El Morro (HAVANA)

El Morro Castle (Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro) is the monumental fortress that dominates the narrow entrance to Havana's vast harbor. Designed by the famed military engineer Bautista Antonelli, it was completed in 1590. The exterior walls blend with massive rocks on the elevations overlooking the port from the east and still stand as an impressive symbol of Hapsburg and Bourbon authority. Throughout the colonial period, El Morro functioned as a prison and as the key strong-point in Havana's defense complex. To close off Havana harbor to pirates and invaders, authorities on several occasions laid a huge iron chain or cable across the water from El Morro to the smaller western fort of Salvador de la Punta. When El Morro fell to a British land and sea attack on 31 July 1762, the city of Havana was doomed. For most of the next year, the Cuban capital remained in British hands. After the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, El Morro's defenses were again strengthened, financed by the situados (subsidies) from Mexico. Other Cuban fortresses, including the impressive one built in Santiago in 1633, also bear the name El Morro.

See alsoHavana .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. H. Parry and P. M. Sherlock, A Short History of the West Indies, 3d ed. (1971).

Vicente Báez, ed., La enciclopedia de Cuba: Arquitectura, Artes Plásticas, Música, vol. 7 (1974), pp. 5-9.

Leví Marrero, Cuba: Economía y sociedad, vol. 2 (1974), pp. 406-409 and vol. 6 (1978), pp. 112-119.

Allan J. Kuethe, Cuba, 1753–1815: Crown, Military, and Society (1986).

                                     Linda K. Salvucci