The Castillo de San Marcos

 St. Augustine, FL
March 31st, 2022

The Castillo de San Marcos is a massive fortification built by the Spanish to defend St. Augustine and the Atlantic Trade route. It is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States and is built out of a rare natural form of concrete called Coquina. It is over 450 years old and represents centuries of cultural intersectionalities. 

Learn more at: Castillo de San Marcos

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact 1

The first artifact depicted above is a recreation of what the soldiers' room would have looked like when there were active soldiers inside the Castillo. The rooms were very small and many men shared one slab of wood with multiple bed placements. There is almost no free room to move around without being on a bed or in a small standing space, which may have been filled with storage trunks. These incredibly small rooms were breeding grounds for infection and disease, and the Florida heat and rain made living conditions miserable for the soldiers. 

Artifact 2

The cannon above is one of the cannons that would have been used to defend the Castillo. While there was no signage for this cannon clarifying if it was a real one or recreation, the Castillo is home to several of both. There is a slab with several real historic cannons on display, and multiple recreations set up around the park. They even do reenactments of cannon firings to honor the history of the Castillo de San Marcos. 

Image In Conversation 1 

Fort Caroline, depicted above, is a fort that was built in modern-day Jacksonville by the french as they attempted to land a foothold in Florida. "During the sixteenth century, France was determined to expand its empire. Spain, the world’s leading power, already had a foothold in the Americas, and France wanted a share of the riches the Spanish were gaining through trade and plunder. France’s first attempt to stake a permanent claim in North America was at La Caroline, a settlement near the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida" (nps.gov). This fort housed French soldiers beginning in 1564 and was used to fight with the Spanish for St. Augustine.

Image in Conversation 2

Pictured above is a slab of coquina stone, the sedimentary rock that has allowed the Castillo to remain standing for as long as it has. This stone is a form of naturally occurring concrete that forms from shells and sand being compressed together over millions of years to eventually form a solid rock. It is very porous, which allowed it to evenly absorb cannonball shocks without cracking the structure of the fort. A lot of structures in St. Augustine are built of this rock, including the city walls and gates, because it was abundant here when the Spanish arrived and began to settle.

Literature in Conversation

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

"God, I hate this place. I mean, I love it. It's home. But I hate it. It's like an island surrounded by sharks. Except our land sharks are on their way in. It's just a matter of how long it takes them to get hungry enough" (Duffy and Jennings, 40).

    In this excerpt from Parable of the Sower, Lauren is discussing how she feels the walls of her "safe" community are being circled by robbers and criminals like they were sharks circling an island. I think this relates to how the Spanish felt within the Castillo when the British were beginning a siege against them in the early 1700s. The British tried to attack and outlast the Spanish, but the Castillo prevented the British from winning as it was able to house everyone and livestock inside for safety. For Lauren, her walls were not as safe and she, unfortunately, lost her village to fires and pillaging. 

Creative Component

Description: Digital Recreation of Soldiers Barracks in the Castillo de San Marcos

In response to my first artifact, I decided to do a top-down view using a digital app called Notability of a potential floor plan of the soldier's barracks. There is some infographic-style writing depicting the purpose of certain things in the room, like the beds and fireplaces, along with some red writing exaggerating the major issues of these small spaces. Some of the red writing reads, "Cramped!", "Disease!", and so on. Many soldiers needed places to sleep, so functionality was unfortunately not the main goal of the small, overcrowded barracks.