Brigadier General Manuel Nemesio Rodríguez Objío (19 December 1838 – 18 April 1871) was a Dominican poet and activist. A martyr of the Six Years' War, he was one of the early contributors to Dominican literature.
He fought in the Dominican War of Independence, the Cibaeño Revolution and the Dominican Restoration War. He founded the newspaper "La Voz del Cibao" in Santiago. He published several poems in the Sociedad Amigos del País Magazine. He was shot by order of Buenaventura Báez during the Six Years' War period, in the Ozama Fortress in Santo Domingo, on 18 April 1871.
Early life Family life Objío was born in Santo Domingo on 19 December 1838 into a middle-class white family of Spanish heritage. His parents were Bernardina Objío Noble (1814–1893) and Andrés Rodríguez Rodríguez ( 1810–1843). He was born on 19 December 1838 in the city of Santo Domingo, a few months after the formation of the secret society, La Trinitaria. His parents' home was on the southwest corner of El Conde and José Reyes streets. The location of his house hints that his parents, Andrés Rodríguez and Bernarda Objío (possibly born in Venezuela), belonged to the middle and upper urban strata. The civil registry documents support this, since Andrés Rodríguez appears in them as a "retail merchant." Some of the Trinitarios were friends of the family, which indicates that the boy Rodríguez Objío grew up under the influence of Juan Pablo Duarte's teachings.
At the time, everything was surrounded by difficulties, since the country was extremely poor and even the upper urban sectors lived in the midst of enormous precariousness. This situation worsened as a result of the premature death of Andrés Rodríguez, in February 1843, after having had two other children and a fourth daughter still to be born. The young widow was forced to go to Azua, where her family was, in order to dedicate herself to commercial activities. Bernarda Objío had experience helping her husband, and her first-born Manuel, still a child, had to participate in the search for subsistence at home. From there would come a vocation for business that he did not develop because of his strong literary interest. As he narrates in Relationships, he suffered several failures in commercial activities, which explains his social environment where the success of a company of any kind was difficult.
Of those first years, under Haitian rule, his friend and fellow poet, José Joaquín Pérez, refers:
Early activities At the age of 13, Rodríguez Objío returned to Santo Domingo to take a position as a shop assistant. In his own words, he led a lazy life and surrounded himself with "bad company," getting drunk a few times. On a trip to Azua, while a card game was in progress, the spark from one of the players' cigars caused the gunpowder keg on which he was sitting to explode. Rodríguez Objío was one of the few who did not lose their lives, which made him think that his life was sealed by a destiny. Despite this wayward existence, he began to attend the San Buenaventura school as a student, founded by President Buenaventura Báez during his first administration. During those times he was able to draw on the knowledge of some of the few cultural luminaries of the time, such as Félix María del Monte and Alejandro Angulo Guridi. Soon he began to write poetry, inspired by the work and exploits of Lord Byron. In 1855, when he was just 16 years old, he published his first poem, dedicated to "a young poetess." So, as he said years later, he was already a romantic spirit:
Upon returning from an eventful trip to New York in the company of a merchant who had carried out irregular transactions, a trip that he himself described as a disaster, in March 1856 he was appointed official in the Ministry of Finance by the incumbent, Manuel Delmonte, a friend of his family and member of Pedro Santana's circle. At the age of 17, he began a career in positions in the State that would generate internal conflicts. In reality, in accordance with his intellectual vocation, he was interested in contributing to the search for solutions to national problems. Together with other writers, such as his great friend Juan Bautista Zafra, he founded the Sociedad Amantes de las Letras, which he conceived as a space for reflection that would affect the problems that conservative politicians could not address. He presented his resignation shortly after being appointed, taking advantage of Santana's departure from power, and returned to Azua for a certain time.
The Cibaeño Revolution in 1857 found him in the city of Santo Domingo, where he had established a small business distilling beverages in the company of the poet Manuel Heredia. He was forced to fight on the Baecista side, under the command of General José María Cabral. But as soon as he could, he went over to Santiago's side, which maintained the siege of the walled city. In those months he established a relationship with General Santana, head of the besieging troops, who, upon noticing the talent of the young poet, appointed him part of his General Staff, despite the suspicion that his liberal ideas caused him. When the fourth and last Santana government was established, Rodríguez Objío was appointed first official of the Ministry of the Interior and Police, but he soon resigned. His already defined liberal inclinations led him to equally repudiate the two political leaders of the time, Santana and Báez.
He preferred to get involved in the reorganization of the Society of Lovers of Letters, in order to contribute to a type of collective action that put patriotism before any personal or group interest. As part of this cultural activism, he collaborated in the city's main newspapers, especially Flores del Ozama. Whether due to political differences or personal rivalries between writers, he was bitterly fought within this cenacle, which generated a feeling of disappointment. It is likely that the attacks to which he was subjected came from conservative writers who had joined the entity, such as Manuel de Jesús Galván.
From then on, his life would oscillate between the grandiose will to act in pursuit of the ideal and the passivity caused by disappointment. Unemployed and disconnected from literary society, he returned to Azua in 1860, in order to carry out commercial operations, just before the border rebellion in favor of Haiti led by General Domingo Ramírez and other figures of the Dominican army occurred. Santana settled in Azua to crush dissidence and took the young Rodríguez Objío as his personal secretary, who abandoned the position after three months when Santana returned to Santo Domingo.
Dominican Restoration War As soon as he was certain that Santana planned to annex the island to the Spanish monarchy, Rodríguez Objío went to Saint Thomas to meet with the exiled Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, who symbolized the spirit of national self-determination and equality. There is a version, not supported by him, that he was sent by conservative politicians who wanted to prevent the annexation to Spain. While informing the founder of the Republic of Santana's plans, he offered to fight them. In Relations, he remembers having told Sánchez that, despite the aversion he felt towards Báez, he preferred any ruler to foreign domination. The long-awaited meeting with the hero of national ideals generated a perennial veneration of his memory. "From that moment," he said, "my fate was linked to his; and even after his death, I was faithful to my promises." Rodriguez Objío would go on to write several pieces voicing his admiration for Sánchez, whom he would emulate and idolize and for the rest of his life.
Rodríguez Objío returned to Santo Domingo, so he did not accompany Sánchez on the expedition he led from Haiti, which culminated in his execution in July 1861. Seeing that the opposition to the annexation did not prosper, he decided to wait, convinced that the people would end up rebelling. In the meantime, Rodríguez Objío married María del Rosario Ravelo, sister of the Trinitarian Juan Nepomuceno Ravelo, who had inspired his youthful verses. He soon experienced disappointment in his passion, although he decided not to divorce. Years later, he met Rita Reyes in Santiago, who became the love of his life. He had children with both women and maintained the relationship until his death.
A few days after the Dominican Restoration War began, Rodríguez Objío fled to Venezuela in order to join the patriots. Given that his repudiation of the foreign regime was in the public domain and he was subject to police surveillance, he determined that it would not be feasible for him to travel to Santiago by land. He says that he was the first inhabitant of the capital who decided to join the insurgents. He stopped in Curaçao, where he met his relative Manuel Ezequiel Bruzual, leader of the liberal current that then predominated in Venezuela.
As in later quotes by Rodríguez Objío, slight modifications have been introduced to make them more readable. Venezuelan President Juan Crisostomo Falcón, gave aid to the Dominican revolutionaries. In Caracas, he joined the group formed by General Juan Pablo Duarte, in order to join the war, bringing resources from that country. Rodríguez Objío received the rank of colonel from Duarte, and both, along with Vicente Celestino Duarte and Mariano Diez, Duarte's brother and uncle, and the Venezuelan Candelario Oquendo, left Venezuela on 2 March 1864 and arrived in Monte Cristi on 25 March.
Almost immediately Rodríguez Objío was assigned to assist General Manuel María Castillo in the reorganization of the front of the southern region, after the setbacks inflicted on the patriots by the Spanish troops due to the mistakes of the previous leader, Pedro Florentino. On that front, where danger and extreme misery abounded, he distinguished himself by carrying out risky missions. He was concerned about establishing communication points with Haiti, the only means to obtain weapons and other essential items. He was appointed chief of the front staff and at times temporarily held the command of operations. He established himself as the warrior of freedom that he aspired to be, although he was already experiencing doubts about the relevance of the action.
Castillo's successor as southern leader, José María Cabral, asked him to go to Santiago for help. In this city he was surprised by the movement that led to the dismissal of President José Antonio Salcedo and the proclamation of the head of the army, Gaspar Polanco, as president with dictatorial powers. This evolution was caused by what several leaders considered stopping the war because of the president's military errors, as well as by his willingness to reach an agreement with the Spanish and promote the return of Buenaventura Báez to the supreme leadership of the country, who He had surprised many by accepting the rank of field marshal of the Spanish army. Rodríguez Objío himself had the opportunity to participate in the conversations that were held in Monte Cristi between Captain General José de la Gándara and a delegation from the government of Santiago, after this city was occupied by the Spanish army. Whether because he was convinced of Salcedo's errors or because of the radical vocation of Gaspar Polanco, Rodríguez Objío supported the actions of the latter, whose revolutionary dictatorship lasted just over three months.