From 1930, Rafael Trujillo and his family hold absolute power on the Dominican side of the island of Hispañola (Shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti).
Popularly, he is known as El Jefe ("The Chief") or El Benefactor (The Benefactor), but he is privately referred to as Chapitas — literally, "bottlecaps" — because of his indiscriminate use of medals.
Dominican children emulate El Jefe by constructing toy medals from bottle caps.
He is also called el chivo ("the goat").
His tyranny, historically known as "La Era de Trujillo" or "The Trujillo Era," is considered one of the bloodiest of the 20th century, as well as a time of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Rafael Trujillo are in abundance.
