The central Cordillera Septentrional straddles the presently active strike-slip plate boundary faults separating the North American and Caribbean plates. Major and minor faults and folds in Paleocene to lower Pliocene marine sedimentary rocks indicate three distinct folding events that progressively uplifted the present-day mountains of the Cordillera Septentrional. The first folding event is marked by an angular unconformity that separates locally folded Paleocene to middle Eocene pelagic carbonates from a tilted upper Eocene basal conglomerate. We correlate this late middle or early late Eocene folding and erosion event with a better studied middle Eocene folding and erosion event of the same age in Cuba that has been interpreted by previous workers as the result of a collision between the northeast-facing Greater Antilles arc and the Bahamas Platform. A second folding event is marked by a slight angular unconformity separating broadly folded upper Eocene to lower Miocene deep-marine clastic rocks from upper Miocene to lower Pliocene shallow-marine carbonate rocks. We interpret this middle Miocene folding event as initial Miocene transpressional deformation at a strike-slip restraining bend along the Septentrional fault zone. The axis of a large fold formed during this event is transected by a left-lateral strike-slip fault. A third folding event is marked by a broad anticline developed in upper Miocene to lower Pliocene shallow-marine carbonate rocks and is interpreted as continued late Pliocene to present transpression at the restraining bend along the Septentrional fault zone.