Gaspar Polanco

Son of Valentín Polanco (1790-), a wealthy hatero from Santiago de los Caballeros who owned cattle and tobacco farms and lived in Monte Cristi, and Martina de Borbón. Despite coming from a distinguished bourgeois family, he did not attend school as a child and could not read or write, although he did sign his name. His older brother, Juan Antonio Polanco, was also a brigadier general in the Restoration War and one of its main organizers. His sister, Rita Polanco Borbón, was the wife of restaurateur Federico de Jesús García. His niece Ana Polanco, daughter of Juan Antonio, was the wife of Federico and 9th president of the Dominican Republic Pedro Antonio Pimentel.

Polanco Borbón married Maria Ortega in Santiago de los Caballeros, later settling in Cañeo, Esperanza in the province of Valverde, where his four sons grew up: Tomás, Francisco, Manuel and José Mauricio, who dedicated themselves to agricultural activities in the estates of the family in Valverde and Navarrete.

In 1844, he participated in the Dominican War of Independence, with the rank of colonel, standing out in the Battle of Talanquera and the Battle of March 30. He excelled in the Northwest Line military campaigns with troops from rural areas. In 1848, he was promoted to captain and assigned to the Northwest Line Cavalry units, participating during that year and 1849, in actions of siege, harassment and attacks by the Haitian forces stationed in the region along the Maguaca River.

By then, Polanco had gained fame as a vanguard soldier, an expert connoisseur of the terrain of the region and would always be the leader of scouts and vanguard. With the rank of lieutenant colonel and vanguard chief, he stood out in the Battles of Sabana Larga and Jácuba, for which at the same time he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1858, he occupied the military headquarters of the La Peñuela Section.

Polanco's dedication to the restorative cause was unquestionable. He did not approve of the vacillating attitude towards the Spanish authorities of the government headed by José Antonio Salcedo (Pepillo), who had proclaimed himself President of the Republic without the approval of the majority of restaurateurs. The restorative revolution had lost its dynamism due to the negligent attitudes and suspicious movements of President Salcedo. Influenced by his brother Juan Antonio, who was enlightened, he led the rebellion against Salcedo and led to his overthrow on October 10, 1864.

After overthrowing Salcedo from the presidency, he was president of the Republic in arms from October 10, 1864, to January 24, 1865. During his government, Polanco took some very positive measures for the country both in economic terms as educational. Ulises Francisco Espaillat was his vice-president, and his cabinet included the restorers Máximo Grullón Salcedo and Silverio Delmonte on the Interior and Police Commission; and the restorer and poet Manuel Rodríguez Objío in the Foreign Relations Commission.

He ordered Gregorio Luperón to exile former President Salcedo to Haiti, but the Haitian authorities did not accept him. In order not to risk the success of the restoration and due to Salcedo's intentions to sponsor the return of the annexationist leader Buenaventura Báez, Polanco, with the approval of the other restorers, ordered the execution of Salcedo. Despite the overwhelming success of the restorative feat, his action against Salcedo overshadowed the glory of Polanco Borbón in certain ruling circles.

Bust of Gaspar Polanco in the Independence Park

He was overthrown from the presidency by a movement that his brother Juan Antonio supported led by Pimentel, Monción and García, who considered his attempt to monopolize tobacco with his friends and associates as an arbitrary and dictatorial decision, and he went on to dedicate himself to their herds and agricultural activities where he lived in Esperanza, Valverde.

After the Republic was restored, Polanco participated in various revolutionary movements, like all those of his time, for a simple replacement of the Government. In an armed action in 1867 in defense of the government of Gral. José María Cabral, the first president elected by universal suffrage, he was wounded in the foot. He was taken to receive medical attention in Santiago and then transferred to the city of La Vega, where he died of tetanus, as a result of the wound received. His older brother Juan Antonio continued the anti-annexation struggle against Buenaventura Baez, leading at the end of 1873 a military rebellion in Monte Cristi together with Ulises Heureaux which, although it was put down, marked the beginning of the end of his six-year rule10.

His remains rest in the National Pantheon of the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo.