Cartagena,known since the colonial era as Cartagena de Indias,is a city and major port on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region. Founded in 1533,the city's strategic location between the Magdalena and SinúRivers gave it easy access to the interior of New Granada and made it a main port for trade between Spain and its overseas empire,establishing its importance by the early 1540s. During the colonial era it was a key port for the export of Peruvian silver to Spain and for the import of enslaved Africans under the asiento system. It was defensible against pirate attacks in the Caribbean.
The Archipelago of San Andrés,Providencia and Santa Catalina,or,in everyday language,San Andrés and Providencia,is one of the departments of Colombia,and the only one in North America. It consists of two island groups in the Caribbean Sea about 775 km (482 mi) northwest of mainland Colombia,and eight outlying banks and reefs. The largest island of the archipelago is called San Andrés and its capital is San Andrés. The other large islands are Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands which lie to the north-east of San Andrés;their capital is Santa Isabel.
Isla de Providencia,historically Old Providence,and generally known as Providencia,is a mountainous Caribbean island that is part of the Colombian department of Archipelago of San Andrés,Providencia and Santa Catalina and the municipality of Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands,lying midway between Costa Rica and Jamaica. Providencia's maximum elevation is 360 metres (1,180 ft) above sea level. The smaller Santa Catalina Island to the northwest is connected by a 100 metres (330 ft) footbridge to its larger sister Providencia Island. Providencia Island has an area of 17 square kilometers;the two islands cover an area of 22 square kilometres (8.5 sq mi) and form the municipality of Santa Isabel,which had a population of 4,927 at the Census of 2005. The island is served by El Embrujo Airport,which the Colombian Government plans to expand in order to take international flights.
Pedro de Heredia was a Spanish conquistador,founder of the city of Cartagena de Indias and explorer of the northern coast and the interior of present-day Colombia.
William Jackson was an English privateer who,based in Guanaja and Roatan,was in the service of the Providence Island Company from 1639 until around 1641. During that year,he captured a Spanish slave ship at the Honduran port of Trujillo and received a ransom of 8,000 pounds of indigo as well as 2,000 pieces-of-eight and two gold chains. Leaving the Providence Island Company,he sailed to England where he sold sugar and indigo to obtain supplies for another privateering expedition and,upon receiving a three-year letter of marque from the Earl of Warwick,he set sail commanding a fleet including such prominent privateers as Samuel Axe,William Rous and Lewis Morris in 1642.
The cabildo of San Juan Tenochtitlan was a governing council established in the 16th century to give a Spanish-style government to Tenochtitlan.
This article is the History of Cartagena,Colombia.
Manuel de Cendoya was a Spanish soldier who served as governor of Spanish Florida from mid-1671 to mid-1673. His administration is remembered primarily for initiating construction of the Castillo de San Marcos,a masonry fortress whose building had first been ordered by Cendoya's predecessor,Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega,after the destructive raid of the English privateer Robert Searle in 1668. Work proceeded in 1671,although the first stone was not laid until 1672.
The Castillo San Felipe de Barajas is a fortress in the city of Cartagena,Colombia. The castle is located on the Hill of San Lázaro in a strategic location,dominating approaches to the city by land or sea. It was built by the Spanish during the colonial era. Construction began in the year 1536,and it was originally known as the Castillo de San Lázaro,It was expanded in 1657.
Bernardo López de Mendizábal was a Spanish politician,soldier,and religious scholar,who served as governor of New Mexico between 1659–1660 and as alcalde mayor in Guayacocotla. Among López's acts as governor of New Mexico,he prohibited the Franciscan priests from forcing the Native Americans to work if they were not paying a salary and recognized their right to practice their religion. These acts caused disagreements with the Franciscan missionaries of New Mexico in their dealings with the Native Americans. He was indicted by the Inquisition on thirty-three counts of malfeasance and the practice of Judaism in 1660. He was replaced in the same year and his administration ended. He was arrested in 1663 and died as a prisoner in 1664.
The Providence Island colony was established in 1630 by English Puritans on what is now the Colombian Department of San Andrés and Providencia,about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of the coast of Nicaragua. Although intended to be a model Puritan colony,it also functioned as a base for privateers operating against Spanish ships and settlements in the region. In 1641,the Spanish and Portuguese,after two previous attempts,finally penetrated the harbour's defenses and defeated the English in battle. The Spanish removed all the people but kept the structures. This garrison was maintained on the island,now called Santa Catalina again,until 1666.
Philip Bell was Governor of Bermuda from 1626 to 1629,of the Providence Island colony from 1629 to 1636,and of Barbados from 1640 to 1650 during the English Civil War. During his terms of office in Providence and Barbados,the colonies moved from using indentured English workers to slaves imported from West Africa. The Providence Island colony,despite its puritan ideals,became a haven for privateers attacking ships in the Spanish Main.
Robert Hunt was an English soldier who was Governor of the Providence Island colony in the western Caribbean sea from 1636 to 1638.
Francisco Díaz Pimienta (1594–1652) was a Spanish naval officer who became Captain general of the Ocean Fleet.
Francisco de Murga y Ortiz de Orué was Spanish soldier and engineer who became Governor and Captain-General of Cartagena. He was governor of Marmora in Africa when he was appointed to fortify the plaza of Cartagena. He was a knight of Order of Santiago. He died in 1636.
Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands is a municipality of the department of Archipelago of San Andrés,Providencia and Santa Catalina in insular Colombian region,on the northern coast of Providencia Island as well as several uninhabited cayes to the North and East) had a population of 5,011 at the 2007 official estimates,and receives just 15,000 visitors per year. The island is one of Colombia's top scuba diving destinations,with a 32 km long barrier reef protecting the Eastern coast of the island.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Cartagena de Indias,Colombia.
Juan de(l) Junco was a Spanish conquistador who participated in the Spanish conquest of the Muisca people. Del Junco started his career as a conquistador in the 1526 expedition led by Sebastian Cabot exploring the Río de la Plata in present-day Argentina. In 1535,he arrived in Santa Marta on the Colombian Caribbean coast from where the expedition in search of El Dorado set off in April 1536.
Tomás O'Neill y Salmón was a Spanish colonial governor of the western Caribbean archipelago of San Andrés,Providencia and Santa Catalina,today part of modern Colombia.
Manuel Batista Perez was a Spanish-born merchant,and multi-millionaire active in Africa,Europe,the Americas and Asia. Though Spanish,Manuel called himself Portuguese because Spanish New Christians were not allowed in the New World. Perez became extremely wealthy,according to the Jewish Encyclopedia,Perez amassed a fortune which would have been the equivalent of $1,000,000 in 1906 Perez moved to Lima with his wife and three children. He was sent with a large sum to invest for his brothers-in-law back in Spain. He was born to a Marrano family,that is to say a Sephardic Jew whose family outwardly conformed to Catholicism for socio-political reasons,but privately practiced Judaism. Already persecuted by the Spanish inquisitors especially in 1620 and in 1635,Perez and a number of other Jews in Peru fell foul of the Peruvian Inquisition in Lima as part of the so-called "Great Jewish Conspiracy" trials of the 1630s,where he and other merchants were accused of Judaizing and supposedly plotting to hand over the Viceroyalty of Peru to the Dutch Empire. He was among twelve Jewish slave trading partners and others,handed out the strongest punishment possible for their alleged involvement and was burned alive at the stake as part of an auto-da-fé in 1639.
