CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, COLOMBIA (KPRENSA) – In recent years the tourist industry in Colombia has shown a clear recovery. For example, the number of foreign citizens that entered Colombia by air increased by 17.6 percent between January and April of this year, in comparison with the figure of the same period of 2006. By countries of origin, the major number of visitors came from the United States, with a 20.3 percent all of participants.

One of the mechanisms that created these good results in tourism is that more cruise ships are now arriving on the Colombian coasts. Between January and April 39 arrived, four more than in an equal period of 2006. This figure adds up to 45,116 travelers, compared to 31,299 a years ago.

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Cartagena de Indias, the city of the caribbean coast, is the most desired port with 30 of the arriving 39 ships. Cartagena is followed by Santa Marta with seven ships and San Andrés with two.

The Return of Royal Caribbean

One of the most noticeable facts this year was the return to Colombia by Royal Caribbean Internacional, after six years of absence.

In April Royal Caribbean’s slip Radiance of the Sea arrived in Cartagena carrying 2,500 foreign tourists. They stayed in the city for 8 hours enjoying cultural, artistic, and tourist activities.

The Radiance of the Sea is the first of 36 ships from Royal Caribbean that will arrive in Cartagena between April of 2007 and May 2008.

The ship started its journey in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the itinerary included Montego Bay, Jamaica; Cartagena, Colombia; the Panama Canal, and Huatulco, Acapulco, Port Vallarta and Tip San Lucas, Mexico, before ending it’s trip in San Diego, California.

Cartagena de Indias: A Historic City

Cartagena was founded in 1533 by Pedro de Heredia, in the area where the Caribbean Calamarí people lived, their name meaning ‘crab’. This native population was part of a native tribe called the Mocanáes; Spanish accounts describe them as fierce and warlike, and point out that even women fought on a par with men.

A few years after it had been founded, the Spaniards designed a defense plan in which the main strategy was the construction of a walled military fortress to protect the city against the plundering of English, Dutch and French pirates.

Despite the precautions, the city was attacked many times. In 1544 the French pirate Roberto Baal (aka Roberval) forced Governor Pedro de Heredia to flee and to give him gold to avoid being at the mercy of the invaders.

In 1559, the Frenchman Martín Cote also dominated the city. He took huge plunder in spite of Cacique Maridalo’s resistance.

Another pirate attack was that of Francis Drake, who disembarked at night and took the city at dawn; he forced the inhabitants to take refuge in the neighboring village of Turbaco, burned the houses and destroyed a nave of the Cathedral. Drake forced the authorities to pay him 107.000 ducats and took some jewelry and 80 artillery pieces.

And in 1568, the Englishman John Hawkins besieged the city for seven days because Governor Marín de las Alas did not want to carry out a commercial fair in the city; Hawkins could not subjugate the city. This was the case in the Raid on Cartagena (1697) by a combined fleet of regular French soldiers under Pointis and buccaneers under Jean Du Casse.

In order to resist these attacks, during the 17th century the Spanish Crown hired the services of prominent European military engineers to carry out the construction of fortresses, which are nowadays one of Cartagena’s clearest signs of identity.

In March of 1741 the city was attacked by the troops of the English admiral Edward Vernon, who arrived at Cartagena with an enormous fleet of 186 ships and 23.600 men (the biggest fleet in history until the Disembarkation of Normandy two centuries later) against only 6 ships and 3.600 men. After weeks of intense fighting, the siege was repelled by the Spanish commander, General Blas de Lezo and his forces who inflicted heavy casualties on the English troops. (For more information on the Battle of Cartagena see War of Jenkins’ Ear).

Cartagena was a slave port; Cartagena and Veracruz (México) were the only cities authorized to trade with black people. The first slaves arrived with Pedro de Heredia and they worked as cane cutters to open roads, in the desecration of tombs of the aboriginal population of Sinu, and in the construction of buildings and fortresses. The agents of the Portuguese company Cacheu distributed human ‘cargos’ from Cartagena for mine exploitation in Venezuela, the West Indies, the Nuevo Reino de Granada and the Viceroyalty of Perú.

On 5 February 1610, the Catholic Monarchs established from Spain the Inquisition Holy Office Court in Cartagena de Indias by a Royal Decree issued by King Philip II. The Inquisition Palace, finished in 1770, is still there with its original features of colonial times. When Cartagena declared its complete independence from Spain on November 11, 1811, the inquisitors were urged to leave the city. The Inquisition operated again after the Reconquest in 1815, but it disappeared definitely when Spain surrendered six years later before the patriotic troops led by Simón Bolívar. During its two centuries of existence, the court carried out twelve autos-de-fé, 767 defendants were punished and six of them were burned at the stake.

In colonial times, the Spaniards also built a series of constructions and fortresses to defend the city, such as San Sebastián de Pastelillo Fort, in the neighborhood of Manga, and the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a large fortress named in honor of Spain’s King Philip IV. In the 18th century, the Vaults were constructed by the Spanish engineer Antonio de Arévalo. Outside the city, the Forts of San Fernando and of San José were located strategically at the entrance of the bay to entrench the pirate vessels that attacked the city.

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