Long before the Spanish city existed, Higüey was the name of one of the five great chiefdoms or domains into which the island of Hispaniola was divided at the arrival of the Europeans. The chiefdom of Higüey (also written Iguey or Higuayagua) occupied the whole eastern tip of the island, a region of forests, savannas and coasts inhabited by the Taíno, the people of Arawak origin who dominated the Antilles.
The Taíno of Higüey lived from fishing, hunting, gathering and the cultivation of cassava, from which they made casabe. The region was ruled by caciques whose names have remained in the chronicles: the cacique Cayacoa is mentioned, the cacica Higüanamá —one of the few documented women leaders— and, above all, the famous cacique Cotubanamá, who would lead the resistance against the Spanish. The name 'Higüey' itself is of Taíno origin and is usually associated with meanings linked to the geography or the rising sun of the east.
That Indigenous root is the oldest substrate of the Higüey identity. The whole region preserves the Taíno memory through the names, the archaeological finds and the rock art of the eastern caves. Higüey was born, then, as a Taíno territory long before becoming the colonial city and great religious center we know today.
After the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the founding of Santo Domingo, the Spanish gradually extended their rule across all of Hispaniola. The chiefdom of Higüey, in the east, was one of the last to be subdued and the setting for harsh Taíno resistance in the early 16th century. The chronicles recount rebellions by the Indigenous people, driven by the abuses of the colonial system, which were violently repressed by the conquistadors.
Among the most remembered episodes is the resistance led by the cacique Cotubanamá, who took refuge in the region and on the island of Saona. After harsh clashes, the Spanish managed to capture and execute him, quelling the Higüey rebellion. As in the rest of the island, the Taíno population was decimated within a few decades by war, forced labor in the encomiendas and, above all, European diseases, against which they had no defenses.
It was in this context of conquest and pacification that the Spanish established a permanent settlement in the region. The presence of figures such as Juan de Esquivel and Juan Ponce de León —the latter a future conqueror of Puerto Rico and explorer of Florida— is tied to the beginnings of the Spanish town of Higüey, which would rise on the territory of the old chiefdom.
The Spanish city of Salvaleón de Higüey was founded at the dawn of colonization, around 1502, which makes it one of the oldest towns in the Dominican Republic and in the entire American continent. Its founding is attributed to the conquistadors Juan de Esquivel and Juan Ponce de León, in the context of the pacification and distribution of the territory of the old Taíno chiefdom.
The name 'Salvaleón' would originate from a heraldic or noble reference brought by the conquistadors, combined with the Taíno place name 'Higüey', giving rise to the town's full name: Salvaleón de Higüey. Like many early towns of Hispaniola, it arose as an agricultural and cattle-raising center, with its church, its square and its encomiendas, in a territory that would soon fall away from the splendor of Santo Domingo.
After the exhaustion of the gold and the shift of colonial interest toward the continent, Higüey, like the whole east, entered a stage of relative isolation and economic modesty. However, it kept a singular role: that of the center of a religious devotion that, over time, would make it famous throughout the country. Its antiquity and its colonial church of San Dionisio are testimony to those first centuries of life.
The great feature that defines Higüey's identity over the centuries is its character as a religious center, tied to the devotion to Our Lady of La Altagracia. According to tradition, the image of the Virgin —a small painting of Spanish origin— arrived in Higüey in the early times of colonization, brought by settlers, and very soon became an object of great popular veneration, with miracles and protection attributed to it.
The old church of San Dionisio, built in the 16th century, was for centuries the shrine where the image was kept and venerated, and the destination of the pilgrims who came to pray to it. The devotion to La Altagracia kept growing and spreading beyond Higüey, to encompass the whole country: over time, Our Lady of La Altagracia established herself as the spiritual patron of Dominicans (alongside the official patron, Our Lady of Mercy), and her shrine in Higüey as the heart of the national faith.
The date of January 21 was established as the day of La Altagracia, a day on which each year Higüey becomes the destination of one of the country's largest pilgrimages. That devotion, deeply rooted in Dominican popular culture, is what has given Higüey its most enduring identity and what motivated, in the 20th century, the construction of a monumental temple worthy of its importance.
As the pilgrimage to Higüey grew, the old church of San Dionisio proved insufficient to accommodate the multitudes of faithful who came to venerate La Altagracia. That's why, in the mid-20th century, it was decided to build a great national shrine. The work, commissioned to the French architects Pierre Dupré and Donald Dupré, resulted in the monumental Basilica of Our Lady of La Altagracia, a temple of modern architecture based on great curved concrete arches, inaugurated in the 1970s.
The basilica was elevated to the rank of minor basilica by the Holy See and became the country's main religious shrine, capable of holding thousands of pilgrims. It has received visits from pontiffs, which reinforced its prestige, and cemented Higüey as the religious capital of the Dominican Republic. Alongside it, San Dionisio still stands as testimony to the colonial origin of the devotion.
Today's Higüey combines that double character: on one hand, its role as a great pilgrimage center, which every January 21 draws faithful from all over the nation; on the other, its reality as a commercial, dynamic and populous city, capital of La Altagracia province and hub of the Dominican east. A few kilometers from the resort world of Punta Cana, Higüey keeps the identity of an authentic Dominican city, with its Taíno and colonial history, its popular faith and its vibrant everyday life.