Its functions were both judicial and
administrative, including the power to hear appeals from the judges of
the district and from certain administrative authorities, and to
intervene in certain matters of government, in the finances of the
territory and in behalf of the public peace. The governor and
captain-general of Santo Domingo was president of the royal audiencia,
though not acting when it sat as a law court, and at times the
audiencia alone temporarily carried on the government of one or more
of the territories under its jurisdiction. It applied the law as
expressed in the codification of the "Laws of the Indies," and the
Spanish "Partidas." It sat in the building still called the old palace
of government. During the dark days which fell upon the island in the
seventeenth century, the presence of the audiencia helped to save the
colony from being completely forgotten. It continued in its functions
until the country was ceded to France, whereupon in 1799, it was
removed to the city of Puerto Principe, in Cuba. Could its records but
have been preserved a great many gaps in the history of Santo Domingo,
Cuba, Porto Rico and Venezuela would be filled.
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