Devastations of Osorio

The origin of the problem was that the residents of Puerto Plata, Montecristi, Bayajá and Yaguana traded their products (especially cured meat and hides) with the French, the English and the Dutch, and received contraband goods in return.

The king's order forced the officials to carry out the depopulation of the regions in which smuggling was rampant, so that the Crown’s subjects could be moved to a location closer to the capital of the island, Santo Domingo.

The contingent, composed of 159 soldiers under the command of Captain Francisco Ferrecuelo, went to the north of the island, where the orders of Osorio were forcibly imposed, and the residents of the region obliged to abandon their farms and homesteads.

Moreover, the destruction of the mills and trapiches accelerated the decline of the sugar industry which, added to the loss of livestock and plantations of cane and ginger, increased poverty on the island and removed Santo Domingo to the margins of colonial trade.

Likewise, the evacuation of half of Hispaniola did not cause this territory to be forgotten, as the Crown had wished, but rather it fell upon the mercy of foreigners who benefitted greatly from the cattle and other fruits of the land left behind by the Spaniards.

Finally, the misery that was generated after the Osorio Devastations also affected the tax revenues of the colony, to the point that these were no longer enough to cover bureaucratic expenses nor the maintenance of the armed forces in Santo Domingo.

In the middle of 1601, Philip III, observing the difficulties in maintaining the sparse population of Spanish settlers in the face of continued attacks by the native Indians (and also noticing the limited amount of agricultural and livestock production), ordered the governor of Havana, Juan Maldonado Barnuevo, to send an expedition northwards.

The Osorio Devastations signified the beginning of the strengthening of the Spanish military presence in Hispaniola, since, to put the order into practice, the support of 159 soldiers from the garrison of San Juan Bautista was requested from Puerto Rico.