Peravia

Peravia is one of the 32 provinces of the Dominican Republic. Prior to 2002 it included the present province of San Jose de Ocoa. Many maps and statistics still refer to it as the oldest and largest province of Peravia. This province was established on 23rd November 1944 with the name of Bam Province, on 1st December that year, its changed its name to Jose Trujillo Valdez. It was inaugurated on 1st January 1945. Its current name of Peravia was given on 29th November 1961.

According to historian Manuel Valera Banilejo the Peravia name derives from the corruption of the Spanish surname Pravia, who was the lady Ana de Pravia, daughter of Francisco Ruiz de Pravia and Beatriz de la Rocha who lived in a herd that existed in the early colonial period. The property is located on the flat part of the province in the field of community called Cerro Gordo. Mrs Pravia was the wife of Christopher Columbus.

In the Valley of Bani is the Columbus family property and tied to the stock of Dona Luisa Guerrero is the consort of Captain Brigadier General Don Ignacio Perez on Caro Island, who were the first teachers of the Jesuits.

They were both owners of the Pizarrete primeval herd, which would later belong to Don Tello and Don Juan Guzman Villegas. The city of Bam was founded on March 3rd 1764 under the governorship of the Spanish Captain and Field Marshal, Manuel de Azlor and Urries.

The neighbors bought a property from the owners of “Cerro Gordo” for the sum of 370 piastres. In such negotiations, Don Manuel Franco of Medina (the parish priest) participated representing the owners, while General Paul Romero represented the neighbors.

According to Joaquin Inchaustegui during the years of 1789, Bam had 100 houses and 2,000 inhabitants. In 1805 the General Dessalines burnt the town of Bani down. After the attempted occupation of the emerging new Haitian republic, they rebuilt it in part, and in the year of 1810, set up the first town hall. Prior to this there was a cemetery, located where the streets of Santome and Freedom intersect. This cemetery was in use until about 1828. After this date the dead were buried in the old cemetery (next to the softball stadium).

From its roots in Bani, development was linked to education. In early colonial times, education was conducted by priests and Franciscan friars, who came from Spain. Among the school teachers, the oldest in the valley was the priest Don Juan de Dolis in 1638 and Fray Juan de Madera in 1658.

Bani built many years ago one of the first irrigation canals, called “John Knight” and a regola that irrigated the land from north to south. The town of Bani is inhabited mostly in its western part, by families from the Canary Islands, Catalonia and Galicia and in the southern coastal part, by families of African descent whose ancestors were freed from slavery by the settlers.