santo cerro

I am looking for information on Santo Cerro. Colombus planted a cross there, and there is some kind of celebration on Sep. 24. I am interested in both origins and current stuff.

The battle at Santo Cerro took place in the mid-1490s,but I don't have the exact date right on me. It was before Santo Domingo was founded, when Columbus was at La Isabela. He had abandoned his original plan to trade for gold with the Tainos, because they had no real interest in mining it for manufactured goods -- this system was called Factoria and was used by the Portuguese in West Africa -- so he set out on a slaving expedition into the Cibao to capture Tainos that he would then use as slave labor at La Isabela. Santo Cerro is the high ground in this part of the Cibao, and there was a major battle here during the campaign. The legend says that the Tainos were winning until Columbus planted a large cross on the hill, and the Virgin Mary appeared perchec upon it, upon which the emboldened Spaniards took heart and slaughtered their enemy. The current festival is a candlelit procession up the hill to the church, very dignified and beautiful but not with the African religious overtones of most Dominican religious festivals.

thank you for the history. is the celebration now a celebration of Spanish victory over the Indians, or a veneration of Our Lady of Mercies? What is the emphasis of the festival? Was that the first cross that Columbus planted?

My understanding is that the defeat of the Tainos is de-emphasized and that it's more a celebration of a miraculous appearance of the Virgin, with little context about the battle. At any rate, most Dominicans would take the Tainos over Columbus any day. I doubt that it was the first cross that Columbus planted.

thanks. I am part Indian from the U.S. and have to be careful what I participate in. I think I am going to go there to honor the cross, La Virgen, and Guarionex. I have to pick a date. Maybe better to go on a different day the first time.