Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca
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How it came to be
On El Morro, a rocky headland at the mouth of Santiago de Cuba Bay in south-eastern Cuba, a stone fortress climbs the cliff in stacked terraces. As rivalry between Spain and England grew in the 17th century, the town's governor, Pedro de la Roca de Borja, had a stone fortress built on the site of an earlier ravelin, to designs by the Italian military engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli.
Work began in 1638. Gun platforms, powder magazines and garrison quarters were set on terraces along the cliff and linked by stairways. In 1662, while the fortress was still being built, raiders from Jamaica held the town for two weeks, wrecked part of the works and carried off the guns. Earthquakes struck in 1675-1692 and again in 1757-1766, and each time the fortress was repaired and rebuilt.
By 1775 the fear of attack had faded, and parts of the fortress became a prison for political prisoners. It served as a fortress again in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Neglected in the early 20th century, it was restored in the 1960s and inscribed in 1997.
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