PROVINCE OF SEIBO
Santa Cruz del Seibo, 74 miles northeast of Santo Domingo, was originally founded by Juan de Esquivel in 1502, but being destroyed by an earthquake in 1751, was moved to its present location, to the north of its old site. It lies in the center of a region devoted to cacao planting and stockraising. The town has a pretty church, and is celebrated in Dominican history as having instigated the reconquest for Spain in 1808 and as having been the home and bulwark of General Pedro Santana, who was idolized by the Seibanos.
Salvaleón de Higüey, the easternmost city of the Republic, situated 31 miles southeast of Seibo, was also founded by Juan de Esquivel in the days of Ovando. Its church contains a picture of Our Lady of Altagracia, to which miracles are ascribed and which attracts pilgrims from all parts of Santo Domingo and Haiti.
Other towns are Hato Mayor, 18 miles west of Seibo; Ramón Santana, formerly called Guaza, 19 miles south-west of Seibo; La Romana, on the coast 25 miles south of Seibo, with rapidly expanding sugar estates; and El Jovero, a hamlet on the coast near the eastern end of Samana Bay.
PROVINCE OF SAMANÁ
Santa Bárbara de Samaná, 78 miles northeast of the capital of the Republic, is built on a cove on the north side of Samana Bay. The protected character of the inlet made it a favorite resort for pirates in the seventeenth century, and beginning with 1673, French buccaneers made several attempts to settle here but were driven out by the Spanish authorities. The town was definitely settled in 1756 by families from the Canary Islands. In the town and neighborhood live many English-speaking negroes, descendants of those who were brought from the United States by the Haitian President Boyer about 1825.
A larger town is Sánchez at the western end of Samana Bay, twenty-five miles from the town of Samana. In 1886 there was here a tiny hamlet, known as Las Canitas, but on becoming the terminus of the railroad from La Vega, the name of Sanchez, a hero of Dominican independence, was given it, and the town rapidly grew in size. Its dwellings are scattered over two ridges of land divided by a deep valley. On one of the ridges the houses are pretty one-story buildings with gardens in front. The beautiful grounds surrounding the house of the general manager of the Samana-Santiago Railroad are situated on a height overlooking the sparkling expanse of Samana Bay and give a suggestion of the possibilities of landscape gardening in Santo Domingo. Colored families from St. Thomas and the British West Indies and descendants of American negroes make up a considerable proportion of the population, so that more English is heard here than Spanish.
On the south side of Samana Bay is the small village of Sábana de la Mar, commonly known as Sábana la Mar, founded by Canary Islanders in 1756. There are many stories of pirates' buried gold in this region.
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.