Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina (October 24, 1891 – May 30, 1961), nicknamed El Jefe (Spanish: The Chief or The Boss), is the ruler of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
He officially serves as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman under figurehead presidents.
His 30 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: La Era de Trujillo), is considered one of the bloodiest eras ever in the Americas, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo are in abundance.
It has been estimated that Trujillo's tyrannical rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 people, including 20,000 to 30,000 in the infamous Parsley Massacre.
The Trujillo tyranny unfolds in a Latin American environment that is particularly fertile in dictatorial regimes.
His dictatorship is contemporaneous, in whole or in part, with those of Machado and Batista in Cuba, the two Somozas (Anastasio Garcia and Anastasio Debayle) in Nicaragua, Ubico and Castillo Armas in Guatemala, Hernández Martínez in Salvador, Carías Andino in Honduras, Juan Vicente Gómez and Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela, Rojas Pinilla in Colombia, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, and François Duvalier in Haiti.
But in retrospect, the Trujillo dictatorship has been characterized as more naked, more achieved, and more brutal than those that rose and fell around it.
Trujillo's rule brings the country more stability and prosperity than any living Dominican had previously known.
The price, however, is high — civil liberties are nonexistent and human rights violations are routine.
Due to the longevity of Trujillo's rule, a detached evaluation of his legacy is difficult.
Supporters of Trujillo claim that he reorganized both the state and the economy, and left vast infrastructure to the country.
His detractors point to the brutality of his rule, and also claim that much of the country's wealth wound up in the hands of his family or close associates.
