In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surnameis Henríquez and the second or maternal family name is Carvajal.
Francisco Hilario Henríquez y Carvajal (14 January 1859 – 6 February 1935)[1] was a medical doctor, lawyer, writer, educator and politician from the Dominican Republic, who served as president just prior to the US occupation of the country.
Henríquez was born in Santo Domingo, to a family descended from Sephardic Jews who immigrated in the 19th century from Curaçaofrom the Netherlands.[2][3] After studying extensively in his homeland, beginning in 1887, Henríquez moved to Paris for four years, earning a doctorate in Medicine the University of Paris. He returned to the Dominican Republic, where he practiced medicine and taught. He served as editor of the newspaper El Maestro, but left the country during the dictatorship of Ulises Heureaux. While away, he befriended Juan Isidro Jiménez and returned to the Dominican Republic in 1899 to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs when Heureaux was assassinated and Jiménez was made president.
Following the fall of Jiménez in 1902, Henríquez established residence in Cuba and practiced medicine. He returned briefly to his country of birth following the interim government of Horacio Vásquez in 1903, but he left several months later. In 1907, President Ramón Cáceres sent him as a delegate to the Hague Convention. In 1911 Henríquez served as an emissary to Haiti following border disputes.
In 1916, Henríquez was on a diplomatic mission when he learned that the Dominican Republic had been occupied by the United States. The Council of Secretaries of State led by Horacio Vásquez elected Henríquez President.[5][6] He served from 31 July to 29 November 1916.[7] His successor was United States military governor Harry Shepard Knapp.
During the presidency of Rafael Trujillo, he served as envoy in France and Cuba from 1930 to 1935.
Dominican educator and feminist Rosa Smester Marrero praised Henríquez in her writings while he was still alive. She had written to Henríquez in May 1920 to donate to the Nationalist cause during the American occupation,[8] In her 1929 article Así es, she praised Henríquez's intellectual attributes, which lent him to being an "enlightened" feminist man.[9][10]
^Mendez, Serafín Mendez and Gail Cueto (2003). Notable Caribbeans and Caribbean Americans: a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN978-0-313-31443-8
^[1]Archived 13 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine Biography of Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal (in Spanish)
^Read, Jaime (23 August 2010). "Familias capitaleñas: Los Henríquez". Cápsulas Genealógicas (in Spanish) (1/3). Santo Domingo: Hoy. Retrieved 3 February 2014. Este apellido se origina en la península Ibérica, tanto en Portugal como en España, de familias judías sefardíes que marcharon posteriormente hacia el norte, llegando a Holanda, a raíz de la expulsión de judíos luego de la Reconquista. De allí parten hacia las colonias neerlandesas del Caribe, llegando a Curazao. En la República Dominicana, el tronco de esta familia fue Noel Henríquez Altías (n. 25 diciembre de 1813), natural de Curazao
^Staff report (18 May 1916). NEW DOMINICAN PRESIDENT.; Chamber of Deputies Elects Abreu; Senate Expected to Confirm.New York Times
^Staff report (10 June 1916). Sees us at fault in Santo Domingo; Former Receiver General of Customs There Blames the Administration. Charges Public Deception. Says the "Ostrich-like" Policy of the United States Has Finally Resulted in the Spilling of Blood. New York Times
^Staff report (28 July 1916). DR. CARVAJAL LEAVES CUBA.; Sails for Santo Domingo to Take Office as President. New York Times