Salvaleón de Higüey

**Higüey,** officially named **Salvaleón de Higüey,** is a city in the eastern Dominican Republic. It is the seat of government of the La Altagracia Province. The population was 87,071 at the 2010 census.

### Region

Yuma
La Altagracia Province

### Distance to:

La Romana: 46 km (*29 mi.*)Santo Domingo: 163 km (*101 mi.*)

## Etymolygy

Higüey was the name of a chiefdom in the east of the island. The main derivative is *gûey* or *huiou,* which means sun in Taíno. Among various South American tribes it is also sun, light or day. It may be a coincidence, but it should be noted that Higüey is located at the easternmost point of the island, that is, in the region that first receives the sun's rays.

## History

When the Spanish settlers began the conquest of what would become Hispaniola, the eastern part of the island belonged to the Caíçimu-Higüey kingdom of the Taíno Indians. The territory of present-day Higüey would be one of the last areas of the island to be conquered by Juan de Esquivel, the Spanish military man who led his conquest in 1503, after being assigned for this purpose by Nicolás de Ovando, the governor of the colony.

     It is considered that the Spanish occupation intensified after several incidents related to the Saona and that they have their origin when several presa dogs - belonging to a group of Spaniards who were hunting - ran into a group of Indians in the jungle of Saona and they attacked an Indian chief of the place, killing him. As a consequence, the natives harassed the Spanish group that, faced with the native push, had to embark again and continue their course. Some time later, a group of Spaniards set up a camp in the same area, but they were harassed by the indigenous people who finally managed to kill several of them. Nicolás de Ovando, governor of the colony, created in response a party of 300 men - among whom was Bartolomé de Las Casas - under the command of Juan de Esquivel.

     They won the war and imposed to the chief, Cotubanamá, the signing of a peace agreement and built a small fortress that was occupied by a small detachment of nine soldiers under the command of Captain Villamán. The peace did not last long, as Cotubanamá again managed to raise his people in arms and attacked the Spanish fort, with the result that only one of its nine members survived. When the truce was broken, the real war that began lasted between eight or nine months, since the indigenous people had a greater knowledge of the jungle. Las Casas fought in the Cacicazgo de Higüey under the orders of Captain Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar; for this reason he received an assignment in the Villa de la Concepción de la Vega, which he administered until 1506. Finally, after numerous casualties on both sides, the Spanish managed to find Cotubano's hideout on the island of Saona, arrest him and Nicolás de Ovando sentenced him to death. As a consequence of the uprising of the Taínos and their subsequent defeat, they were enslaved for the hardest jobs on the plantations, which is why their number was significantly reduced and consequently warrented of the importation of African slaves to the island.

• On **December 7, 1508,** the Higüey colony achieved greater self-government, being granted a royal privilege to display a coat of arms. At that time, this town belonged as a parish to the county of El Seibo. During the colonial period, and despite its remoteness from Santo Domingo, it had an important agricultural activity related to sugar cane, ginger and cocoa, which over time was redirected to extensive livestock farming. After a few decades, Higüey was moved away from the coast, like the other towns in the east.

• As part of the Basel Treaty of **1795,** the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo passed into French hands. In 1804 the slaves of the western part of the island (Haiti), declared their independence, after bloody fights. The Spanish or eastern part remained in fact in Spanish hands until the end of **January 1801,** despite the treaty, only because the only available French contingent was made up mostly of blacks and mulattoes. Furthermore, the English did not recognize the cession, arguing that it violated the old stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht. All this motivated the invasion by the Haitian army, foreseeing a threat to its newly won independence. The French, commanded by Napoleon's brother-in-law, General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, repelled the Haitians in **1802.** During French rule, Higüey was a district of the Ozama department. In **1809,** after being recovered again by Spain, Higüey once again became part of the El Seibo region.

• The years **1821,** the epoch of short-lived independence, and **1822** were very turbulent, with continuous wars both with Haiti and for independence. Higüey was not immune to this situation, being occupied in 1822 by Haitian forces under the command of Jean-Pierre Boyer. As a consequence, the local economy sputtered under an unflattering situation of wars, military occupations, and military expropriations. However, it was also a time when he finally abolished slavery that ended the era of control of Haiti and thanks to the application by the British navy in the Caribbean of the anti-slavery policies advocated by William Wilberforce.

• In **1844,** after the independence of the Dominican Republic had been proclaimed, the new Central Government Board placed Higüey under the administration of the province of El Seibo, to which it belonged for decades, participating in the various events that have marked Dominican history such as the fight against the United States occupation of Santo Domingo (1916 to 1924 and from 1965 to 1966), with times of relative prosperity or economic difficulty.

## Geography

Salvaleón de Higüey is located at 18.6128° N, 68.7155° W. According to the ONE, the municipality has a total land area of 2,029.14 square kilometers (783.46 square miles), spread across four municipal districts; **Higüey, Las Lagunas de Nisibón, La Otra Banda, and Veron Punta Cana.** It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast, the Mona Pass on the east, the town of San Rafael del Yuma on the south, the La Romana Province municipalities of La Romana and Guaymate on the southwest and the west, and the El Seibo Province municipalites of El Seibo and Miches on the west and northwest.

## Economy

It is based on tropical agriculture (sugarcane, coffee, tobacco, cocoa, rice and corn), livestock (mainly cattle and pigs), fish farming and tourism on the coast. In this city and in the region in general, livestock production for the production of milk and meat has been widely developed, due to its location in the coastal plain of the Caribbean.

In the decade of the seventies due to the transformation derived from the founding of sugar cane colonies, created by the profitability in the sale of sugar. At the beginning of the eighties it began its tourist exploitation, hand in hand with investments from Spanish tourism companies and from other countries, whose main focus of interest was centered on the beaches of the eastern end of the island, especially Punta Cana and Bávaro . At present, these and other beaches constitute the main tourist pole of the country and the municipality of Higüey is one of the cities with the highest population growth.