He migrated to La Dominicanie (the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, then a region of Haiti, and is nowadays the Dominican Republic) in 1841 with his father and his 3 siblings. He was the son of Rosa Chiossone, who died in Italy, and Santiago Cambiaso who, after becoming a widower, decided to emigrate to the eastern part of Haiti with his 4 children; decades earlier, Santiago’s father, Giacomo Cambiaso, also did migrated to Santo Domingo wherein he died in 1818. In 1844 he co-founded the
Navy of the Dominican Republic with
Juan Bautista Maggiolo and
Juan Alejandro Acosta.