The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic

THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

146

Early Life

Some Dominican historians who have writ-

ten about Juan Bautista Cambiaso have not

been able to specify the date on which this

Italian-Dominican hero first arrived in the

Spanish part of the island of Santo Domin-

go. It is curious that the national historian

José Gabriel García, who knew him per-

sonally, did not obtain precise data regard-

ing his arrival. Rufino Martínez notes that

Cambiaso “came to the colony very young

... [that] during the Haitian Occupation he

devoted himself to business [and that] he

had some practice in seamanship.”

The

expression “very young” used by Martín-

ez makes it reasonable to conjecture that

Juan Bautista arrived in Santo Domingo

when he was barely a young man and with

little professional experience, but unfortu-

nately, it tells us little about the skills that

he acquired in the field of seamanship and

maritime trade. If we start from his date of

birth, as recorded in his baptismal certifi-

cate, we must agree that Cambiaso arrived

in Santo Domingo during the late stage of

Haitian occupation,

i.e.,

toward the end of

the 1830s, when he was 15, or perhaps a bit

older.

During the 1830s, Italy was shaken

by a nationalist revolutionary movement,

led by Giuseppe Mazzini, among others,

who under the motto of “God and People”

fought for the unification of the various

Italian kingdoms and states before pro-

ceeding to the creation of an independent

republic. According to Emilio Rodríguez

Demorizi, there is an admirable parallelism

in the public careers of Giuseppe Mazzini

and Juan Pablo Duarte. Both revolutionar-

ies embodied and espoused ideas of republicanism and independence in their respective homelands, and

they dedicated their entire lives, “to the exclusion of all other endeavors, to the ideas of freedom that con-

stituted the purpose and the sole and vehement aspiration of these twin souls.”

These political ideas were certainly not alien to the Cambiaso brothers when they settled in the

country. What might have impelled them to migrate to Santo Domingo? There must have been a point of

reference at the dawn of the nineteenth century regarding the favorite island of the famous Genoese navi-

gator, Christopher Columbus, on the grounds that Italians had established themselves there from the initial

period of the Reconquest. It can be concluded, therefore, that Juan Bautista and Luis Cambiaso—who were

engaged in maritime trade—first arrived in the Caribbean region, via Saint Thomas, attracted by business

Opening page:

Painting of Admiral

Juan Bautista

Cambiaso, preserved

in the Academy

of Cadets of the

Dominican Navy,

whose copy was

donated by the

Dominican Navy to the

Italian Embassy during

the Italian national

festivities in Santo

Domingo on June 2,

2019.

Page 145:

Cambiaso Letter

1/ From Juan Bautista

Cambiaso to Carlos

Nouel. Saint Thomas,

March 16, 1866.

AGN, Carlos Nouel

Collection. It gives an

account of the private

efforts made by the

former in relation

to the agreement

of a debt payment

belonging to the latter

in Saint Thomas;

Cambiaso was on his

way to Genoa, Italy,

where he was born.

Nación

Uniform of the

First Officer of the

Navy, Admiral Juan

Bautista Cambiaso,

safeguarded by

his descendants,

the Porcella family

members.