Pirates, buccaneers, looted treasures, emeralds, gold, fires, slavery and the deathbed of Simon Bolivar – Cartagena is layered in a wealth of history, legends, violence and South American lore. The fact that the city is walled with fortresses and look out posts speaks to its turbulent past.
Founded in 1533 by Pedro de Heredia and named after Cartagena, Spain, it didn’t take long for Cartagena to become the principle Spanish port in the Caribbean and doorway to South America.
Cartagena soon became the holding place for the riches the Spanish stole from Indians until galleons would ship the stolen treasure back to Spain. Treasure came from all over South America, gold and silver from Peru and New Granada, emeralds mined by enslaved Indians and more. Cartagena was the port to export Spanish greed.
The Canal of Dique, constructed in 1650, connected Cartagena Bay to the Magdalena River (Colombia’s biggest river), making Cartagena the gateway for anything entering or leaving the country. Cartagena was, without a doubt, Spain’s most important strategic city in South America during the time of the Spanish Conquest.
Naturally, where there’s treasure, there are pirates, and Cartagena was under constant attack by pirates and buccaneers, one of the most famous being Sir Francis Drake who mercifully didn’t completely destroy the city in 1586 in exchange for 107,000 Spanish pesos (pieces of eight) that he shipped back to England.
After the century of pirates, the Spanish government poured millions of pesos into constructing fortresses, walls, and bastions. And in the 17th century, the Spanish crown paid the most renown military engineers to construct the fortresses that are still standing today.
Raped and oppressed, the people of Cartagena proclaimed their freedom from Spanish rule in 1810, influencing other Colombian cities to do the same. In 1815, the Spanish returned to re-conquer the city, a time when over 6000 inhabitants died of disease and starvation.
Cartagena declared independence again in 1821 when Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (aka Simon Bolivar) took the city by sea, freeing it from Spanish rule forever. In 1830, Simon Bolivar resigned his presidency and was preparing to return to Europe, to live in exile. He said, “All who served the Revolution have plowed the sea.” Before returning, though, he died in Cartagena.
DID YOU KNOW:
• Cartagena, in the 16th century alone, was under siege by pirates five times.
• Some say Simon Bolivar didn’t die of tuberculosis but, instead, was poisoned with arsenic. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/7690928/Simon-Bolivar-died-of-arsenic-poisoning.html)
• Bolivar dubbed Cartagena “La Heroica.”
• The first inhabitants of Cartagena date back to 4000 BC.
• The city’s original population, in 1533, was 200 inhabitants.
• Cartagena was one of the three seats of the Catholic Inquisition in the Americas. The Palace of Inquisition was finished in 1770 and is one of Cartagena’s best preserved historical buildings.
• Cartagena was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Check out why here. http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=285
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