Cartagena de Indias: Before, During and After The Conquistadors
Map of Cartagena, Colombia available at http://www.google.com/search?q=cartagena+map+colombia
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia is a jewel of a city sprawled on the Caribbean coast with a fascinating history that, like a trilogy, can be divided into life before the Spaniards, life with the Spaniards and life after the Spaniards.
Life before the invasion and land grab by the Spanish appears to have been rather idyllic in many respects for the original Meso-Americans drawn to this area as early as 4000 BCE by the mild climate and profusion of wildlife. Here they built villages and engaged in a life as hunter-gatherers as well as some uniquely sophisticated irrigation and farming practices. Some agriculturalists had a belief system that viewed the world as a weaving of land, plants and water upon which the animals and people lived. Potters made both everyday and ceremonial ceramics and goldsmiths (the Sinú people) devised several methods for making some pretty awesome jewelry for those in the upper echelons of their society. Of course, the elite of all the tribes engaged in some strutting to make sure that everyone knew they had riches. Also practiced was intermittent warfare, with some tribes indulging in the art of barbecuing their adversaries. But by and large, life was good.
In 1501 CE, when the Spanish first landed in Cartagena Bay, the land was inhabited by several different tribes of people from the Karib (also spelled Carib) language group, who were found throughout the islands of the Caribbean Sea. The Spanish found the southern Caribbean coast around Cartagena unattractive to colonizers and departed elsewhere, leaving the Karibs in peace for another three decades.
portrait of Pedro de Heridia, 1533
When the Spanish returned in 1533, there were 200 settlers led by Pedro de Heredia and the Sinú people were forcibly displaced or enslaved while their ancestors’ tombs were looted for gold. After their plundering was complete, many of the Spanish inhabitants scattered to the countryside to begin new lives as farmers. However, Cartagena was given a second opportunity to prosper a short time later when the city was successfully established as one of the great royal treasure repositories for the riches stripped from the peoples of Latin America. As a renowned and flourishing outpost it became a major trading port for precious metals, pearls and emeralds. Gold, silver and emeralds from the mines in New Granada (later to be named Colombia) and Peru as well as pearls from the coastal waters were loaded onto the galleons bound for Spain via Havana.
With its fame and glory the now prosperous Cartagena was turned into an attractive plunder site for pirates and buccaneers – French and English privateers – licensed by their respective kings. Now it became the turn of the Spanish to be threatened, then attacked; their cities and forts sacked and pillaged and their people killed. The pirates quickly closed on the victim with a strike in 1563 by the French nobleman Jean-François Roberval followed quickly by Martin Coat for the British crown. Cartagena’s defenses were repaired and strengthened after each incident but the work proved to be ineffectual. In 1586 Sir Francis Drake arrived with a massive fleet, quickly took the city and exacted a stiff ransom from the Governor after destroying a quarter to the city. (See also our posts featuring Sir Francis Drake having his wily way in Panama at Fuerte San Lorenzo and Casco Viejo, the original capital of Panama.)
sentry post overlooking the Caribbean Sea
After this disaster, Spain poured millions every year into the city for its protection. Planning of the walls and forts began in earnest during the 17th century; the Spanish Crown paid for the services of prominent European military engineers to construct fortresses. The last successful incursion on Cartagena was in 1697 by the French pirates Sir Bernard Desjean and Jean Baptiste Ducasse but by 1710 the walls were rebuilt, the forts reorganized and restored, the public services restored and the buildings reopened.
Today the walls that surround Cartagena’s old town are its most significant, identifiable feature and a part of what makes the city a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The engineering works took 208 years and ended with some 6.8 miles of walls surrounding the city, including the fort, Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, named in honor of Spain’s King Philip IV. The Castillo was constructed to repel land attacks and was an anchor of the city’s defenses. Numerous attempts to storm the reinforced fort were mounted, but it was never penetrated.
Spain had one more infamous chapter to play in Cartagena’s history for, in addition to its prominence as a shipping port for the dispersion of the New World’s wealth to the Old World it, along with Veracruz, Mexico, became one of two licensed trade ports for African slaves in Central and South America. The first slaves were transported by Pedro de Heredia, who you may recall was the founder of the city in 1533, and were used as cane cutters to open roads, as laborers to loot and destroy the tombs of the aboriginal population of Sinú and to construct buildings and fortresses. Slavery was abolished in Colombia in 1851.
Colombia made several attempts to declare its independence from Spain and was finally successful in the final war for independence in 1821 led by Simon Bolívar. It is the admixture of three races, the indigenous Meso-American Karibs, the Caucasian Spanish and the descendants of the African slaves, which gives Cartagena an ethnic richness. Several people have told us that those from Cartagena think of themselves first as citizens of this city because of its distinctive kaleidoscope of civilizations, heritage and history and then as citizens of Colombia.
By Richard and Anita
No Particular Place To Go 
Excellent article about the area’s historic evolution. I really enjoyed it!!
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So glad you enjoyed the post, Marilyn. We get a little excited about the history, conquest, skullduggery and nefarious characters that we find in each country and have fun sharing our interest with our readers.
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Colombia obviously has a long and interesting history – thanks for sharing.
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Colombia is an amazing country and we’ll have to make plans in the future to visit many of its other cities. However, there’s plenty of history to learn, places to see and things to do in Cartagena as we’ve discovered over the last few weeks.
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What an informative post! I’ve long wanted to go to Cartagena and your post has inspired me to move it further to the top of my travel wish list.
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So glad you liked the post, Michele, and that you are moving Cartagena up your wish list. It’s a beautiful city with much to do and lots to see for the travel enthusiast, the history lover and photographers, too!
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Thanks for this informative post! Wow you settled in for a few weeks! Good you can do this kind of travel!
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You can call us “retired nomads” or long term travelers but we’re lucky enough to have the time to settle into an area that interests us for weeks or even months at a time and really learn about the history and culture as well as meet people and make friends. Traveling full-time is an amazing lifestyle and we love it!
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Interesting background. I’d love to see the walls that surround Cartagena’s old town. A UNESCO World Heritage Site can’t help but be interesting.
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The walls are lovely and one of the most recognizable features of Cartagena and we’ve enjoyed walking alongside and on top of several portions of the perimeter. We’ve been fortunate to visit several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Mexico, Central and South America and have always found them to be amazing and well worth the time and effort!
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I would love to visit Colombia and this would surely be among the places I would visit!
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Unfortunately, we only scheduled time enough for a visit to Cartagena this time around in Colombia but we’re definitely thinking about a follow-up trip to see some of the other cities we’ve heard about including Calle and Medellín.
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Thank you so much for the history lesson! We had dinner the other night with friends and they were sharing their stories of Cartagena – so unique! Happy New Year to both of you!
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Cartagena is unique and we are really enjoying our time here in this fascinating city. Wishing you a New Year filled with more travel adventures and happiness as well!
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I think I need to print every post and put them in a history binder. Honestly, you have made learning interesting and also I’d have never even thought about researching your destinations. I also wanted to comment on how clear and detailed your photos are. To actually see the construction of these old and historic icons does matter.
Thanks so much!!!!!!
Chris
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Since you’ve taken up photography as a serious hobby your praise regarding our photos is really appreciated! We’re so glad that you’re enjoying the history of the places we visit as we love sharing some of the background that we find so interesting.
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What a fascinating history and how wonderful that the walls are still intact!
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The walls are completely intact and amazingly well-preserved. It’s truly awesome to see the height which ranges from (this is my guess) 10 to more than 30 feet high and realize that they are many feet thick as well – formidable!
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I’ve been wanting to go to Cartagena for years and now when I finally get myself there I’ll be better informed thanks to you! Very interesting post.
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We’ve really enjoyed our time here in Cartagena and are glad to renew your interest and enthusiasm for this amazing city. Stay tuned for a couple of more posts with info we hope you can use!
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Such an informative post, thanks. Really makes us want to visit Columbia.
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So glad you enjoyed the post. Unfortunately we’ll only be in Cartagena this visit and will miss out on all the other interesting places that Colombia has to offer. However, we’re glad that we had a few weeks to settle in and really explore the city. Every day we find, see or learn something new.
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The first thing I thought of is how reminiscent the fortifications are of those in St. Augustine. This was a wonderful history lesson about a country my knowledge is vastly insufficient. We’ll have to remedy that with a visit. 🙂
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Even though we’re avid readers our knowledge about Mexico, Central and South America had huge gaps (and still does)! Travel is fun because it motivates us to learn more about the history of a country or city so that we can understand what we’re seeing, it’s impact upon the region and why it’s significant. So glad you enjoyed the “lesson”!
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Cartagena definitely has its own vibe, different than those of the land-locked Colombian cities like Medellin and Bogota. I was there on a cruise stop during the height of narco-terrorism. In fact, I picked that specific cruise because of the stop in Cartagena. It was my first visit back to Colombia since I studied there in 1974. At that time, Cartagena was reeling along with the rest of the country. The public schools had been closed for 2 years. Thanks for the dose of history. I find that educating oneself about the local history enhances travel.
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That must have been a sobering visit! We agree that learning about a city or a country’s history adds much more depth to our understanding of the area as well as gives us a much richer travel experience. Richard has always been the geography geek but I’m finding out how interesting (and important!) that can be too! Anita
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I don’t know much about the history of Columbia – thanks for providing background on Cartagena. It looks like a fascinating city to visit. We sometimes forget that the “New World” has a longer history (and a rich history) than that which started with European invasion.The wall still looks pretty well intact – is that true of the entire wall?
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Reading articles that cover a few thousand years of history about the “new world” is interesting and makes traveling so much more amazing! Considering that portions of the wall are over 500 years old it’s remarkably well preserved. We’ve walked well over half of the perimeter and have seen several other areas and the entire wall appears to be intact and in uniformly good condition.
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Next time! I’ve only spent a few days in Colombia. Next time I hope to get to Cartegena for all its literary and social history.
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We have a long list of cities and countries that are “must sees” and a growing list of “next time!” So many places to go…
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I’m very interested in visiting Columbia and it’s Unesco sites, thanks so much for this wonderful post to this important site.
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Cartagena is well worth the visit. Anytime we see a UNESCO listing in an area we’re thinking about, the location moves up on our list. We haven’t been disappointed by this picturesque and very intriguing city during our visit!
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Amazing history. I’m laughing at the comment above, but I agree! Your posts are packed full of history, which I always enjoy. I read “The Accountant”, by Pablo Escobar’s brother about the history of the drug trade in Colombia. Colombia has been through many tumultuous times. No wonder it took 208 years to fortify the city. Incredible. Have a wonderful New Year, Richard and Anita.
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Can you tell that we’re history geeks?! The fact that struck us during our reading was not how long it took to build the walls but how many tons of gold and millions that Spain poured into their construction. That tells you something about the quantity of loot they were taking out! P.S. Ordered “The Acountant’s Story” by Roberto Escobar for our Kindles – looks like a fascinating read!
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When I complete all your posts, will I have a degree in world history? Thanks for the trip.
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We’ll have to travel to a lot more countries and a few more continents, Maida, but you can come along for a virtual tour!
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