On January 10, 1917, the San Pedro de Macor dock was besieged by American invaders commanded by Captain CH Burton, who were preparing to complete full control of the Dominican Republic.
The population was afraid to react because of the abuses and abuses that had been committed by the foreign army since they started the occupation of the country on May 15, 1916.
However, the invading forces could never have imagined that a black-skinned 17-year-old armed with a small 32-caliber revolver would have the courage not only to face them and kill Captain Burton, but also to escape from it. the hail of bullets that befell him as he played the lead and that would lead him to immortality.
That young man was called Gregorio Urbano Gilbert, whose remains will be transferred to the National Pantheon on the orders of the executive branch through Decree 08-21 promulgated by President Luis Abinader.
“Gregorio Urbano Gilbert deserves the distinction and veneration that the Dominican people bestow on their national heroes and heroines by transferring their remains to the National Pantheon,” the decree said.
Gilbert, a member of the invading resistance group “Los Gavilleros”, was incarcerated in Montecristi on charges against one of his companions who sold him to the invading army, for which he was sentenced to death in Santo Domingo for the execution of Captain Burton. . However, several personalities intervened in his favor and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment at Fort Ozama until he was released in October 1922.
In this regard, historian Roberto Cassá told LISTIN DIARIO that Urbano Gilbert deserves such an award for his patriotism and his internationalist trajectory in favor of the Latin American peoples.
“We must not forget that Gilbert was also in Nicaragua, alongside Augusto César Sandino, who faced the US invaders who had also occupied that country,” said Cassá. The historian also recalled that Gilbert supported the constitutionalists who faced the Second American Intervention in 1965.
“Gilbert wrote two books about his exploits during the First American Intervention (1916-1924) and his battle with Sandino in Nicaragua in the 1920s,” he explained. Establishment of committee Decree 08-21 provides in Article 2 for the establishment of the Increase Committee. This committee will be composed of the Minister of Culture, Carmen Heredia, who will chair the committee; the President of the Permanent Commission of National Ephemera, Juan Daniel Balcácer and the President of the Dominican Academy of History, José Felipe Chez Checo. Also the Director of the General Archives of the Nation, Roberto Cassá and the Rector of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), Emma Polanco. In addition, a representative from the Ministry of Education, the Interior and Police, Defense, the Dominican Association of Universities (ADOU) and the Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance. The coordinator is Euri Cabral.