PROVINCE OF PACIFICADOR
San Francisco de Macoris, the capital of the province, is about 85 miles northwest of Santo Domingo City and occupies the site of a fort established by Ovando in 1504 and known as the fort of La Magdalena. It was founded in 1774 around a chapel dedicated to St. Ann which stood on a ranch called San Francisco. Lying in a fertile district formerly devoted to tobacco and now one of the chief cacao regions of the island, it is a town of considerable business. It is also called Macoris del Norte, to distinguish it from San Pedro de Macoris, which is called Macoris del Este.
Villa Rivas, on the Samana-Santiago Railroad, 19 miles from Samana bay, was formerly called Almacén, or Storehouse, because here was situated, before the railroad was built, a warehouse for the storage of merchandise imported and exported by way of Samana and the Yuna river.
The other towns, all of recent foundation, are Matanzas, a fishing village on the edge of a cacao district on the northeast coast, and three villages named after heroes of the War of Restoration: Cabrera on the coast at Tres Amarras point; Castillo, 8 miles west of Rivas; and Pimentel, formerly called Barbero, a station on the Samana-Santiago Railroad and the center of an important cacao zone.