El Maniel
El Maniel is the name given to high places by runaway slaves in Hispaniola that sat close to the vaguely defined borders of Santo Domingo and Saint-Domingue. The escaped enslaved people chose to live in the high sierras because of their inaccessibility and their location near the border between the French-owned and Spanish-owned parts of Hispaniola. When colonial authorities tried to attack the Maniel, the maroons would move across the borders, nullifying the authority of the country to execute them.
The city of San José [de Ocoa] was founded by these formerly enslaved people.
Near Neyba in the southwestern part of the Dominican Republic, there was a place called El Maniel. In 1784 the place was described in a letter to the Spanish king by Dominican archbishop Isodoro Rodríguez as having been formed over a century before.