
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: sad than a funk o pop because bottle caps are

828
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: objectively better than funko pops.

829
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 2: You can do something with a bottle cap.

830
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all you can do with a funko pop.

831
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:41,720
Speaker 1: Has become aware of the fact that you've lost control

832
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: of your life. So at age sixteen, he started to

833
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: work as a telegraph operator, a job he got thanks

834
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: to his uncle. And again, his father's kind of a

835
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 1: non entity. So it's his two uncles, Teodulo and Plinio,

836
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,240
Speaker 1: who taught him how to be a man. And these guys,

837
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: each of these guys is like half of a good

838
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: con man. Right, Plinio is like charming and intelligent, like

839
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: he's he's good at like talking to people. He's got

840
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: a lot of social intelligence. And Teodulo is a drunken

841
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: a womanizer who like writes poetry in prose, but is

842
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: all as seen as like so he's this like he's

843
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: too drunk to be like a really good con man.

844
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: He's kind of just like like they're each half of

845
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: a good con man. So as a young adult, he

846
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: gets offered a job working security at one of the

847
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: local sugar plantations. Like all but one sugar company in

848
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: the Republic, Rafael's employers were American. It's likely that his

849
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: charming because we control all of the big business in

850
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: the American rehol right right, Like we've taken over these

851
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: sugar companies in part is like a well, you know,

852
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: if you let American companies in to dominate this this industry,

853
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: you know, that's how we can take out some of

854
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: this debt that somehow still keeps ballooning every year. So

855
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: like all but yeah, so his employers here, he's working

856
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: for the Americans, and his it's pro probably Teodulo, his

857
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: uncle who gets him this job because he's just like

858
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: drinking with the dude who's doing the hiring, but we

859
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: don't really know. Most casual summaries of Raphael's past will

860
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: describe him as working as a security guard for the

861
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: Sugar Company. This is inaccurate. Truhello was an informer for

862
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: the sugar company. His job was to make friends with

863
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: labor organizers who were like getting ready to organize unions

864
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: and like go on strike and then help take them out.

865
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: So that is his job. He is a spy, like

866
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: to crack down on the labor movement for these American companies,

867
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 1: and he loves this gig.

868
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 2: That is such an early reason to hate someone in

869
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 2: this story.

870
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 1: It is a real piece of shit.

871
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 2: Jes yeah, immediately, Yeah thought that ud.

872
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's very funny because like he loves this because

873
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, I get to pick my own hours,

874
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have a boss breathing down my neck.

875
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: All I gotta do is fuck over these laborers. Future

876
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: state propaganda will note that his strength of character got

877
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: him an award from Milli Management, but the reality is

878
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: that he helped catch and hang several men who are

879
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 1: looking to start labor unions. Like he is killing people

880
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:11,439
Speaker 1: for the sugar company, and that's how Americans got cheap

881
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: sugar in the early nineteen hundreds. Everybody so good, good stuff.

882
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: So tragically, and this is sad cat. His promising career

883
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: murdering union organizers is cut short because he rapes somebody.

884
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 2: Damn.

885
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:32,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a real justice yeah, justice for Raphael Yeah yeah,

886
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: cancel culture has come for the murdering rapists. Yeah. So

887
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: we don't exactly know, like I hate to just like

888
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 1: drop he's a he probably committed rape, but there's not

889
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: a lot of detail because all of the criminal records

890
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:51,279
Speaker 1: from the period of time where he's probably getting in

891
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: trouble burned down mysteriously after he takes power. So this

892
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: is based primarily on other people's recollections. But it seems

893
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: like he probably went to jail for this for a

894
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: period of time. Yeah, it's a little unclear. He is

895
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: going to be a prolific rapist and sexual assault throughout

896
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: his entire adult life. And it's it's interesting because if

897
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 1: you when you read these there's a lot a lot

898
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: of the first biographies I read about this guy are

899
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: written in like, you know, the the sixties or whatever,

900
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: and they they will describe it as like a ladies

901
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 1: man with a wandering eye, and their critical biographies, but

902
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: the men writing them like just don't see the fact

903
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: that he's don't see what he's doing as serial sexual assault.

904
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: And then when you get more modern coverage of true Heo,

905
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: it becomes very clear like, oh, yeah, he was like

906
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible rapist, like he was.

907
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: Popular with the names.

908
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the dames really like this man.

909
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 2: No, they liked him.

910
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: You get that a lot move on with dictators from

911
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: this period of time when you read early books about them.

912
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: But you know who isn't problematic kat.

913
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 2: The ads and sponsors that sell you boys with rope.

914
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, here's some ads. We're back. We're talking

915
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: about Raffaeultruheo, who has probably gone to jail for rape

916
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: at this period of time after murdering union organizers for

917
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,879
Speaker 1: a gig. So he gets out of jail and at

918
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: this point he's kind of starting to get confident in

919
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: his own abilities. One presumes spending some time in jail

920
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: connects him to more criminals, and he sort of after

921
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: this period becomes kind of a gangster, right, definitely a gangster,

922
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: kind of a low level gangster. He runs a forgery racket,

923
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: he does some cattle rustling, and more than anything else,

924
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,240
Speaker 1: he becomes a pimp. Right, he is a very successful

925
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: pimpsus his I probably shouldn't say this, but like you

926
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: get the feeling he treats the the women that he

927
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: is working with the way he used to treat bottle caps,

928
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: including these, stealing from them from other pimps using violence.

929
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: That's the feeling one gets. Again, there's not terrible tremendous

930
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: detail about it, right, but he is a very successful pimp,

931
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: and knowing what we know about him, that's probably an

932
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: ugly story, right, I think that's fair to say, given

933
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: everything we know about this guy's background. And this is

934
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 1: where are two stories, the history of the Dominican Republic

935
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 1: up to this point in the US occupation and the

936
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: life of Rafaeltruhio intertwine in nineteen sixteen, when the US

937
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: comes in, Trueheo is about twenty four years old, and

938
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: despite how his career as a spy for the sugar

939
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: companies had ended, he left with some connections and a

940
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: good recommendation. The Marines have now invaded the Dominican Republic

941
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: and their mission is to maintain domestic tranquility, and this

942
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 1: is code for make the company stable enough for American

943
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,799
Speaker 1: investors to profit. One local historian would like it was

944
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: the landing of the American Marines which brought Truheo his

945
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,840
Speaker 1: opportunity to rise from obscurity, and this is certainly true.

946
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: Prior to our involvement, Raphael was the organized crime equivalent

947
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: of a minor casiqu right. He probably first interacts with

948
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: the Americans through getting arrested for forgery. He might have

949
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: also gotten arrested for cattle wrestling. He probably goes to

950
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: jail again. We don't know, because in nineteen twenty seven,

951
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 1: a mysterious fire destroys the Supreme Court building with all

952
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: of the criminal records in it. What is likely true

953
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 1: is that he runs into a little bit of trouble

954
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: with the new regime because he's a criminal and his

955
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,280
Speaker 1: uncle Tao Dulo is able to smooth it over. Tiodulo

956
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: has made friends with an American customs officer, a guy

957
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: named James MacLean, and McLean is one of these Americans

958
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: who's been in the country the longest. He's like working

959
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 1: in as one of these you know, because we take

960
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: over their customs like stations, so he is there before

961
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: the Marines arrive, and when the Marines arrive, they're like, well,

962
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:57,839
Speaker 1: this guy knows the country and he's one of us,

963
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: so let's give him a job now that we're running

964
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: things right. And Taodulo drinks with MacLean. The two of

965
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: them are hardcore alcoholics and they are just getting wasted

966
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 1: together all the time. So when the military government comes in,

967
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: they make McLean a colonel because they're like, well, this

968
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: guy knows the country, and Taodula's like, hey, can you

969
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,479
Speaker 1: give a job to my nephew, Like he's a good kid,

970
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 1: you know, he only occasionally commits horrible crimes. Albert Hicks,

971
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: an American journalist working in the country at the time,

972
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: describes McLean as a man who, quote, when sufficiently sober,

973
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: found a profound satisfaction in the company of Harlot's, which is,

974
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:42,240
Speaker 1: you know, probably another reason why he likes Trujio, because

975
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,399
Speaker 1: Trujio is a pimp in this period of time.

976
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 2: So question the guy that wrote the general the biography

977
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 2: of this guy who said he didn't do any atrocities,

978
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 2: does he mention any atrocities, even like in a positive way.

979
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: Of Truio, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, later on, I didn't.

980
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 2: Commit anything like this, but I okay, yes, yeah yeah.

981
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 1: That's a common common story for guys and dictatorships. So

982
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 1: Hicks goes on to claim that Tiadulo introduced his nephew

983
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: Trujeo to MacLean during a drinking session and quote Raphael immediately,

984
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: recognizing a job he could fill, played the pimp to

985
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: the chief of the constabulary. So McLean gets made like

986
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: the head of the police basically just because he's an

987
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 1: American who lives in the country. And Truio's like, hey,

988
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 1: you want some you want some ladies, Like I'm a pimp.

989
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: I can satisfy your needs, you know, And this gets

990
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: him in good with the Americans, and you know, he

991
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: moves on quickly from giving McLean prostitutes to supplying prostitutes

992
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:45,839
Speaker 1: to American Marines, which is a great way to get

993
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 1: the Marines to like you historically. Now, once MacLean is

994
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,720
Speaker 1: kind of hooking Trujeo up with the occupation authorities, Truio

995
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: starts finding other ways to police American officers. He starts

996
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: acting as an informer to basically go into communities that

997
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: are like resisting the American occupation that are like harboring insurgents,

998
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: and he'll make friends in there, and then he'll go

999
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: back to the Americans and be like, here's who you

1000
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: go massacre, right, these are the people who like, are

1001
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: are you harboring these folks? W are who are resisting

1002
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: the regime? And he soon as a result of this,

1003
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: falls in with the absolute bloodiest of the Marines that

1004
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 1: are in the country. A guy named Captain Murcley, So

1005
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: this is Merclay, is an American who is running the

1006
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: pacification campaign in the east of the Dominican Republic. And

1007
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: he makes trueO his right hand man, and together the

1008
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: two of them cut a bloody swath across the countryside.

1009
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: Murclay is so out of hand that the US Senate

1010
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 1: eventually investigates him and finds that he has quote a

1011
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: policy of repression that has been carried out by the

1012
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,240
Speaker 1: forces of the occupation and is inherently unwise, which reacted

1013
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: primarily upon peaceful civilians, and as the result of which

1014
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 1: many atrocities were undoubtedly committed. So like, this guy gets

1015
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: so out of pow that the US Senate in like

1016
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen is like, we can't have you occupying the

1017
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:10,839
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic your two fucking nuts? Now, this passage from

1018
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,959
Speaker 1: the biography tru Heio, Little Caesar of the Caribbean, gives

1019
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: us more context as to what he was doing with Mercley.

1020
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 1: Another competent observer, the historian and economist Melvin M. Knight, says,

1021
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 1: in Americans in Santo Domingo, a number of Dominicans. We

1022
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 1: may be certain that nobody knows exactly how many were

1023
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: put to death offhand by the Marines, and some were

1024
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: tortured without ever having their day in court at all.

1025
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: In fairness, however, it must be said that Captain Merkley's

1026
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:38,239
Speaker 1: end was appropriate to his corrupt practice. The assassinations by

1027
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:41,240
Speaker 1: Captain Merkley were repudiated by his superiors, and he committed

1028
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: suicide while awaiting for trial, asserts Knight. Knight's version is

1029
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: supported by Sumner Wells in his aforementioned book. Nevertheless, if

1030
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 1: Merkley himself paid dearly for his cruelty and sadism, his

1031
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: methods unfortunately did not disappear. With him and young Trujillo.

1032
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: He left behind a keen, proficient disciple who was carried

1033
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: on the sadistic tradition long after his teacher's name is

1034
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: no longer remembered. So he gets his boss, Mercley, and

1035
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 1: they massacre and torture probably hundreds of people to try

1036
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: to pacify the eastern chunk of this of the Dominican Republic.

1037
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:16,359
Speaker 1: The Senate gets involved and is like, wow, you need

1038
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: to come back here and stand trial because what you

1039
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:20,800
Speaker 1: have been doing is so out of hand. And Merkley

1040
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:25,200
Speaker 1: fucking kills himself leaving. Trueheo to be like, well, it's

1041
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 1: sad he's dead, but at least he taught me how

1042
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: to be a real piece of shit. So yeah, a

1043
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: proud chapter in US Marine Corps history right there.

1044
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 2: He's like, time for me to take up this torch.

1045
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 1: It's my time now, Yeah, it is his time. And

1046
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,319
Speaker 1: he has been a freelancer for the US Marines up

1047
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:48,240
Speaker 1: to this point, but once Mercley commits suicide, he decides

1048
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: I need a more formal job. And it just so

1049
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 1: happens that during this period, the US occupation government has

1050
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: decided we need to set up a permanent military force.

1051
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: The Dominican Constabulary geared it keep the interior pacified. Once

1052
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: the Marines leave in December of nineteen eighteen, Rafael is

1053
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: accepted into this program. He gets commissioned as an officer,

1054
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 1: and he rises very quickly through the ranks due in

1055
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: part to the fact that Colonel MacLean is running the constabulary,

1056
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: so like he's basically bribing his boss with prostitutes in

1057
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: order to get promoted to the point where he's running

1058
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 1: the constabulary. So he goes from second loot yeah, yeah, yeah.

1059
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,240
Speaker 1: Any there are more allegations of rape and extortion against

1060
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,400
Speaker 1: Hi during this period of time. He gets court martialed

1061
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: for rape, but like nothing happens to him. He keeps

1062
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: getting promoted because he's providing prostitutes to the Marines, so

1063
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 1: they don't want him out of there. And he's kind

1064
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: of he has this reputation of being because he's worked

1065
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,360
Speaker 1: with Mercley and he knows how to like kill a

1066
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: shitload of people. He's like the guy if you're having

1067
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 1: trouble in an area, if like there's you know, uprisings

1068
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,279
Speaker 1: or whatever, He's this guy you can send in because

1069
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: you don't want to do it yourself. You saw what

1070
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 1: happened to Merkley, right, It's bad business for the Americans

1071
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 1: to go committing massacres directly. But you can send this

1072
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,319
Speaker 1: guy in with some dudes, with some Dominicans and he'll

1073
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 1: fucking kill people, right, and then you can you don't

1074
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: have to get in trouble yourself and commit suicide after

1075
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: a senate investigation. So, prior to US or military involvement,

1076
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: most of the military power in the Dominican Republic had

1077
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: been in the hands of these kind of local warlords

1078
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 1: who'd maintained private militias and sometimes sent the scraps of

1079
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: their militias down to the central government when they had

1080
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: a war to fight with Haiti or whatever. And officers,

1081
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,359
Speaker 1: inasmuch as they existed, had always been members of a

1082
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,800
Speaker 1: small wealthy class in the country. The Americans wanted to

1083
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: change this, in part because the Kadillos were their enemies, right.

1084
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 1: They didn't want to like these guys to continue to

1085
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:46,919
Speaker 1: have all the military power. So one of the first

1086
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: things we do is we disarm the countryside. So we

1087
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 1: take weapons both from the militias that these guys have

1088
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: had and from peasants. We wind up confiscating about three

1089
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:59,120
Speaker 1: million firearms, which is enough to arm every man, woman

1090
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: and child in the country three times over. And that

1091
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of how hard it was to

1092
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: control this place. They have three guns for every person

1093
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: in the country out in the just out in the sticks,

1094
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:13,879
Speaker 1: you know, very heavily armed little land. Before we come

1095
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:15,920
Speaker 1: there and we take all of their guns and we

1096
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 1: dump them into the sea, and then we build roads

1097
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: so that this new constabulary that we're training can access

1098
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: all these isolated areas of the rural interior.

1099
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 2: And like, we dump three million guns into the sea.

1100
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: Yep, cool, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's how

1101
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 1: we that's how we handle this. Now that number is

1102
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,959
Speaker 1: probably exaggerated, right, Like this is coming from that dude

1103
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: who winds up running the secret Police, So I don't

1104
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: know that he's a credible source on how many guns

1105
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,560
Speaker 1: the US took. But we send in the Marines, We

1106
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 1: take all of the weapons in the countryside, and we

1107
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: shove them into the ocean.

1108
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 2: Right, Honestly, it's not our worst plan.

1109
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 1: It's not the worst thing we're going to do here,

1110
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 1: although we are doing it so that we can enforce

1111
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: a dictatorship that sends money to us. So we disarm

1112
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: the countryside, we send in the Marines, they build all

1113
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: these roads so that we can, you know, stop any

1114
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 1: sort of resistance to this new regime we're trying to

1115
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 1: put in place. And you know, this this military force

1116
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: we're building, we call it a constabulary because its goal

1117
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: is primarily policing, and we don't want it to become

1118
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: like another militia like all of the other ones that

1119
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 1: have run the country. So we avoid hiring from the

1120
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: groups who had traditionally run the Dominican military, right and

1121
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: particularly who had provided officers for the Dominican military, and

1122
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 1: instead we start promoting as officers the absolute dregs of

1123
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:42,440
Speaker 1: Dominican society, poor peasant type people. Now, the Marines are

1124
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 1: always good at finding the absolute dregs of society, That's

1125
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: what they do. And one of the guys that they're

1126
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: going to pick is like, oh, this dude is like

1127
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 1: exactly who should be running this policing force is Rafael Druhio.

1128
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: And to talk about how that happened, I'm going to

1129
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: read a quote from the book The Dictator's Seduction by

1130
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 1: Lauren Derby. Widespread resistance to becoming part of the United

1131
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: States led force meant that recruiters were forced to enlist

1132
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 1: what a witness described as the worst rascals, thieves, and

1133
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: assassins in the country. If the military had previously been

1134
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: a millions of social assent for the respectable poor, it

1135
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: was now open to the anonymous crowd. Trujillo and the

1136
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: other young officers pulled from the ranks of the obscure

1137
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: never forgot that the United States was their benefactor. In

1138
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: his book, Arturo Espiallet describes how Trujillo and his fellow

1139
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: News soldiers pacified the interior with the Marines and the

1140
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: impact that it left on them. It may be considered

1141
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: a left handed compliment to the Corps, but Trujillo always

1142
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 1: thought of himself as basically a Marine Corps officer and

1143
00:59:40,280 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 1: damned proud of it. It was typical, for instance, that

1144
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 1: of the forty to fifty decorations conferred upon him during

1145
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:48,880
Speaker 1: his long career, Trujillo was proudest of a faded, threadbare

1146
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:51,880
Speaker 1: medal attesting to his service with the Marines. So that

1147
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 1: is interesting. This guy who's going to become a dictator

1148
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:56,200
Speaker 1: considers himself a United States Marine.

1149
00:59:56,520 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 2: Um.

1150
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: You know, we could talk a little bit about our

1151
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:04,320
Speaker 1: buddy Smedley Butler, the Marine who would become one of

1152
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: the most decorated soldiers in US history and later write

1153
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,880
Speaker 1: that he had never been anything but a gangster for capitalism.

1154
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: This is the period that that's going down in, right Like.

1155
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:17,200
Speaker 1: This is why Smedley feels that way because one of

1156
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 1: the long term results of US occupation is that the

1157
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 1: Marines trained true hero and make him basically a made

1158
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: man to enforce this regime that exists to send money

1159
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: to US companies, and he is going to be a

1160
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: pretty brutal dictator using the things that he's learned from

1161
01:00:34,440 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 1: the Americans. The US occupation of the Dominican Republicans in

1162
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:41,920
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four and policing authority is handed over to

1163
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:45,840
Speaker 1: the constabulary as at the same time as the Marines leave,

1164
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: the United States takes over as the largest foreign exchange

1165
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 1: producer in the country, and they start flooding the Dominican

1166
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: Republic with duty free US goods. Now, if you're contact

1167
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: with the phrase duty free is in an airport, that

1168
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 1: may sound great, right, you get all the cheap cigars

1169
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 1: and liquor you could want, But this is actually a

1170
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:06,920
Speaker 1: real problem because when you are forcibly making it that

1171
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: like your country gets to sell duty free products in

1172
01:01:10,080 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 1: another country what that means is that US products are

1173
01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: able to undercut every single national industry. So all of

1174
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 1: the Dominican people's money is flowing back to the United States,

1175
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:24,080
Speaker 1: but local Dominican companies are not, Like the government is

1176
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: not drawing taxes on those transactions, and local Dominican companies

1177
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 1: can't make money because they are never going to be

1178
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 1: as cheap as mass produced US products that are being

1179
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 1: sold duty free in the Dominican Republic. So it kind

1180
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 1: of inherently cripples the economy. Like we leave and say,

1181
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:41,959
Speaker 1: by the way, we're making it impossible for you guys

1182
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: to ever get on your own feet. Fuck you you

1183
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:50,080
Speaker 1: know USA number one and they were here, Yeah, yes, yes, exactly, Yes.

1184
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:52,880
Speaker 1: This is just you know, this is an this is

1185
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:59,240
Speaker 1: an escalation from controlling like the customs ports. So this

1186
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: all necessity that the government take on more debt in

1187
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:04,560
Speaker 1: order to survive, and we all know historically how that

1188
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 1: goes for countries on the island of Hispaniola. Now, the

1189
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: interim president of the Dominican Republic had been a guy

1190
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 1: named Horatio Vasquez who adopted Rafael as a pupil and

1191
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: put him in charge of the constabulary. And again This

1192
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: is supposed to be a policing force, but as soon

1193
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: as the Americans leave, Rafael spends his first few years

1194
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 1: running it, turning it from a policing force into a

1195
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:29,920
Speaker 1: proper army. He puts his own picked men in positions

1196
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 1: of command, and in nineteen thirty he's in a situation

1197
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: where he feels like he can carry out a coupdettas

1198
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 1: against the president. Now, part of how he does this

1199
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 1: is he makes a deal with Like in many countries

1200
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: where the US is set up a leadership, there are rebels,

1201
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:47,960
Speaker 1: right and as soon as the US leaves, these rebels

1202
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: start fighting the central government. The rebels in the Dominican

1203
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:54,560
Speaker 1: the most powerful faction is under a guy named Rafael Urina. Now,

1204
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:58,480
Speaker 1: in exchange for putting Urina in power, Truhillo agrees that

1205
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:03,120
Speaker 1: you know, basically true. He agrees, I will stop the

1206
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: military from fighting the rebels so that you guys can

1207
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: take over the government, and then you have to carry

1208
01:03:08,400 --> 01:03:10,840
Speaker 1: out new elections, and I have to be allowed to

1209
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 1: run for president in the new election. So they work

1210
01:03:13,080 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 1: this out amongst themselves to make it seem like there's

1211
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:19,560
Speaker 1: been a legitimate rebellion against Vasquez and now they're having

1212
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: a free election and that Trohillo is going to win it.

1213
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: It's not going to be a free election. Right, This

1214
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 1: all works like Gangbusters. The rebels march on the capitol,

1215
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: Trujillo doesn't stop them. Vesquez steps down as president, and yeah,

1216
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: there's an election and Urina and Trujillo run on a

1217
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 1: joint ticket and Trujillo becomes the president. So you know

1218
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 1: that's how that shit goes. Good? Stuff worked, well, yeah,

1219
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: it does, It does work more or less. Well, so, yeah,

1220
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: what followed is the kind of dictator, fake presidential election

1221
01:03:56,840 --> 01:04:00,120
Speaker 1: stuff that we're used to on this podcast. Right, he

1222
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: is the president, the military threatens to murder or at

1223
01:04:03,440 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: least allow the murder of anyone who runs against him.

1224
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:07,960
Speaker 1: So he gets ninety nine percent of the vote in

1225
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,400
Speaker 1: this election. He in fact, gets more votes than there

1226
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 1: are voters in the Dominican Republic, which we as the

1227
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 1: United States, who are basically keeping an eye on everything

1228
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 1: to make sure that the money keeps flowing. Like the

1229
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 1: US ambassador is like, yeah, this is a scam election,

1230
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 1: Like he absolutely has just made himself dictator, and everyone

1231
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 1: in Washington is pretty much like it's fine, Like he's

1232
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: basically a marine, right, like we can trust him to

1233
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 1: do the shit that we want him to do.

1234
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 2: Support our veterans.

1235
01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:41,720
Speaker 1: Yeah right, he's a vet, you know. So while Raphaeltruhio's

1236
01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: rise to power is more or less standard strong man

1237
01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:47,920
Speaker 1: coup stuff, how he actually performs while in office is

1238
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:53,520
Speaker 1: pretty ingenious and in consolidating power and exercising it, TRUEHEO

1239
01:04:53,640 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 1: is going to kind of prove himself to be something

1240
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:58,480
Speaker 1: of a visionary when it comes to being a dictator.

1241
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: But that's all coming in part two, along with unfortunately

1242
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:06,400
Speaker 1: a genocide cat. You got anything to plug before we

1243
01:05:06,520 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: roll out here?

1244
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 2: Uh?

1245
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1246
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 2: Go follow me on TikTok, at katamboo and YouTube where

1247
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:14,760
Speaker 2: I do wrong form content. I had a very dumb

1248
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:17,240
Speaker 2: video probably coming out the end of the month or

1249
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 2: next month. So follow me there and then there are

1250
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 2: once again a billion other platforms. Just hook me up,

1251
01:05:23,160 --> 01:05:23,680
Speaker 2: I guess.

1252
01:05:23,960 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, find Kataboo on Twitter or not Twitter, well on Twitter,

1253
01:05:29,160 --> 01:05:33,360
Speaker 1: but on TikTok and the YouTube's avoid Twitter. It's a

1254
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:36,919
Speaker 1: bad place. Now, They're all bad places. I guess. There's

1255
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: not any good places on the internet except for this podcast,

1256
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 1: which you can get ad free by subscribing to cooler

1257
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 1: Zone Media. That's the episode.

1258
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:52,640
Speaker 3: Goodbye Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1259
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia

1260
01:05:56,440 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 3: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts,

1261
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:02,320
Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.