Castle St. Mark and the Patriots of the Revolution

• Main Author: Manucy, Albert
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: STARS 2021
• Subjects: American Studies; United States History; Marcos; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol21/iss1/3; https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2080&context=fhq

CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS is a token of Spain’s determination to protect her vast New World riches in the face of seemingly inexorable English rivalry, encroachment, and actual piracy. This aged citadel, renamed Fort Marion by the Americans, is now Castillo de San Marcos National Monument at St. Augustine. Engineer Ignacio Daza laid the first stone for the foundations in 1672, and the fort became a focal point of colonial culture - Spain’s last impregnable outpost on the shores of the North Atlantic. Now, with the passage of two and a half centuries, it represents to us something of the Spanish contribution to life in the western hemisphere. There is a long, dramatic story of the fort as a link in the chain of Spanish colonial defenses - a barrier against British advances; that story is widely known. Not so well known is the connection of the venerable fortification WITH the English nation, which held it during the turbulent years of the American Revolution.