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The real parties that kept see-sawing in and out of power from the early days of the Republic down to the time of Heureaux were those founded by General Pedro Santana and General Buenaventura Baez.
In 1849 President Baez in his message to Congress referred to the advisability of "hastening a solution of the matter by obtaining the intervention and protection of a strong nation which would offer the most advantageous terms, for on this depends public prosperity."
The movement was successful and the Congress, completely convinced by the sight of a sword unsheathed in its presence by one of the victorious generals, elected Baez to the presidency. Since his overthrow in 1858 Baez had been in exile, but he had accepted Spanish sovereignty and the rank of fieldmarshal in the Spanish army.
While the adversaries of the treaty did not dare to oppose it actively within the country, it is probable that the vote represented the true sentiment of the Dominican people, for aside from the evident economic advantages of annexation, the influence of Baez was such that the people were ready to follow blindly whatever he advised.
Baez determined to take the offensive against Haiti, and a small naval campaign was undertaken in which Dominican government schooners captured Anse-a-Pitre and one or two other villages on the southern coast of Haiti, which were sacked and burned by the Dominicans.
In the Dominican Republic Baez introduced this rule in his presidency of 1868-1873, during which period decrees were dated in the following manner: "On the 3rd day of March, 1871, the 28th year of Independence, the 8th of the Restoration, and the 3rd of the Regeneration." The revolution of December, 1873, ended this regeneration, and the official references thereto.
Baez held out for eleven months, but after the fall of Samana and when Santo Domingo was reduced to starvation he at length yielded to the entreaties of the foreign consuls and capitulated on June 12, 1858. As soon as he had embarked for Curacao, General Santana marched into the city with the victorious army.
On the outbreak of the War of the Restoration, he sent Cabral to join the Dominican forces as his representative. He was now living in Curacao and a commission journeyed there to invite him back to Santo Domingo, a council inaugurated on October 25, 1865, meanwhile taking charge. A new constitution was drafted and promulgated on November 14, 1865, and on the same day Baez entered upon his office.
The death of Baez in 1884 threw the Reds into confusion and their constant persecution by the "blue" President Ulises Heureaux effectually crushed them. Ulises Heureaux with Blues, Reds and Greens built up his own party of "Lilicistas" which remained in power until his death in 1899. In the later years of Heureaux's rule the distinguishing color used by his troops was white.
Baez, who was to play a leading part in the history of his country during the next thirty years, was the antithesis of Santana in manners and education. Born in Azua in 1812, the oldest of a family of seven children, his father had sent him to Europe to study and he returned one of the most polished and best educated Dominicans of his day.
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