Castillo De San Marcos (St. Mark’s Castle) During the seventeenth century, the great nation of Spain had many territories across the world thanks to its great explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Pedro Menéndez de Aviléas. One territory that stood out from the rest however was the Floridian Peninsula. The colony there had a major port city known as St. Augustine which was founded by Pedro Menéndez de Aviléas on September 8, 1565. St. Augustine held significant importance for Spain because it was the defensive foothold of the entire Floridian Peninsula; it was a land rich with natural resources and was a port for trade. With that, in 1668, the city of St. Augustine was attacked by pirates when the city lacked good defenses against such attacks. After that conflict, the Queen of Spain, Mariana decided that it was time for a better fort to be built for the defense of the port and city. Queen Mariana appointed a new governor of Florida who went by the name of Manuel de Cendoya. Cendoya was put in charge of also getting the new fort built for the city of St. Augustine. He went to New Spain (Mexico) to gain the funds for the project, and then on his way to Florida, he decided to stop in Havana, Cuba to look for laborers, masons, and other types of workmen for the new job. During his search, he came across an engineer who was living in Cuba at the time named Ignacio Daza. Cendoya felt he would be a great asset to this project and so Daza was appointed the leader of the project. Upon returning to St. Augustine with the workers needed, the creation of Castillo De San Marcos began in 1672. One important aspect of this project overall was the author, Ignacio Daza. He was a Spanish military engineer living in Cuba at the time and was recruited by Cendoya because of his great background and knowledge of military fortification as a military engineer. It was said that he was educated in the Italian-Spanish principles of fortification. These principles were based on the sixteenth century designs of Franceso de Marchi. Marchi developed these for Sébastien de Vauban, the great French engineer back in Europe. Having that background, Daza decided to work with the basic Spanish designs of a fort at the time. The exception to this was having such alternations as having four bastions that were lengthened from your standard bastion, a 40-foot wide moat surrounding three quarters of the fort, and the materials that were used during construction. Daza decided to lengthen the four bastions in the design in order to improve the fortification itself. As for the 40 foot wide moat, as inspired by the great castles all over Europe, he felt that it would further strengthen the defense even if it only surrounded three quarters of the fort, with the fourth side, it was the ocean. Finally, for the main material used in the construction, instead of the typical stone or granite used in most castle or fort fortifications, he used a native form of limestone called Coquina. It was close by and it was probably the best material due to its unexpected benefit especially when it comes to constructing fortifications. Unfortunately, Daza died within a year of the beginning of the construction process. The Spanish continued on without him and took the suggestions and modifications he made for the design of the fort. As for the main material used in the project, Coquina was found in abundance all along the northeast coast of Florida especially on the nearby Anastasia Island which was hand cut into blocks after being quarried. Coquina is a type of limestone that forms with marine reefs and is a variety of Coral Rag. Coral Rag is the coral debris also contained a bunch of little shells and extremely tiny air pockets. At first, this material choice was opposed because they thought it was a weak material with the extremely tiny air pockets. However, as stated before, coquina provided an unexpected benefit which was that its air pockets made the material compressible which meant that it could absorb shock and any moving force acting upon the material. This means that if the enemy decided to shoot a cannon ball at the Coquina, the ball would in a way, bounce off the material or burrow into it. This was compared to the typical granite or stone used in other fortification construction which would normally fall apart or have flying debris in result of cannon fire. This fort was not only superior to others but it was also unique in that aspect thanks to the usage of coquina.
The construction process of Castillo de San Marcos took about twenty years to complete because they moved the location of the fort within St. Augustine three times. Many laborers consisting of African slaves, native Indians, Spanish soldiers, carpenters and skilled masons were used during this time. The typical delays and setbacks such as receiving the other materials used in the project from Spain and then Ignacio Daza dying in 1673 occurred during the process. A new governor of Florida was appointed once again by Queen Mariana in 1673 which slowed down the process because that forced the flow of the funds and supplies to change. Even with these setbacks, they were still able to complete the project just how Ignacio Daza would have wanted it to be done. The laborers dug the deep and broad moat around the site and surrounded the land sides with a high palisade. Then as the coquina blocks were placed, a substance called Tabby that is composed of lime and oyster shells was applied in between them acting as mortar to hold them together. Once the construction process was completed in 1692, St. Augustine had one of the greatest fortifications in the New World. The total perimeter of San Marcos measured at 320 feet around. It had 30-foot high walls that also had varying thickness of ten to fourteen feet on the bottom and around five feet at the top which kept enemies out. The moat was created in accordance to Daza’s wishes of being 40 feet wide and also being lined with coquina. The main result of construction of Castillo de San Marcos was that Spain finally had a strong foothold in the colony of Florida.
This great engineering feat made the fort last through the centuries and is still as strong today as it was when it was first raised. During those centuries, it acted as a strategic base for the Spanish and later on, it did the same for the British when they purchased the territory from Spain. The British continued to use it as a strategic base through the American Revolution. Then once the United States was formed after the Revolution and Florida was eventually entered into the Union, Castillo de San Marcos acted as a battery for the U.S. costal defense through the nineteenth century. After that, it was made a monument for the U.S. National Park Service in the twentieth century and continues to act as one today. Castillo de San Marcos acts as inspiration to the ideals of military fortification due to the contributions made by the great Spanish military engineer, Ignacio Daza.

Works Cited http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/source/is1/is1a.htm http://www.flheritage.com/services/magazine/02summer/castillo.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coquina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_San_Marcos