Old San Juan Images, San Juan: Viejo San Juan /Dean
San Juan: Viejo San Juan June-2008, By:Travel and Sports Staff
Military Mistakes, Military Marvels: Old San Juan’s Fortifications
For almost 300 years, from Puerto Rico’s colonization in 1508 until the early 1800s, the Island’s strategic location at the Gateway to the West Indies made it a constant target for enemy powers in the Caribbean. Consequently, San Juan (today’s Old San Juan) was a Spanish military town. Defense was of primary concern; everything else suffered.
Even so, defense building did not get off to a promising start. The first fort was Casa Blanca, a blockhouse of limited military use, built in 1523. This was the residence of Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León died prematurely, but his descendents lived in Casa Blanca for centuries, transforming it from modest home to lovely mansion. Today, it is one of the old city’s historical gems, a museum depicting upper-class life in the 1600s. Lush gardens and fountains surround the buildings.
Several years later San Juan saw its first permanent stronghold, known as La Fortaleza, the Spanish word for “fortress.” Unfortunately, La Fortaleza’s inland location was less than ideal. “Only blind men could have chosen such a site for a fort,” complained historical chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo at the time. Never distinguished as a fortress, La Fortaleza became the residence for the Island’s military governors. Today, it is the oldest governor’s residence still in use in the hemisphere: only the name and two towers facing the bay allude to its origins.
Finally, in 1539 a small battery was constructed at the foot of 100-foot cliffs on a headland (morro) jutting into San Juan Bay. Three cannons perched at sea level could take aim at the waterlines of enemy ships. If you descend into the lower levels of El Morro today, you can still see the original tower. In 1589 Castillo de San Felipe del Morro was given its official name and its hornwork (so named because its shape resembles a bull’s horns) at the top of the cliffs. Today’s dramatic fort began to take shape.
Three enemy attacks – the British in 1595 and 1598, and the Dutch in 1625 – convinced Spain of the need for stronger fortifications. During the 1600s, soldiers and laborers (including convicts and slaves) strengthened existing forts, built a wall around the town with gates that were locked at night and constructed a small fort at San Cristóbal for defense against land attack.
When defenses were again overhauled a century later, San Cristóbal Fortress became the largest fortification built by the Spaniards in the Americas. From the fort’s second level, the sheer ingenuity of the engineering work is apparent. Its triangular “outworks” was made up of a maze of small forts, moats, tunnels, gunpowder magazines, trenches, and mining galleries. Eight large rooms housed up to 212 soldiers, and four immense cisterns stored more than 700,000 gallons of rainwater.
When the British fleet, commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby, attempted to take San Juan in 1797, it was forced to sail away in defeat. Abercromby later wrote that the city could have resisted ten times more firepower. San Juan was, at long last, impregnable. Ironically, the 1800s saw a decline in warfare and a rise in commercial interests in the region. The forts, no longer needed militarily, eventually took on their present-day importance as outstanding historical monuments to the marvels of military engineering.
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