Quaint and Historic Forts of North America

by John Martin Hammond

The city of Havana was located where it stands to-day in 1519, after a four years’ unsatisfactory trial of a site on the opposite, or south, coast of the island. It jogged along comfortably through all of the ordinary perils of that time until 1538, when it was attacked and sacked by a French privateersman. The authorities in the home country determined to provide some means of defence for the baby metropolis, and one Hernando de Soto, an impecunious adventurer who had followed Pizarro to Peru, and had returned enriched with plunder from that unhappy land, was commissioned governor of Cuba and Florida with instructions to build a fortress at Havana.

De Soto came to Havana in the fashion of leisure of the times, and in pursuit of his royal master’s instructions, laid the foundations of a fortress. This work was finished under the direction of his lieutenant while he, himself, was searching an El Dorado in Florida and was finding a miserable death by fever on the Mississippi. The structure which de Soto left as his legacy to Havana is the Castillo de la Fuerza, half hidden, to-day, between the Senate and old post-office building on the Plaza de Armes. La Fuerza has been credited with being the oldest inhabitable and inhabited structure in the Western Hemisphere and the claim is not easily disputed. As early as 1544 a royal decree had been given forth that all vessels entering Havana harbor should salute the little fortress with a ceremony not enjoyed by any other city in the New World save Santo Domingo.

The form of la Fuerza is that of a quadrilateral, having a bastion at each of the four corners. The walls are twenty-five feet in height and are double. There is a moat which has not contained water for many years, and arrangements for a draw-bridge which has been replaced by a permanent plank walk. To the seaward is a watch-tower similar in design to that on the fort at St. Augustine, and in this tower is a bell which, tradition says, was rung wildly whenever in the old days a suspicious sail came into the view of the watchman. The little bronze image in the top of the tower is known as “La Habana.” When de Soto sailed out from Havana harbor on that storied expedition through the American wilds which was to end in his death, he left la Fuerza, and with it his command as governor, in charge of his bride, Isabel de Bobadilla. For four years Lady Isabel waited for her lord’s return, spending anxious hours in the little watch-tower of the fort. Only when the tattered remnants of that splendid army which had accompanied the adventurer were brought back to Havana was her long suspense ended.

MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA, CUBA

The cellars of la Fuerza contain damp dungeons used as receptacles for modern rifles and ammunition, this part of the old fort being given over to the purposes of an armory.

In 1554 Havana was again attacked by the French and partially destroyed and in the following year it fell a victim to pirates. During the wars which marked the reigns of the Emperor Charles V, of Spain, and his son, Philip II, the colony became more and more the object of attack by Spain’s enemies, and in 1585, Havana having been seriously menaced by Sir Francis Drake, it was determined to build additional defences for the city. In 1589 Morro Castle, the Castle of the Three Kings and the Bateria de la Punta were begun; by 1597 they were completed.

The word “Morro” means promontory, and Castle del Morro is merely the fortress on the point. The design of Morro is that of the quaint Moorish fortress in the harbor of Lisbon, but it has been changed so much for modern defensive uses that it does not now greatly resemble its original. The work is irregular in shape, is built on solid rock, and rises from 100 to 120 feet above the level of the sea. Its situation on the northern one of the two points of the entrance to the harbor of Havana gives it a great importance. Opposite Morro, across the harbor mouth, is la Punta.

To visit Morro one climbs to the fort by an inclined road cut out of rock, shaded with laurels and royal poincianas. Hedges of cactus hem in the road. The pilgrim reaches at last the moat. This was cut out of solid rock and is seventy feet in depth. Passing over the draw-bridge and advancing through the dark walls of the work, one comes to the inner court, from whence there is a passage to the ramparts. Here is a fine outlook over city and harbor, from the seaward side of the ramparts, where there is a battery of twelve guns known as the “Twelve Apostles.”