The Samarian historian Alvaro Ospina Valiente reviewed when quoting the book вPirates in Santa Marta, by the Samarian historian Arturo Bermúdez, that while the other cities of the region were prospering, Santa Marta saw how the fleets of galleons were moving away from their port due to that pirate attacks were repeated frequently and their population was decreasing.
That in the year of 1543 Santa Marta was attacked by the French pirate Roberto Ball and the captures continued in the following years in such a way that in 37 years, between 1655 and 1692, the city was attacked and burned on nineteen occasions by the pirates, which It forced the Spanish authorities to build, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, six forts and two veils to protect the city.
These were the forts of San Juan and San Vicente in Santa Bárbara, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Punta Betín, San Antonio and Punta de Lipe in San Fernando and El Morro, in addition to the veils of San José and Cerro de la Pedrera.
For deca durabolin acheter its part, the research work of Jimena Montaña Cuéllar, published by the Luis Ángel Arango Library, teaches us that Santa Marta, since its foundation, became the starting point for expeditions into the interior, going up the Great Magdalena River. It was also a military headquarters and from there came the armies in charge of ´pacification of the aborigines´. The friendship with the indigenous people did not last long and the slaughter and destruction of the original cities was triggered.
What forced Governor Juan Beltrán de Caicedo, according to Montaña Cuellar, in the first decades of the 18th century, despite an apparent peace, to build a fortress in the foothills of the southern hill that baptized San Fernando, in honor of the future King Fernando SAW. At first it was a platform with a parapet (cantilever to protect the soldiers’ chest) and four cannons that fired flush. With this, an unfinished closure of the south of the bay was achieved and the entrance was blocked in case of landing.
Jimena continues to teach us that in 1743 Governor Don Juan de Aristegui found the city’s fortresses unable to really stop any attack and asked the Viceroy of Cartagena for help. This, by order of King Felipe V, sent to the military engineer Antonio de Arévalo who recommended, after making a survey and plan of the bay, to reinforce the constructions that already existed and to improve San Fernando, barricading the western sector and placing seven cannons. In addition to building a lookout at the top of the mountain with a small battery, which was later revealed by the next military engineer, Miguel Hernández.
These publications made visits to the San Fernando Fort even more exciting when the magic of its architecture, near the sea, generated a special charm. Strong that five years ago it looked like this:
History is considered as one of the humanistic sciences that has given more utility to the human being, not only to know the cultural heritage of the different civilizations that have passed through history, but also to allow them to build their own identity, searching and taking data from times past that make it easier for you to develop your own idiosyncrasy.
Not only do we stray day by day from our roots, from our cultural origins, but also while the immediate future of our city and our people remains in the unsupported promises of the moment, on the other hand we bury the best of its history, as well as today we register, in San Fernando, the death of another fort.
FROM ÑAPA: Could someone tell the Minister of Culture that another fort, that of El Morro, survives in Santa Marta; and that a young samarium, Jorge Mendoza, struggles almost heroically to save him? Hopefully they leave it, so that what they have done with what was left on dry land is not repeated: the San Fernando.