20 BULLETIN 14 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



his numerous wives and their children, brothers, sisters, and other 

 kindred were a considerable population, often forming a whole 

 village. In addition to the household of the cacique, consisting of 

 his wives and immediate relations, a prehistoric village ordinarily 

 contained also men, women, and children of more distant kinship." 

 The term cacique is used in a very loose sense by the early chroniclers 

 to designate any leader or headman. Caciques were aided by sub- 

 chiefs or attendants, some of whom governed districts. Under these 

 were the village headmen, of which there were 70 or 80 for each of 

 the five native Provinces of the Island. 



Of the five leading caciques at the time of the discovery only one, 

 Goacanagaric, who ruled over the Province of Marien, on the North 

 coast, remained friendly toward the Spanish. The native Province 

 of Marien extended from Cape Nicolas, on the extreme northwest, 

 to the Rio Yaque del Norte, which debouches on the north coast in the 

 vicinity of Monte Cristi. The watershed between the rivers Yuna 

 and Yaque del Norte marked the interior boundary of the Province 

 of Marien. This is in the arid region of the upper Yaque Valley on 

 the southern slope of the Cordillera Setentrional. In this Province, 

 on the north coast, a short distance west of the mouth of the Rio 

 Yaque del Norte, Columbus planted the first Spanish colony in 

 America. This colony was the unfortunate La Navidad, planted 

 near the site of the present town of Monte Cristi. The extermi- 

 nation of this settlement was due not to the ill will of the locally 

 dominant cacique Goacanagaric but to the aggressive hostility of the 

 cacique Caonabo, of the Province of Maguana, and to the dissolute 

 conduct of the members of the colony. 



Maguana, signifying little plain, was ruled at the time of the 

 discovery by the immigrant cacique Caonabo. This cacique, accord- 

 ing to some sources, was a Carib, but more likely was a Lucayan, or 

 an Arawak from Porto Rico, which was known as the island of 

 Carib. His territory included most of the Cibao Valley and 

 mountains of Cibao, where the natives mined gold from the streams. 

 At a later period the Cibao Valley developed the richest sugar lands 

 of the entire island. The Province of Maguana extended to the 

 west coast and included the valley of the Artibonite (Hattibonito) 

 River, the present boundary between the two island republics of Haiti 

 and Santo Domingo. 



jNIagua, meaning country of the interior, " inland empire," stretched 

 from sea to sea, from the north to the east coasts south of Samana, 

 It included the central and best portions of the Cibao Valley, namely, 

 the so-called Vega Real, which comprised the east or lower sections 

 of the valley. Guarionex was cacique of the Vega and of the south- 

 ern slope of the Cordillera Setentrional, while the Ciguayan Indians 



