 Oscar Eduardo Valerio Duran

 2014-0276
COMPOSITION

Pedro Francisco Bono

Pedro Francisco Bonó was born on October 18, 1828 and died on
September 14, 1906 (78 years old)., He was born in the city of Santiago,
into a family of merchants. Son of José Bonó, a rancher and merchant of
origin Italian, his mother Inés Mejía Port, of Spanish and French
descent. His maternal grandmother, Dona Eugenia Port, a native of
Brittany (north-western France), who had had large plantations and
fortune in the French Santo Domingo until the outbreak of the Haitian
Revolution, he taught him the French language and formed it
intellectually.
From his childhood to his youth he lived in Puerto Plata. He returned to
Santiago, where he remained until 1865, when he established his
residence in the town of San Francisco de Macoris. José Francisco was a
Dominican intellectual and patriot. He began sociological studies of
Dominican reality and history. As a politician, he was a defender of
national sovereignty and the democratic participation of the people.
At just 23 years old, the young José F. Bono held important public
responsibilities in the province of Santiago: prosecutor (1851), deputy to
Congress (1854), prosecutor of the Greater Court of Justice (1855) and
senator (1856); He resigned his seat to serve as a public defense attorney
(1856-1857); responsible for the Commission of the Interior and Police
in the revolutionary government of July 1857; Deputy to the Constituent
Congress of Moca (1857-1858) that produced the most liberal
constitution of the 19th century.
In conclusion, Bonó was a patriot who defended the Dominican
Republic at crucial moments. Considered the first Dominican
sociologist, and his Notes on the Dominican Working Classes
constitutes a pioneering study on the Dominican social composition. In
recognition of its patriotism and its great social relevance, it has been
recognized by the Congress of the Dominican Republic, declaring
October 18 of each year as "Pedro Francisco Bonó Day."