Azua

Azua stands in a dry plain on the southern side of Hispaniola, between the mountains and the Caribbean Sea. Its colonial settlement, Azua de Compostela, became a center of the surrounding cattle country. The area was inhabited by Taíno communities before the Spanish conquest and the establishment of the town.

In 1751 a series of earthquakes damaged Azua and prompted the transfer of the settlement. Its inhabitants rebuilt near the Vía River, though the move produced disputes over land and the future location of the town. When the French traveler Daniel Lescallier visited in 1764, he described a settlement of wooden houses and a region important for cattle raising. The town continued to serve the southern interior and its routes to the coast.