Honestly, if you ask most people about the end of the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship, they’ll talk about the CIA or "The Butterflies." But they usually skip the man who actually pulled the trigger first. Antonio de la Maza wasn't just some random rebel. He was a man fueled by a very specific, bone-deep kind of rage that you only get when a regime makes things personal.
He killed a "God." At least, that's what Trujillo thought he was.
The Grudge That Changed Everything
Most history books make the assassination of Trujillo sound like a purely political move. It wasn't. For Antonio de la Maza, it was about his brother, Octavio.
See, the De la Maza family actually had ties to the regime early on. Antonio even managed a sawmill owned by Trujillo. But in 1956, the regime needed a fall guy for the disappearance of Jesús de Galíndez (a Basque scholar who vanished in NYC). They picked Octavio. They framed him, threw him in a cell, and then "suicided" him with a mosquito net.
Antonio didn't buy it. Not for a second.
Imagine the dinner table conversations. You've got a family that was once part of the inner circle, now realizing the man they served murdered their own kin. That kind of betrayal doesn't just go away. It festers. Antonio basically spent the next five years turning that grief into a very sharp, very focused weapon. He didn't just want a new government; he wanted the Generalissimo dead.
May 30, 1961: The Ambush on the Highway
It was a Tuesday night. Trujillo was headed to San Cristóbal to visit his mistress, Mona Sánchez. He was in his 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, unescorted except for his driver, Captain Zacarías de la Cruz.
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Antonio de la Maza was waiting.
He wasn't alone, obviously. He had a crew: Juan Tomás Díaz, Amado García Guerrero, and several others. They had three cars. When Trujillo’s Chevy passed them on the darkened highway, they gave chase.
It was messy.
There’s this myth that it was a clean hit. It wasn't. It was a chaotic, terrifying shootout in the dark. Antonio was the one who fired the first shot that hit the dictator. When the cars finally stopped and the smoke began to clear, Antonio walked up to the body. He wanted to be sure. He allegedly looked at the man who had ruled his country with an iron fist for 31 years and delivered the coup de grâce.
Basically, he finished it.
The Fatal Mistake in the Aftermath
Here is where things got really bad, really fast.
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The plan was supposed to involve a military coup led by General "Pupo" Román. But Román lost his nerve. He went home. He didn't trigger the uprising. While the assassins were driving around with Trujillo's body in the trunk of a car, the regime’s secret police—the SIM—were already waking up.
Antonio made a mistake that seems almost poetic in hindsight. In the heat of the battle, he left a .45 automatic pistol at the scene. It belonged to Juan Tomás Díaz. The SIM found it. They didn't need a detective to figure out who it belonged to.
By the next morning, the hunt was on.
Life on the Run
For a few days, Antonio de la Maza and Juan Tomás Díaz managed to hide in Santo Domingo. They were tucked away in a house, hoping for a miracle that never came. The SIM, led by the sadistic Johnny Abbes García, was tearing the city apart.
They weren't going to be taken alive.
On June 4, 1961, the SIM cornered them. It wasn't an arrest; it was a execution in the street. Antonio and Juan Tomás went down swinging in a massive gun battle. They died in the street, just a few blocks from where they had lived.
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Why We Still Talk About Him
A lot of people think the CIA did the whole thing. It’s true the US provided some guns—specifically three M1 carbines—but the CIA actually tried to cancel the hit at the last minute. They got cold feet after the Bay of Pigs disaster.
Antonio told them, basically, "Too late."
He didn't care about Washington's timeline. He cared about justice—or at least his version of it.
If you go to the Dominican Republic today, you’ll see his name on plazas and monuments. But for a long time, he was a complicated figure. Was he a hero or just a man seeking personal revenge? Honestly, he was probably both. You can’t separate the political liberation of a country from the personal grief of the man who led the charge.
Actionable Takeaways for History Buffs:
- Visit the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance: If you’re ever in Santo Domingo, this is a must. It puts the De la Maza story into the context of the "Trujillato" era.
- Read "The Feast of the Goat": Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel is fiction, but his portrayal of Antonio de la Maza is hauntingly close to the historical accounts of his intensity.
- Check the National Archives: If you're a real nerd for this stuff, look up the declassified JFK files. They detail exactly how much the US knew (and how little they actually controlled) regarding Antonio's group.
The story of Antonio de la Maza is a reminder that history isn't moved by faceless forces. Usually, it's just one guy who has finally had enough. He wasn't a saint. He was a businessman who became a killer because a dictator took his brother. And in doing so, he ended an era.