Location: Calle del Morro, San Juan Map
Tel. 787-729 6777
Open: 9am- 6pm daily
San Felipe del Morro Castle, also known simply as El Morro, is a
Spanish citadel built between the 16th and 18th centuries at the
northern tip of San Juan, Puerto Rico. For many years, it
guarded the entrance to San Juan Bay and protected the city from
maritime attacks. The "morro" is a term used to refer to a
portion of land or rock that serves as a lookout point. This
castle is part of the San Juan National Historic Site and was
declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1983.
Today, El Morro is one of Puerto Rico's main tourist
attractions, with displays of Conquest-era items used by
Spaniards, indigenous people, and Africans. Other exhibits
display ship models as well as historical facts from the period.
Tourists and visitors enjoy flying kites around the castle.
Nearly two million visitors explore this fortress each year.
Across the bay, a fort called Fortín San Juan de la Cruz (El
Cañuelo)1 supported Castillo San Felipe del Morro in the
defense of San Juan Bay. During Francis Drake's attack on the
city in 1595, a series of ships were placed across the entrance
to the bay to prevent enemies from entering.
Like other Spanish ports in the Antilles, San Juan was fortified for
military security. Due to its geographic location as the easternmost of
the Spanish islands in the Caribbean, San Juan was considered a port
city and frontier, serving as a stopover point for the legendary Spanish
fleets on their voyages to the Americas. The fortifications were built
to protect Puerto Rico and San Juan Bay against any invasion that would
make it an enemy base to invade and attack other Spanish towns and
ships.
In 1595, the English privateer Francis Drake forced his
way through San Juan Bay to seize a shipment of gold and silver that was
being held at La Fortaleza. El Morro's gunners, under the command of
Governor Pedro Suárez Coronel, hit Drake's flagship, driving it back
with heavy casualties. Three years later, George Clifford, Earl of
Cumberland, landed to besiege El Morro and capture Governor Antonio de
Mosquera. After a brief occupation and a dysentery epidemic that claimed
the lives of 400 English soldiers, Cumberland abandoned his plans to
make San Juan a permanent English base in the Antilles. The new
governor, Alonso de Mercado, arrived on the island with reinforcements
to repair the defenses.
The great fortifications of Spain in the
Americas were once again tested by the growing power of the Dutch in the
Caribbean. In 1625, a Dutch fleet under General Balduino Enrico
(Boudewijn Hendricksz) forced its way into the bay, landed, and laid
siege to El Morro. Governor Juan de Haro's troops resisted stubbornly
and forced the Dutch to abandon the city, but not before sacking and
burning it, including La Fortaleza, the governor's official residence.
The disaster caused by the Dutch and the conquest of many of the
Lesser Antilles by the English, French and Dutch made the construction
of new lines of defence quicker. From the beginning of 1630 and
intermittently for the next 150 years, engineers and workers worked on
building walls to surround the entire city. One kilometre from the
Castillo de San Felipe del Morro, the site of San Cristóbal was built.
By 1678, this fortress was already beginning to take its present form.
It was not until after the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), in which
England defeated France and Spain, that work on the Castillo de San
Cristóbal was resumed. The Spanish rulers were surprised by the fall of
Havana and Manila, taken by the English in the final stage of the war.
As a result, England obtained Canada and Florida, leaving France without
territory in the Americas. England and Spain were now rivals par
excellence, and fearing a powerful English attack, King Charles III sent
two Irishmen to make San Juan a "first-rate defense."
The
officers, Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly and Chief Engineer Colonel
Tomás O'Daly, began in 1765 to transform San Juan into one of the most
powerful strongholds in the Americas. By the end of the 1780s, O'Daly
and his military engineers had finished the modifications to El Morro
and it had acquired its present form. The construction of the wall
around the city had also been completed. The largest fortification built
by the Spanish in the Americas, the Castillo de San Cristóbal, housed
450 cannons, used in 1797 by Captain General Ramón de Castro y Gutiérrez
to stop the 7,000 English commanded by General Ralph Abercromby.
Most of the Spanish territories in the New World became independent in
the 19th century. In 1890, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the remaining
Spanish Provinces. In 1895, a revolution in Cuba started the
Spanish-American War in 1898; on May 12 of that year, an American fleet,
under Admiral William P. Sampson, bombarded San Juan, causing minor
damage. In July 1898, colonizer Nelson Miles landed in Guánica, in the
southwest of the island. While the United States troops advanced towards
San Juan, Spain surrendered and signed the armistice, ending the war of
Invasion of the United States and more than four centuries of Spanish
territory. On October 18, 1898, the defenses of San Juan were officially
handed over to the colonial army of the United States, beginning a new
chapter of colonialism in the history of the castles of Old San Juan.
From 1914, after the Spanish-American War, the castles became part
of the military complex "Fort Brooke". During the First World War,
Puerto Rico served as an observation post to detect and control any
attempt to attack the Panama Canal. During the Second World War,
observation posts and underground shelters were built in the castles for
the defence of the Caribbean. These concrete constructions, used until
the 1960s, still exist today.
1521 – Spanish colonizers from Caparra founded Puerto Rico (original
name of today's city of San Juan).
1539 – Construction of the
harbor defenses, El Morro and La Fortaleza, is authorized by King
Charles I.
1587 – Military engineers Juan de Tejada and Juan
Bautista Antonelli lay out the layout of El Morro.
1589 –
Governor Diego Menéndez de Valdés begins construction work on El Morro.
1595 – Francis Drake, "The Dragon," unsuccessfully attacks El Morro.
His ships are spotted at night and a well-aimed cannon shot pierces his
cabin on the flagship, wounding John Hawkins and others dining there.
Drake was defeated and many of his ships damaged.
1598 – George
Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, attacks the city from land in June of this
year, landing to the east where the defenses are weak. Clifford,
determined to avenge Drake's defeat three years earlier, takes El Morro
but is forced to abandon the city by a dysentery epidemic.
1625 –
Dutch Captain Balduino Enrico (Boudewijn Hendricksz/Bowdoin Henrick)
attacks the city by landing at La Puntilla, where the defensive cannons
were unable to reach him. Enrico entered with his ships through the
narrow mouth of the bay, surprising the defenders. Spanish Governor Juan
de Haro and a group of defenders entrenched themselves in El Morro and
Captain Juan de Amézqueta of the Puerto Rican militia counterattacks
with a handful of men and the invaders retreat, but not before looting
and burning the city.
1630 – Governor Enrique Enríquez de
Sotomayor begins construction of the walls under the direction of
military engineer Bautista Antonelli. The south side of the city facing
the bay is fortified and work continues until the city is completely
enclosed.
1765 – Following the capture of Havana by the British
in 1762, King Charles III appoints Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly and Royal
Engineer Tomás O'Daly to conduct a reconnaissance visit and make
recommendations on the defenses and garrisons in San Juan to turn them
into a stronghold with First Order Defenses.
1797 – General Ralph
Abercromby and Admiral Henry Harvey of the British Royal Navy invade the
island with a combined force of between 7,000 and 13,000 men and 67
ships. The captain general of the island and governor, Don Ramón de
Castro y Gutiérrez (see painting by José Campeche) and his forces manage
to repel the attack and defeat the invaders. The invasion turned out to
be one of the largest on Spanish territory in America.
1825 – The
famous Puerto Rican corsair, popularly known as the pirate Roberto
Cofresí, was captured. He was imprisoned and later executed in the
castle.
1843 – The first lighthouse in Puerto Rico is built at El
Morro.
1898 – On May 12, the United States Navy, commanded by
Admiral William Thomas Sampson, bombards the city and its defenses for
much of the day. The bombardment destroys the El Morro lighthouse and
causes chaos among the citizens. Ángel Rivero Méndez, Captain of
Artillery, describes the event as “an iron storm.” A total of 1,360
shots were fired at the city. Six months later Puerto Rico becomes a
territory of the United States of America by virtue of the Treaty of
Paris of 1898 that ended the Spanish-American War.
1899 – The
United States Marine Corps rebuilds the castle lighthouse, giving it an
octagonal base and using the existing steel structure as reinforcement.
In 1906, a crack develops in the lighthouse structure, making it
necessary to demolish it.
1908 – The United States Coast Guard
builds the current lighthouse.
1915 – The first shot of World War
I is attributed to Lieutenant Teófilo Marxuach, a native of Arroyo
(Puerto Rico) and member of the Puerto Rican Infantry Regiment, when he
opens fire from El Morro against the German ship Odenwald, which was
trying to rush out of the port when the state of war between Germany and
the United States became known.
1942 – During World War II,
reinforced concrete observation posts and an underground bunker or
shelter are built as defenses against possible German attacks.
1949 – The San Juan National Historic Site is opened.
1961 – The
castles of old San Juan are evacuated by the United States Army and
placed under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of the
Interior and the National Park Service to be preserved and opened to the
public.
1983 – The San Juan National Historic Site is declared a
World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
1992 – The glacis or land in front
of El Morro is restored to its original appearance during preparations
for the celebration of the Quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's
arrival in America in 1492. Trees, roads and modern parking lots are
removed.