PROVINCE OF MONTE CRISTI
San Fernando de Monte Cristi, 196 miles northwest of Santo Domingo City, the capital of Monte Cristi province, was founded during the government of Ovando by sixty Spanish families, and after giving promise of prosperity decayed with the rest of the colony. It was supported for a time by a brisk contraband trade which sprang up with the Dutch and other nations and to put a stop to which the town was destroyed in 1606 like Puerto Plata and the inhabitants transferred to Monte Plata, to the south of the central mountain range. In 1750 a royal dispensation granted it the right to free trade with all nations for a period of ten years and it began to attain prominence as a port, but the wars with the Haitians, the War of Restoration with the Spaniards and the many civil wars have retarded its progress. Only in the last few years has it received a new impetus. The town is built about a mile from the shore, with which it is connected by a tiny horse car. About thirty houses are connected with a private system of waterworks which supplies water from the Yaque river. Situated as it is in the arid region of Santo Domingo the city bears much resemblance to some of the western towns of the United States.
Other towns are Guayubín, 24 miles, Sabaneta, 36 miles, and Monción, 46 miles southeast of Monte Cristi; and Dajabón, 22 miles, Restauración, 40 miles, and Copey, 12 miles southwest of Monte Cristi. They are all small villages. Dajabon, founded towards the middle of the eighteenth century, is situated on the east bank of the Massacre river, which constitutes the Haitian boundary, and is one of the inland ports of entry. Restauración is peopled largely by French speaking negroes from Haiti.