NATIVE TRIBES AND PROVINCES 17 



nate any leader or headman of aboriginal peoples in America and 

 Malaysia. Caciques were aided by subchiefs or attendants, some 

 of whom governed districts. Under these were the village head- 

 men, of which there were TO 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 Kio Yaque del Norte marking the interior boundary of the 

 Province of Marien. This is in the upper Yaque Valley on the 

 southern slope of the northern Cordillera. In Marien, on the north 

 coast, a short distance west of the mouth of the Kio Yaque del 

 Norte, Columbus planted the first Spanish colony in America. This 

 colony was the unfortunate La Navidad, situated near the site of 

 the Haitian town of Cape Haytien. The extermination 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. 



Columbus had suffered the shipwreck of one of his caravels, the 

 Santa Maria, near Cape Haytien late in 1492. The large native 

 village of Guarico was located about 2 miles from the scene of 

 the shipwreck. Goacanagaric, the cacique of the northern native 

 Province of Marien, lived there and soon became the friendly ad- 

 viser of Columbus and of the Spanish. 



The locality of the town of Goacanagari has always been known by the 

 name of Guarico. The French first settled at Petit Anse; subsequently they 

 removed to the opposite side of the bay and founded the town of Cape Francois, 

 now Cape Haytien; but the old Indian name Guarico continues in use among 

 all the Spanish inhabitants of the vicinity.' 



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

 covery by the immigrant cacique Caonabo. This cacique, according 

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

 Arawak from Porto Rico, which was known to the aborigines of 

 Santo Domingo as the island of Carib. His territory included most 

 of the upper Cibao Valley and adjacent moutains, where the natives 

 mined gold from the streams. At a later period the Cibao Valley 

 developed the richest cacao and coffee lands of the entire island. 

 The Province of Maguana extended to the west coast and included 

 the valley of the Artibonite (Hattibonito) River, forming a portion 

 of the present boundary between the two island Republics of Haiti 

 and Santo Domingo. 



8 Irving, Washington, Life and Voyages of Ctiristopher Columbus, vol. 3, p. 227, New 

 York, 1859. 



