General condition of municipalities.—Santo Domingo City; ruins, churches, streets, popular legends.—Other towns of Santo Domingo Province.—San Pedro de Macoris.—Seibo.—Samana and Sanchez. —Pacificador Province.—Concepción de La Vega.—Moca.—Santiago de los Caballeros.—Puerto Plata.—Monte Cristi.—Azua.—Barahona.
Compared with cities in the United States a majority of Dominican towns are hoary with age. The capital city and a number of others were founded more than a century before Virginia was settled, and had begun to decline almost a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Yet such have been the vicissitudes of the country that only one city, the capital, shows signs of its antiquity; the others from their appearance might be taken to be but a few decades old, and with the exception of two or three ancient churches in the interior none of the older buildings of these towns have survived the ravages of time, wars and earthquakes. The modern appearance of most cities is heightened by the fact that frame structures predominate, and outside of Santo Domingo, Santiago, La Vega and Puerto Plata stone houses are infrequent.
The impoverishment of the country by periodic revolutions has had its effect on the municipalities and prevented their proper development. In no city are all municipal needs and services properly attended to, and in most towns they are all badly neglected. Sanitary inspection is nowhere given due attention; sewers are practically unknown; but two cities, Puerto Plata and Santiago, have a general system of waterworks, the others being dependent on water drawn from cisterns or wells, or carried from rivers or springs; in all but five or six little attention is paid to the condition of the streets. Only Santiago, Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo have electric light, but that of Santo Domingo is very deficient. Little by little conditions are improving and especially the larger municipalities are endeavoring to improve their streets and provide a water supply.
To the smallness of the urban centers their lack of municipal conveniences is partly to be attributed. The Dominican towns are all built on the same general plan as other Spanish cities, being constructed around a central plaza on which the church and government building are located.
The principal cities are the capitals of the twelve provinces, and the city of Sanchez. A brief description of these cities follows, with a reference to the other more important towns and villages of each province.
PROVINCE OF SANTO DOMINGO
Santo Domingo de Guzmán, the capital of the Republic and of the province of the same name, is the oldest city founded by Europeans in the new world, the first city, Isabela, having disappeared a few years after settlement. It was founded by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496 on the east bank of the Ozama River as the capital of the colony, but the small houses constituting the town having been destroyed by a hurricane in 1502 it was transferred to the west bank of the river by order of Governor Ovando. It grew rapidly in population and wealth until it merited the eulogies of Oviedo who wrote to Charles V in 1525 that he did not hesitate to assure that there was not in Spain a city he would prefer whether on account of advantageous and agreeable location, beauty and arrangement of squares and streets or charms of the surrounding country, adding that "their Highnesses oftentimes lodged in palaces which have neither the conveniences, the ample size nor the wealth of some of those in Santo Domingo." By the middle of the sixteenth century the city had passed the zenith of its glory, and its capture by Drake in 1586 and the destruction of the houses about the main plaza was a severe blow. The decline continued rapidly, although in 1655 the city was still strong enough to repel an invasion by Admiral William Penn. In 1684 and 1691 it was visited by destructive earthquakes and in 1700 it was full of ruins among which grew great trees. The lowest ebb was reached about 1737 when the population had fallen to 500 "and," writes Father Valverde, "more than half the buildings of the capital were entirely ruined, and of those still standing two-thirds were uninhabitable or closed and the other third was more than enough for the population. There were houses and lands whose owners were unknown, and of which people took advantage as belonging to the first one who might occupy them, either because there was entire lack of heirs of the owners or because they had emigrated elsewhere." In a few years, however, the tide of fortune turned and the city's rise was as rapid as its decline had been long, until by about the year 1790 it had quite recovered its ancient glory. Another reverse was quick in coming, for the cession to France in 1795 and the revolt of the negroes in French Saint-Domingue drove away the best inhabitants. In 1801 Toussaint l'Ouverture took possession of the city and in 1805 it was successfully held by the French against the siege of the negro emperor Dessalines. This siege was the beginning of a series lasting for a century. In 1809 after a desperate struggle the city was recaptured for Spain by the Dominicans, but from 1822 to 1844 it was in the hands of the Haitians, and abandoned by all the whites who could flee. Since the declaration of Dominican independence in 1844 almost every revolution has involved a siege of the capital. Within the last twenty-five years the city has made rapid strides forward and spread far beyond the old city walls.
To the stranger Santo Domingo is by far the most interesting city of the Republic, on account of its stirring history and its venerable monuments of the past. Unfortunately the relics of the early days have met with scant respect from later generations, and ruins which would be the pride of other cities have been wantonly demolished. The Haitian governors gloried in this kind of vandalism, using the old churches as quarries and destroying the coats of arms of famous families which were cut in stone on the facades of their former houses and in their chapels in the cathedral. One which they left, on a house on Mercedes street, adjoining the government building, was obliterated in 1907 by the erection of a balcony. Since the declaration of independence ignorance and negligence have been responsible for much damage and the few administrations which took an interest in the old monuments needed all their money for military purposes. Ancient bastions have been needlessly razed, inscriptions effaced and no steps taken for the preservation of such memorials as remained. In 1883 a concession for the improvement of Santo Domingo harbor even provided that the concessionnaire might tear down the ruins belonging to the state and use the material for filling purposes; happily he was able to carry out but little of this part of the contract. The great majority of the brick and stone structures of Santo Domingo are ancient houses and convents preserved or rebuilt with more or less alteration. In some cases behind walls and doorways of great age are little huts of the poor. Though many signs of the past have thus disappeared, many still remain. It is to be hoped that the American authorities in Santo Domingo will be less indifferent to the preservation of ancient monuments than has been the case in other West Indian countries.
The most interesting ancient building is the massive ruin known as the "House of the Admiral" or "House of Columbus," which even now, after centuries of neglect and decay, gives eloquent testimony of former greatness. It was built soon after 1509 by Diego Columbus, the son of the great navigator, on a height overlooking the Ozama River. Here Diego Columbus governed with regal splendor and here most of his children were born. It was the home of his widow, Maria de Toledo, until her death in 1549. Here also their son Louis Columbus lived for many years and embarked on two of his mad marriages. Another son, Cristobal, who was in the government employ in Santo Domingo, also seems to have lived in this house, after Louis went to Spain in 1551. On Cristobal's death in 1571 and that of Louis in 1572, it passed to Cristobal's son Diego. From the date of this Diego's death in 1578, when the direct male line of the Discoverer's descendants became extinct, the history of the house becomes obscure: it was sequestered by court decree in the course of the long inheritance litigation between the members of the Columbus family and appears to have been awarded in 1583 to the Admiral of Aragon, son of a sister of Louis and Cristobal, and in 1605 to Nuño de Portugal, grandson of another sister; the former may have sojourned there temporarily, but it is doubtful whether the latter or any of his descendants ever visited Santo Domingo. There is reason to believe that it was occupied for a time by the family of Luis de Avila, judge of Santo Domingo City, who was married to a daughter of Cristobal and whose children were still living in the colony at the end of the sixteenth century. When in 1790 a descendant of this Avila was at length awarded the last vestiges of the Columbus honors, no attention seems to have been given to this house, which was then as complete a ruin as at present, though it was in better condition and the arcade supporting the front porch was still extant.
The edifice is built of stone blocks; porches supported by graceful arches were once an attractive feature; the windows and principal doorways were embellished with handsome arabesques; and Oviedo and other chroniclers dwell at length on the magnificence of the interior. They especially refer to the beauty and value of a sculpture showing the arms of Castile, located in the great reception hall behind the viceroy's throne. At the present time the building is reduced to a mere shell, roofless and windowless; in a part of its interior there is a little palm thatch shelter for stabling horses; while the court yard and terrace reek with offal from dirty cabins round about.