Domingo Elías

Who was Domingo Elías?

Domingo Elías Carbajo was President of Peru for a brief period between June and August 1844.

He assumed the Presidency of Peru during an epoch of civil war, which divided Peru between the followers of Ramón Castilla's government and those of Domingo Elías Carbajo.

After completing his elementary studies, he travelled to Madrid and Paris to continue his education. He returned in 1825 and made a living from agriculture in the Ica Region, where he started a large cultivation of cotton and vine. This epoch coincided with the arrival of Chinese coolies to replace the declining work of African slaves in 1849.

After the defeat of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation during the decade of the 1840s, anarchy in Peru became rampant. In 1843, during the government of Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, Elías was named prefect of Lima. When Vivanco headed to southern Peru to confront the constitutionalist movement of Ramon Castilla, Elías was assigned the governorship of the northern Peruvian provinces. The internal Peruvian conflict was still undecided between the military factions of the country: Vivanco's and Echenique's against Castilla's and San Román's .