February 27, 2021 - Spanish Fort
St. Augustine
We drove from Savannah to the old Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. It was hot. But we didn't mind. Remember, just two days ago we were freezing in Maryland.
The Castillo de San Marcos (Spanish for "St. Mark's Castle") is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida.
In 1513 Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon landed near St. Augustine and claimed all North America for Spain, calling it La Florida.
St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 42 years before Jamestown. It is the oldest continuously-inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. Soon afterwards the Spanish destroyed the French outpost of Fort Caroline, located in what is now Jacksonville. St. Augustine served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years.
In 1586 the English privateer Sir Francis Drake sacked and burned St. Augustine.
In 1609 and 1611, expeditions were sent out from St. Augustine against the English colony at Jamestown.
The English buccaneer Robert Searle sacked St. Augustine in 1668, retaliating for the Spanish destruction of the English settlement of New Providence in the Bahamas. In 1670, Charles Town (modern-day Charleston, South Carolina) was founded by English colonists. As it was just two days' sail from St. Augustine, the English settlement and encroachment of English traders into Spanish territory spurred the Spanish in their construction of a fort. Searle's raid and the establishment of the English settlement at Charles Town spurred the Spanish Crown to finally acknowledge the vulnerability of St. Augustine to foreign incursions and strengthen the city's defenses. In 1669, Queen Regent Mariana ordered the Viceroy of New Spain to disburse funds for the construction of a permanent masonry fortress, which began in 1672. The Castillo de San Marcos was completed in 1695, not long before an attack by James Moore's forces from Carolina in November, 1702. Failing to capture the fort after a siege of 58 days, the British set St. Augustine ablaze as they retreated.
In 1740, St. Augustine was again besieged by the governor of the British colony of Georgia [Savannah], General James Oglethorpe, who was also unable to take the fort.
The 1763 Treaty of Paris, signed after Great Britain's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War, ceded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for the return of Havana and Manila. The vast majority of Spanish colonists in the region left Florida for Cuba, Florida became Great Britain's fourteenth and fifteenth North American colonies, and because of the political sympathies of its British inhabitants, St. Augustine became a Loyalist haven during the American Revolutionary War.
The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies as the United States, ceded Florida back to Spain and returned the Bahamas to Britain. During the twenty-year period of British rule, Britain took command of both the Castillo de San Marcos (renamed Fort St. Mark) and of Fort Matanzas.
The United States considered Florida vital to its political and military interests as it expanded its territory in North America, and maneuvered by sometimes clandestine means to acquire it. The Adams–Onís Treaty, negotiated in 1819 and ratified in 1821, ceded Florida and St. Augustine, still its capital at the time, to the United States. The Castillo was renamed Fort Marion.
Ownership of the Castillo was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933, and it has been a popular tourist destination since then.
The Castillo de San Marcos was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza, with construction beginning in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding. The fort's construction was ordered by Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after a raid by the English privateer Robert Searles in 1668 that destroyed much of St. Augustine and damaged the existing wooden fort.
To build the Castillo, quarrymen cut heavy slabs of coquina from nearby Anastasia Island. Coquina is a rare limestone found on the barrier islands near here. The stone made a very good material for building forts, particularly those built during the period of heavy cannon use. Because of coquina's softness, cannonballs would sink into, rather than shatter or puncture the walls. The Spanish word means "tiny shell" and this is what the stone is made of. Workmen quarried ovef 150 million pounds of coquina, barged blocks across the bay, and laid them into the Castillo. All of it had to be cut, shaped, and set by hand.
The Castillo is constructed by coquina blocks cemented together by mortar. The stone was covered with several layers of plaster and then painted with whitewash to give it a smooth, waterproof finish.
