Cotui

Cotuí lies in the interior of Hispaniola, near rivers flowing through the eastern Cibao. Its name belonged to an Indigenous community before Spanish conquest, and the surrounding country became known for gold. The town grew in a region where the lowlands meet the hills of the island’s interior.

Spanish authorities established a settlement at Cotuí in 1505, during Nicolás de Ovando’s governorship. Indigenous labor was forced into the exploitation of gold, and the mines became among the earliest worked by Europeans in the Americas. In the following decades mining drew further workers and enterprises to the district, including German miners who operated there in the 1520s. The town’s history is inseparable from the upheaval caused by conquest and the demand for precious metal.

The later city of Bonao also lies here.