He was the son of María Josefa Pérez de la Paz y Valerio (1788–1855),[1][2] and the priest Valentín Morales.

[citation needed] He actively fought against the Haitian leader Jean Pierre Boyer in the Reform Movement carried out in Praslin in 1843.

[citation needed] Following the coup d'état led by Brigadier General Juan Pablo Duarte on June 9, 1844, he served as Secretary of the Central Governing Board of the Dominican Republic.

[citation needed] On July 15, two days after Major General Pedro Santana had been proclaimed Supreme Chief, Perez went to the Central Board to inform it of its reorganization.

Pérez was saved from a lynching by the Seyban troops, devotees of Santana, by the intervention of Colonel Felipe Alfau and was welcomed in the house of the French consul, Eustache Juchereau de Saint-Denys.