Pedro Alejandrino Pina was born in Santo Domingo on November 20, 1820, a year before the declaration of independence led by José Núñez de Cáceres, so his youth passed during the Haitian occupation, which began in February 1822.

As there was no seminary, he received training from the Peruvian priest Gaspar Hernández, who in those years led a circle of philosophical scholars, among whose members were several of the young people who would soon undertake conspiratorial actions against foreign oppression.

Historian José Gabriel García, who knew Pina, highlights, in the biography he dedicated to him, "the impetuous character that distinguished him then, and the revolutionary ideas that from the morning of his life were bubbling in his ardent imagination, soon divorced him from the Church."

The historian García, well aware of the details of the events of those days, relates for example that the recruitment of Francisco del Rosario Sánchez to La Trinitaria was a product of Pina's efforts.

[6] The Trinitarios, who now controlled the Popular Junta, promoted the issuance of a document that stated national demands aimed at the autonomy of the Dominican conglomerate and respect for its cultural customs.

In September 1843, less than three weeks after arriving in Venezuela and waiting for the start of events, Duarte decided to send Pina and Pérez to Curaçao, from where he hoped they would be able to maintain fluid communications with Santo Domingo, being that small island.

However, the differences did not take long to surface after his arrival, as Duarte showed hostility towards any media coverage of independence, as was contemplated in the secret negotiations that Dominican conservatives had held with the consul general of France, Auguste Levasseur, while they participated as deputies in the Constituent Assembly of 1843.

[10] On March 22, a week after his return, Pina was assigned to serve as an aide to General Pedro Santana, stationed in Baní as commander of the Southern Expeditionary Front after the Battle of Azua.

[10] At the end of May 1844, Pina returned with his battalion to Santo Domingo, where he took part in the protest led by Duarte, aimed at preventing the transfer of the Samaná Peninsula to France, in accordance with what was previously stipulated in the Levasseur Plan.

The city's military chief, José Joaquín Puello, who a month earlier had led the overthrow of Bobadilla and his conservative friends, opted for surrender, fearing the consequences of civil war.

In an edition of the newspaper El Telefono, dated February 27, 1891, a version of what Pina responded was recorded: "You tell General Santana that I prefer not only exile, but death itself, rather than denying the man that I recognize as leader of the Separation.

[10] When President Manuel Jiménes, who succeeded Santana, issued an amnesty law on September 26, 1848, Pina took the road back the next day after receiving the news, a sign that he kept the fighting spirit alive.

In that third exile, according to what biographers indicate, Pina made the decision to completely withdraw from Dominican affairs, considering that the conditions did not exist for a political practice attached to democratic principles.

Pina managed to escape the ambush, thanks to the fact that Timoteo Ogando, then captain, knowledgeable about the area and already seasoned in the arts of war, quickly mounted him on the haunch of his horse.

With patriotic plans frustrated and apparently postponed with no foreseeable restart date, it was natural for Pina to return to Coro, Venezuela, where he had been living without interruption for the previous 13 years.

[18] Initially, the relations between Báez and Cabral remained good, and the former tried to gain the support of those who had fought the annexation to Spain, Pina had no difficulty in accepting the position of judge of the Supreme Court of Justice.

Then he entrusted him with important missions, such as being part of a commission before the Haitian Government for the signing of a treaty of friendship, in the company of Ulises Francisco Espaillat, Juan Ramón Fiallo and the now 80 year old politician, Tomás Bobadilla.

[19] As has been noted, at the end of Cabral's first government, which began in August 1865, a Constituent Assembly was convened, which at the same time served as the Legislative Branch, with the objective of giving the Dominican Republic a legal order in accordance with liberal theory.

[20] One of the problems that the restorative constituents addressed was to elucidate why the liberal statements of the previous constitutional texts had not had effective application, since they were convinced that the reality of an authoritarian system that granted exaggerated powers to the president of the Dominican Republic.

grant the ordinances of their institute, powers that at the head of the departments could be exercised by a Square Commander, in the districts by a Sergeant Major and so on.In the same order, he advocated for a Legislative Branch composed of two chambers with a large number of members, in such a way that the representation of the people was guaranteed to the extent possible.

"Composed of more individuals and represented by two jointly responsible bodies, it is easier for it to impose on the Executive, when unfortunately it deviates from the true path outlined by the laws, to fall into abuse or dictatorship."

He confirmed that, in fact, the country had been unable in its republican years to institute the judicial organization contained in the French codes of the Restoration, and established two causes for the relevance of a reform: "the shortage of men on the one hand and the poverty of our treasure for another."

Such a conjugation would give rise to the set of rights essential for the development of the ideal political system, starting because it would guarantee freedoms and rights, such as the inviolability of life for political reasons:[25] Life, a precious gift that only nature can grant us, is forever guaranteed to those who commit crimes in political matters, since the death penalty established in the codes for those crimes is abolished; The laws that imposed exile for the same reasons have been repealed: property is as sacred and inviolable as the domestic home; the expression of thought, free, and also the right to petition; positive that of association and that of suffrage; Individual security is guaranteed, because no one is reduced to prison except by their competent judge and by virtue of pre-existing laws, and finally citizens are equal before the law ...Despite being a disciple of Duarte, Pina does not seem to have been concerned with the issue of social democracy.

Although he did not express it exhaustively, in the glossed texts there are indications to consider that Pina shared the corollary that an adequate political order would open the doors to the solution of social problems.

This approach was made despite his consideration that any protection or system of monopoly for the benefit of a sector, in contrast to the doctrine of free trade, "always harms the very interests that they wish to promote and ends up annihilating the vitality of any country.

There are no signs that in 1868 he intended to settle stably in Venezuela, and it can be assumed that he remained attentive to the reorganization of the blues in exile, in order to join the fight in Dominican territory as soon as possible.

At the beginning of 1869, some blue leaders from the south, among whom the brothers Andrés, Benito and Timoteo Ogando stood out, prepared the conditions so that former president Cabral could enter Dominican territory from Haiti.

Their determination to take up arms again must have been reinforced by the fact that in those days a treaty was concluded between the governments of the United States and the Dominican Republic through which the latter would become a territory of the "great democracy of the north".

[29] Although Pina was 49 years old when he joined the fight against the annexation to the United States, he was a man who suffered from serious health problems, which enhances his character as a patriot inclined to action in all areas.

[30] The correspondence he had with his son Juan Pablo Pina, also incorporated into the armed struggle, shows that, although he felt like a supporter of Cabral, in reality he had no major interest in the disputes that the former president staged with other prominent men for hegemony.