Births on January 26

Juan Pablo Duarte, Dominican philosopher and poet (d. 1876)

Juan Pablo Duarte (January 26, 1813 – July 15, 1876) was a Dominican military leader, writer, activist, and nationalist politician who was the foremost of the founding fathers of the Dominican Republic. As one of the most celebrated figures in Dominican history, Duarte is considered a national hero and revolutionary visionary in the modern Dominican Republic, who along with military general Ramón Matías Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, organized and promoted the Trinitario movement that eventually led to the Dominican revolt and independence from Haitian rule in 1844 and the start of the Dominican War of Independence.

Duarte became an officer in the National Guard and a year later in 1843 he participated in the "Reformist Revolution" against the dictatorship of Jean Pierre Boyer, who threatened to invade the western part of the island with the intention of unifying it. After the defeat of the Haitian President and the proclamation of Dominican independence in 1844, the Board formed to designate the first ruler of the nation and elected Duarte by a strong majority vote to preside over the nation but he declined the proposal, while Tomás Bobadilla took office instead.Duarte helped inspire and finance the Dominican War of Independence, paying a heavy toll which would eventually ruin him financially. Duarte also disagreed strongly with royalist and pro-annexation sectors in the nation, especially with the wealthy caudillo and military strongman Pedro Santana, who sought to rejoin the Spanish Empire. From these struggles, Santana emerged victorious while Duarte suffered in exile, living in Venezuela until his death in 1876.