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The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States (Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico is older). Located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida, the fort was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza.〔 Construction began in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding by Spanish Admiral and conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire. The fort's construction was ordered by Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after the destructive raid of the English privateer Robert Searles in 1668. Work proceeded under the administration of Guerra's successor, Manuel de Cendoya in 1671, although the first stone was not laid until 1672. After Britain gained control of Florida in 1763 pursuant to the Treaty of Paris, St. Augustine became the capital of British East Florida, and the fort was renamed Fort St. Mark until the Peace of Paris (1783) when Florida was transferred back to Spain. In 1819 Spain signed the Adams–Onís Treaty which ceded Florida to the United States in 1821; consequently the fort was designated a United States Army base and renamed Fort Marion, in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. In 1942 the original name ''Castillo de San Marcos'', was restored by an Act of Congress. The fort was declared a National Monument in 1924, and after 251 years of continuous military possession, was deactivated in 1933. The site was then turned over to the United States National Park Service. Castillo de San Marcos was twice besieged: first by English colonial forces led by Carolina Colony Governor James Moore in 1702, and then by Georgia colonial Governor James Oglethorpe in 1740. Possession of the fort has changed six times, all peaceful, amongst four different governments: the Spanish Empire, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America (Spain and the United States having possession two times each). Under United States control the fort was used as a military prison to incarcerate members of various Native American tribes starting with the Seminole—including the famous war chief, Osceola, in the Second Seminole War—and members of various western tribes including Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apache. The Native American art form known as Ledger Art had its origins at the fort during the imprisonment of members of the Plains tribes such as Howling Wolf of the Southern Cheyenne. ==Construction== The European city of St. Augustine was founded by the admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés for the Spanish Crown in 1565 on the site of a former Native American village called Seloy. Over the next 100 years, the Spanish built nine wooden forts for the defense of the town in various locations. The need for fortifications was recognized after it was attacked by Sir Francis Drake and his fleet of 20 ships in 1586. Following the 1668 attack of the English pirate Robert Searle, Mariana, Queen Regent of Spain, approved the construction of a masonry fortification to protect the city. The Castillo is a masonry star fort made of a stone called ''coquina' (Spanish for "small shells"), made of ancient shells that have bonded together to form a type of stone similar to limestone. Workers were brought in from Havana, Cuba, to construct the fort in addition to Native American laborers. The coquina was quarried from the 'King's Quarry' on Anastasia Island in what is today Anastasia State Park across Matanzas Bay from the Castillo, and ferried across to the construction site. Construction began on October 2, 1672 and lasted twenty-three years, with completion in 1695. The fort has four bastions named San Pedro, San Agustín, San Carlos and San Pablo with a ravelin protecting the sally port. On the two landward sides a large glacis was constructed which would force any attackers to advance upward toward the fort's cannon and allow the cannon shot to proceed downslope for greater efficiency in hitting multiple targets. Immediately surrounding the fort was a moat which could be flooded to a depth of a foot during high-tide with seawater from Matanzas Bay prior to an attack via the use of floodgates built into the seawall. Multiple embrasures were built into the curtain wall along the top of the fort as well as into the bastions for the deployment of cannon of various calibers. Infantry embrasures were also built into the walls below the level of the terreplein for the deployment of muskets by the fort's defenders. It was through one of these embrasures that twenty Seminoles held as prisoners would escape in 1837. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Castillo de San Marcos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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