The coastal 'fortifications' of Spain in America are the works of military engineering that bear witness to the four hundred years of Spanish presence in America. They were built from northern California to Tierra del Fuego. Their purpose was the defense of port towns against the attack of the fleets of the English, French and Dutch armies, as well as corsairs and pirates. [1]
Defense fortifications were present from the beginning of the conquest of America, military actions and diplomatic efforts that resulted in Spain's control of a vast territory. In addition to walling the populations, castles were built in the highest part, which allowed the control of the territory and allowed an effective defense. [2]
From the reign of Felipe II onwards, notable efforts were made to build new fortifications or expand existing ones in the face of the annexationist threat from other European nations.
By 1550 certain strategic ports had become fortified enclaves: Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, and San Juan, Puerto Rico (centers of Spanish power in the Caribbean islands); Cartagena (guardian of northern South America and incursions through the Isthmus of Panama area); Nombre de Dios and later Portobelo on the isthmus; [3] San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz (key point and entrance to Mexico); and Havana (strategic center and meeting point for groups of ships to undertake their return voyage to Spain). Other secondary fortifications were also built in Yucatán, Florida, Central America, Venezuela [4] and the islands to discourage attackers and foreign settlers. The first defenses were simple earthen forts armed with a few culverins and small-caliber cannons. But the capture of Havana by French attackers in 1555 highlighted the need for larger and more resistant fortifications and forts. [5] By the end of the 16th century and during the 17th century, beginning with Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation in (1577–1580), English, French, Dutch and buccaneer raiders ravaged Spanish trade and ports along the Pacific coasts and forced the Spanish to fortify El Callao, Panama, Acapulco, and other settlements and ports.
In the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, the construction of colossal constructions designed by Spanish and Italian military engineers incorporated revolutionary architectural changes derived from advances in Europe. In 1563 the engineer Francisco Calona began redesigning Havana's fortifications to incorporate modern bastions, cannon platforms, thick-walled vaults, and a dry moat. These improvements provided the defenders with a very good firing range against attackers while providing protection against cannon attacks by the assaulting forces. The capture of the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa and the city of Veracruz (1568) by John Hawkins, and Drake's series of attacks through the Caribbean between 1585 and 1586, during which he captured Santo Domingo and Cartagena, prompted Philip II to send the renowned Italian engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli to design modern fortifications at San Juan de Ulúa and evaluate the Caribbean defenses. Antonelli's proposals led to the construction of a costly but quite effective system of fortifications that in the case of Havana resisted attempts to capture it for almost 200 years until 1762. Indeed, further attacks by Drake and Hawkins in 1595 against the improved fortifications failed at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and at Cartagena, yellow fever, malaria and dysentery, and other tropical diseases forced the attacking troops to desist in their attempts. Drake attacked and razed Nombre de Dios on the isthmus, after which the town was abandoned and activity was concentrated in Portobelo.
After the signing of the Treaty of London in 1604, European competitors occupied the vacant territories in America, which became excellent stalking points from which to launch more planned and larger attacks. Simultaneously small forces of buccaneers, often supported by European allies, plundered and ravaged the ports. They massacred the Portobelo barracks in 1668 and managed to capture numerous Spanish coastal towns and fortifications. On several occasions, buccaneers forces crossed the isthmus, capturing Spanish ships, and captured weakly fortified Pacific ports in Central America, Mexico, and Peru. While the great fortresses of the Caribbean should have been impregnable against such attacks, problems with the availability of troops in barracks and difficulties in maintaining large-scale works, artillery, and stores provided opportunities for surprise lightning attacks.
As revenues declined during the 17th century, poorly recruited and trained Spanish troops in the Americas lacked the determination to defend the fortifications against buccaneer attack. Campeche fell in 1672, and in 1683 a buccaneer force stormed the Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa and captured Veracruz. They sacked the town, killed 300 of its 6,000 inhabitants, and even threatened to massacre the entire population if a ransom was not paid. With the arrival of the annual Spanish fleet, Mexican military forces from Puebla, Orizaba, Jalapa, and Cordoba reoccupied the town and found destroyed buildings and the bodies of people and animals rotting in the streets. As a consequence of this disaster, Mexican authorities organized special tribunals to investigate and punish military personnel who had not defended the fortifications effectively.
During the wars against Great Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Spanish forces and fortifications helped resist and repel British attacks on Cartagena de Indias (1741), La Guaira [1743], Puerto Cabello (1743), San Juan de Puerto Rico (1797), and discourage plans to invade Mexico in the period 1805 to 1807. Although the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa was the last bastion of Spanish power in Mexico until 1825, it did not serve the Spaniards to reconquer the viceroyalty. Throughout the 19th century, many of the fortifications were converted into prisons and penitentiaries, rather than serving as sentries to protect strategic ports against foreign advances.
The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict lasting from 1739 to 1748 between Britain and Spain. The majority of the fighting took place in New Granada and the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. It was related to the 1740 to 1748 War of the Austrian Succession. The name was coined in 1858 by British historian Thomas Carlyle, and refers to Robert Jenkins, captain of the British brig Rebecca, whose ear was allegedly severed by Spanish coast guards while searching his ship for contraband in April 1731.
Cartagena, known since the colonial era as Cartagena de Indias, is a city and one of the major ports on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region, along the Caribbean sea. Cartagena's past role as a link in the route to the West Indies provides it with important historical value for world exploration and preservation of heritage from the great commercial maritime routes. As a former Spanish colony, it was a key port for the export of Bolivian silver to Spain and for the import of enslaved Africans under the asiento system. It was defensible against pirate attacks in the Caribbean. The city's strategic location between the Magdalena and Sinú Rivers also 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.
San Juan de Ulúa, now known as Castle of San Juan de Ulúa, is a large complex of fortresses, prisons and one former palace on an island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico overlooking the seaport of Veracruz, Mexico. Juan de Grijalva's 1518 expedition named the island. On March 30, 1519, Hernan Cortés met with Tendile and Pitalpitoque, emissaries from Moctezuma II's Aztec Empire.
Veracruz, also known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico and the most populous city in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located along the coast in the central part of the state, 90 km (56 mi) southeast of the state capital Xalapa.
Castillo San Felipe del Morro, commonly known as El Morro(The Promontory), is a large fortress and citadel in the historic district of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Commissioned by Charles I of Spain in 1539, it was first built as a fortified tower in honor of Philip II, who oversaw its expansion into a hornwork fort by 1595. Over the next 200 years, especially in the reign of Charles III, El Morro continued to be developed to reach its current form in 1787. Rising 140 ft from the Atlantic shoreline with 18 to 25 ft thick walls, it stands on a steep, rocky headland promontory on San Juan Islet guarding the entry to San Juan Bay, the harbor of Old San Juan. El Morro, alongside La Fortaleza, San Cristóbal, El Cañuelo, and other forts part of the Walls of Old San Juan, protected strategically and militarily important Old San Juan, La Llave de las Indias , from invasion by competing world powers during the Age of Sail.
Castillo San Cristóbal is a fortress in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was built by the Spanish to protect against land-based attacks on the historic city of Old San Juan. It is part of San Juan National Historic Site.
During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish Main was the collective term for the parts of the Spanish Empire that were on the mainland of the Americas and had coastlines on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. The term was used to distinguish those regions from the numerous islands Spain controlled in the Caribbean, which were known as the Spanish West Indies.
Portobelo is a historic port and corregimiento in Portobelo District, Colón Province, Panama, Central America. Located on the northern part of the Isthmus of Panama, it is 32 km (20 mi) northeast of the modern port of Colón now at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. It has a population of 4,559 as of 2010, and functions as the seat of Portobelo District.
Chagres, once the chief Atlantic port on the isthmus of Panama, is now an abandoned village at the historical site of Fort San Lorenzo. The fort's ruins and the village site are located about 8 miles (13 km) west of Colón, on a promontory overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River.
Pedro de Castro y Figueroa y Salazar, 1st Duke of la Conquista, 1st Marquess of Gracia Real, KOS, OSJ was a Spanish military officer and viceroy of New Spain.
Castillo San Salvador de la Punta is a fortress at the entrance to the bay in Havana, Cuba.
The Real Felipe Fortress was built to defend the main Peruvian port and the city of Lima from pirates and corsairs during colonial times. The fortress was pivotal in the 1826 naval battle between a Spanish fleet sent to South America to "reclaim" its colonies and land batteries in the coast of Peru. The Real Felipe Fortress is currently the Peruvian Army Museum, displaying historical uniforms, weapons and other military paraphernalia.
Battista Antonelli (1547–1616) was a military engineer from a prestigious Italian family of military engineers in the service of the Habsburg monarchs of Austria and Spain. He is credited with designing fortresses in Spanish colonial cities in the Caribbean, including Cartagena de Indias in Colombia, Havana in Cuba, and San Juan Bautista in Puerto Rico.
In the history of Panama, the earliest known inhabitants were the Cueva and Coclé tribes, but they were drastically reduced by disease and fighting when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. But some moved out of Panama to have children and increase population.
This article is the History of Cartagena, Colombia.
Spanish attempts to reconquer Mexico were an effort by the Spanish government to regain possession of its former colony of New Spain, resulting in episodes of war comprised in clashes between the newly born Mexican nation and Spain. The designation mainly covers two periods: the first attempts occurred from 1821 to 1825 and involved the defense of Mexico's territorial waters, while the second period had two stages, including the Mexican expansion plan to take the Spanish-held island of Cuba between 1826 and 1828 and the 1829 expedition of Spanish General Isidro Barradas, which landed on Mexican soil with the object of reconquering Mexican territory. Although the Spanish never regained control of the country, they damaged the fledgling Mexican economy.
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.
The Battle of Puerto Caballos was a military event during the Anglo–Spanish War to capture the Spanish town and port of Puerto Caballos on 17 February 1603 by an English fleet under Christopher Newport and Michael Geare. The English were able to achieve victory after a bitter fight. Two Spanish galleons were captured, one of which was subsequently burned. The Anglo-French consortium occupied the area and after two weeks withdrew with captured booty.
The fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo are military constructions, built by the Spanish Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries on the Caribbean coastline of Colón Province in Panama. The ruins are located on the coast of the province of Colón. In view of their cultural importance, the sites have been inscribed by UNESCO in 1980 as a World Heritage Site under Criteria (i) and (iv), with the description, "Magnificent examples of 17th- and 18th-century military architecture, these Panamanian forts on the Caribbean coast form part of the defence system built by the Spanish Crown to protect transatlantic trade."
The Military of New Spain played an insignificant role during the 17th century. The new Mexican society growing on the ruins left by the conquest was peaceful. A very limited number of regular troops, a couple of companies, were enough to keep the peace. The defense against external enemies was based on a limited number of fortified port cities. Spanish conflicts with the Kingdom of Great Britain during the 18th century changed this. The Bourbon Reforms meant sending regular troops from Spain to New Spain, raising several colonial line infantry regiments, and creating a local militia that also included former slaves. The Northern frontier was the exception to the peacefulness of Mexico, with constant warfare with the nomadic Native Americans.