Ulises Francisco Espaillat

Ulises Francisco Espaillat Quiñones (February 9, 1823 – 1878) was a Dominican author and politician. He served as president of the Dominican Republic from April 29, 1876 to October 5, 1876. Espaillat Province is named after him.

Ulises Francisco Espaillat Quiñones was born on 9 February 1823 in Santiago de los Caballeros into a wealthy family of French, Canarian and Aragonese descent; he was the only son of Pedro Ramón Espaillat Velilla (Santiago, 1796−idem, 1882) and María Petronila Quiñones Tavares (1804−1874). His father was the tenth and junior child of Francisco Antonio Espaillat Virol —a Frenchman native to Masclat that settled in Santiago in 1758 in a epoch where one-third of the population was of French origin— and Petronila Velilla Sánchez —whose father was born in Aragon. He was described by his contemporaries as a tall, light-complexioned, blue-eyed and dark blond-haired man.

In his early childhood and adolescence he received lessons in English, French, music, mathematics and other disciplines, within the limited possibilities of school education that the country lived under the Haitian occupation. He later received medical lessons from a paternal uncle, Dr. Santiago Espaillat. For the first years of the decade started in 1840, he established a "drugstore", which was the popular name of pharmacies, at that time. In 1845, he married his first cousin Eloísa Espaillat Rodríguez, daughter of his uncle Juan José Espaillat.

Espaillat served in many offices, including Senator, member of the House of Representatives, Customs Inspector of Puerto Plata, and member of the Provincial Deputation of Santiago.

He opposed the Republic’s reannexation by Spain, and as a result, was exiled; he returned to his country in 1863. He served as Vice President in 1864.

With the support of Gregorio Luperón, Espaillat won election as president on March 24, 1876. Espaillat was a political and economic liberal who wished to broaden the personal freedoms of the Dominican people and improve the country's economy by taking from the producers of the society in order to pay for his ideas. However, he was forced to resign (on December 20, 1876) before he could set in motion any plan of action, due to rebellions in the south and east.

President Espaillat has been identified as the most recent common ancestor for most of the Dominican oligarchy and aristocracy, since his offspring managed to establish bonds with the most prominent families from Santiago, who became later the richest families of the country.