Santiago

Culture and history info

Santiago was founded as a fortress on the banks of the Yaque del Norte River, by Admiral Christopher Columbus in 1495. This fortress was close to where the city of Santiago is currently located.

In 1502 the Crown appoints Fray Nicolás de Ovando Governor of Hispaniola, who temporarily resides in Santiago. In 1504, the city of Santiago is moved, by order of Ovando, to the North, in the town known as Jacagua. At its headquarters in Jacagua it is repopulated by the Knights that were still from the agonizing Isabela (Primada City of America); Tradition asserts that, from that date, Santiago de los Caballeros begins to be called.

The Spanish King Fernando the Catholic granted, in 1508, the coat of arms to the town of Santiago: red shield with five white scallops, with a white border and seven red scallops on it. The scallops were associated with the beaches of Galicia where Santiago de Compostela was located, it was thus the symbol of the pilgrim who had visited the Holy Lands. By 1514, according to data from the first census in Santiago, there were 60 people and there was a church, a town hall, and up to a total of 40 homes and public buildings.

On December 2, 1562 a strong earthquake totally destroys the town of Santiago along with other Spanish colonies among which was the Concepcion de La Vega. Many of its inhabitants were buried under the masonry constructions. The city is restored again on the banks of the Yaque River, where it is currently located. The danger of earthquakes is present in the history of Santiago, which has been shaken by earthquakes on several occasions, destroying it and killing part of its inhabitants.

In 1660 Santiago was sacked by the pirate Fernand de la Fleur. Thirty years later, in 1690, the city defends itself victoriously against the French located in the western portion of the island, in the battle of "La Limonada".

Santiago was affected by strong earthquakes in 1775 and 1783. Haitian troops loot and destroy the city of Santiago in 1805. Most of its neighbors are slaughtered after a very rough and unequal battle. As of 1822, Haiti dominates the entire island hindering the development of the eastern part.

In 1842, another strong earthquake affects the city of Santiago, dying much of its population.

Santiago is the site of the famous battle on March 30, 1844, in which the Dominican troops, in numerical disadvantage and arms, defeated the army of Northern Haiti commanded by Gen. Pierrot, thus consolidating the proclaimed Dominican Independence in the city of Santo Domingo on February 27 of the same year.

In 1857 the Cibao peoples rebel against the dictatorship of Buenaventura Báez, appoint Santiago Capital of the Dominican Republic, with a government presided over by General José Desiderio Valverde and proclaim a liberal Constitution. But the revolutionary attempt had no major significance because the new government appointed former dictator Santana as chief of the troops. General Pedro Santana re-directed the country from the city of Santo Domingo and annexed it in 1861 to Spain.

The people of Santiago, dissatisfied with the Annexation, began a movement aimed at restoring the Republic, which in August 1861 became a beginning of the fight against the Spanish that led to the execution of the heroes Eugenio Perdomo, Pedro Ignacio Espaillat, Carlos de Lora, Vidal Pichardo, Antonio Batista and Colonel Pierret.

On September 6, 1863, Santiago is totally destroyed fighting the Spanish troops besieged in Fort San Luis and on the 14th of the same month, after being set on fire and almost completely destroyed to expel the Spaniards from it, Santiago is declared Capital of the Restorative Government in the Restorative Wars of Independence, with a provisional government chaired by José Antonio Salcedo. Spain handed over the country to the independentists in July 1865 after three years of Restorative Wars.

The Society "Lovers of Light" and the Athenaeum of Santiago, intended to spread the culture of Santiago, were founded in 1874. In 1881, during the government of Father Meriño, the first Normal School of Cibao was created, in Santiago de los Caballeros . In 1891, Santiago's first daily newspaper, El Día, came out.

On August 16, 1897, the Santiago - Puerto Plata railway was officially inaugurated by President Ulises Heureaux. By this time the fashion of the Victorian-style constructions begins, of neoclassical style, so characteristic of the Caribbean and in particular of the city of Santiago, where some historians prefer to call Lilisiano style in honor of the president of the country, Ulises Heureaux (Lilís). In 1915 the Water and Light Company of Santiago was inaugurated.

In 1916 the country was occupied by US infantry forces and the headquarters of the intervening troops in the Cibao was established in the city of Santiago. It was not until 1922 when the gradual withdrawal of US troops was made and the third republican period was established in 1924. During the period new streets, bridges, interurban roads such as Santo Domingo - Santiago - Montecristi were built and the one Santiago communicates with its natural port, Puerto Plata, and at this time the city was equipped with electric lighting. The 1916 census counted 14,774 inhabitants of which 13,167 were Dominicans and the rest were American auditors, and the city had 3,226 homes.

Between 1924 and 1930 the Government of Horacio Vásquez favored Santiago with various public works and with great international events, such as the 1927 Inter-American Exhibition. In 1930 Rafael Leonidas Trujillo is appointed president of the country, beginning the 30-year dictatorship known as The Era of Trujillo and culminating in 1961 with the murder of the dictator. At this time the city of Santiago has about 15,000 homes in an area of ​​6km², growing slowly during the Era.

The tyranny disappeared in 1961, an extraordinary migration from the fields to the urban centers begins to manifest itself, a situation that in Santiago breaks the relative balance that existed between the components of the urban system. There is a critical increase in population and a sudden extension of the urban area, so that in less than 20 years it reached an extension of 70 km². This growth has not been slowed and continues today.

Culture

In the cultural area it has the Great Theater of the Cibao, the House of Culture, the Center of Culture, House of Art, La 37 by Las Tablas, and the Eduardo León Jiménez Cultural Center, one of the most important in Latin America and Caribbean. Among its urban attractions are the Santiago Apostle Cathedral, the City Hall, the Matum Hotel, the Cibao Stadium and the Monument to the Heroes of the Restoration.

Customs
La Ciguapa: kind of female mythological being that inhabits the intramontane forests (raised or mountainous woman), with long hair that covers her entire body and feet upside down, that is, the heels towards the front and the fingers towards the back.

El Botoncillo: icy wind that frosts the streams of Valle Nuevo, and makes it shiver cold.

The tunes of the Memories: songs of the pawns that herd the herds formed by long rows of pack animals, usually mules or mares.

Tonedas de los Boyeros: songs of the pawns that watch the traffic of the buoys or trunks of pines, which are taken to the sawmills floating on the riverbed (already in disuse or forgotten).

Santiago in the heart of Cibao: it is the most defined, typical and traditional region of the country; here, as in no other region, the carnival has taken root with street performances of great popular flavor; also the merengue, the aguinaldos, the half prickly pear, the conucos songs, ranch songs and the picadores songs; the bunk beds, the boards, the velations and the rosaries. San Andres

For years we have scrutinized all the possible myths because our people celebrate November 30 -San Andrés- throwing starch and related especially to the face:

For now it is a custom whose origins are lost in the mist of the times. And no matter how much we have questioned Spanish religious, those who have traveled to other American areas have never been answered in relation to the celebration of San Andrés in such a way. Saint Andrew who was martyred when crucified on an X-shaped cross that today bears his name.

In our country, San Andrés is celebrated not only with handfuls of starch. Sometimes water filled containers were used to soak the surprised.

Among the aristocracy, he used to play with chicken eggshells filled with perfume - cologne - facial powder and scented talc. Once the collodion became fashionable, reddish liquid that stained the clothes of that color but that after a while the macha disappeared.

At more humble levels the chicken egg shells were filled with the reddish liquid obtained from the prickly pear (cactus). And also during the night, by means of a bamboo syringe they threw water sparks against the tubes at the gas lamps (kerosene) making them explode. As much as people closed windows doors they managed to make white through the holes in the lock.

Sometimes, when the starch rations were finished, people came stabbed with lime, "calsomino", caromomino, flour, and even handfuls of cement. This procedure, plus the cubazos de agua sometimes non non santa, gave rise to numerous personal sets often from fatal balance to a knife.

There is an anecdote that has become a tradition when rolling on the inclined plane of time that tells how one day of San Andres President Ulises Heureaux was going through one of the streets of the Dominican Capital City. Suddenly, when passing through a group that played San Andres, he was splashed by drops of not so pure waters. The story wrapped in the legend, tells how President Lilís ordered to buy all the perfumes and scented powders in existence in that city and gave it to the people who played with such items instead of ...

Today the traditional way of playing San Andres is quickly fading. It is that, in addition to transculturations, our country does not produce starch as before. Starch is no longer in demand to "starch" clothes. How to stop homemade glue etc. Therefore there is no longer starch production in R.D

Certain modalities, new to playing San Andres like throwing buckets of water against the windshields of automobiles and related are so dangerous that they accelerate the disappearance of such an ancient, controversial tradition.