History of Cartagena

Cartagena de Indias was founded on 1 June 1533 by Spanish commander Pedro de Heredia, in the former seat of the indigenous Caribbean Calamarí village. The town was named after Cartagena, Spain, where most of Heredia's sailors were from. Initially, life in the city was bucolic, with fewer than 2000 inhabitants and only one church. A few months after the disaster of the invasion of Cote (see below), a fire destroyed the city and forced the creation of a Firefighting Squad, the first in the Americas. The dramatically increasing fame and wealth of the prosperous city turned it an attractive plunder site for pirates and corsairs (French privateers, licensed by their king). Just 30 years after its founding, the city was pillaged by the French nobleman Jean-François Roberval. The city then set about strengthening its defences and surrounding itself with walled compounds and castles. Martin Cote, a Basque from Biscay, attacked years later.

After Vernon began what is called the 'Silver Age' of the city (1750-1808). This time was of permanent expansion of the existing buildings, massive inmigration from all the other cities of the Viceroyalty, the increase of the economic and political power of the city and a population spur that hasn't been seen yet again. For these events, the political power that was already shifting from Bogotá to the coast, definitely did and the Viceroys decided to reside in the city for good. The inhabitants of the city were the richest of the colony, the aristocracy formed noble houses with their land estates, libraries and prints were opened, and even the first café in New Granada was established. These good times of steady progress and advance of the second half of the eighteenth century came into an abrupt end in 1808, with the general crisis of the Spanish Empire, embodied in the Mutiny of Aranjuez, with all its consequences.

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