Juan Bautista Vicini Burgos
Encyclopedia
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
political figure. He served as the president of the Dominican Republic between 1922 and 1924 under the U.S. military occupation.
Early life
Juan Bautista Vicini was born on 19 July 1871 to ItalianItalian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
immigrant Juan Bautista (Giovanni Battista) Vicini and his wife Maria Burgos. His father arrived to the Dominican Republic during the boom in the sugar industry which he took advantage of to create a respectable operation within a relatively short amount of time. According to the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
H. Hoetink in his book El Pueblo Dominicano, 1850-1900, his father owned two sugar plantations by 1882 and by 1893 was the owner of the sugar mill "Angelina". His friendly relationship with General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Ulises Heureaux
Ulises Heureaux
Ulises Heureaux Lebert was president of the Dominican Republic from 1 September 1882 to 1 September 1883, from 6 January to 27 February 1887 and again from 30 April 1889 until his assassination, maintaining power between his terms.-Early life:Heureaux, affectionately known as Lilís, was born in...
(Lilís) helped him consolidate a respectable fortune. Vicini inherited his fathers business and was able to become a successful businessman mainly by part of his strict Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an education. Vicini was fluent
Fluent
Fluent can refer to:* fluency, in linguistics, the ability to communicate quickly.* fluent , in mathematics, a continuous function* fluent , in artificial intelligence, a condition that varies over time...
in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
at a very young age.
Political career
The Dominican Republic had been occupied by American Troops since 1916 and after the approval of the Hughes-Peynado plan Vicini was a candidate for the position of provisional President of the Dominican Republic. He was elected President in 1922 and his main goal was to facilitate the evacuation of the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
troops that were present in the Dominican Republic. The day after he was elected, Vicini named the five men who would make up his cabinet. They were as follows:
- José del Carmen Ariza, Secretary of Internal Affairs
- Cayetano Armando Rodríquez, Secretary of Justice and Instruction
- Eladio Sánchez, Secretary of Promotion and Communications
- Manuel Sanabia, Secretary of Health and Charity
- Pedro Pérez, Secretary of Agriculture and Immigration
With these steps, Vicini assured the removal of the North American forces in a peaceful manner. Despite its good intentions, Vicini's regime was plagued and pressured by the tight grip of the Hughes-Peynado plan and by the American forces that were still in the country. Even so, he set up the cleanest elections that the Dominican Republic had ever seen in which Horacio Vásquez
Horacio Vásquez
Felipe Horacio Vásquez Lajara was a Dominican general and political figure. He served as the acting president of the Dominican Republic in 1899, and again between 1902 and 1903. Supporters of Vásquez were known as Horacistas, as opposed to Jimenistas, supporters of Vásquez's main rival, Juan...
won on 15 March 1924 against Francisco J. Peynado.
When Vicini left the presidency after the elections, he went back to his sugar business and abandoned politics for the remainder of his life. At the time of his death on 25 May 1935 Juan Bautista Vicini left his relatives one of the largest sugar enterprises in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, which is still operating as of 2010.