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.

_Villa Rivas_, on the Samana-Santiago Railroad, 19 miles from Samana
bay, was formerly called Almacen, 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.