The Statues of Cartagena - by Nina

In this blog I will be investigating some of the statues in Cartagena.


India Catalina

 

Context

She is in a large plaza, next to a busy road.

Materials
Bronze and limestone

Description
She is a very tall women looking at the sky. She is wearing traditional Indian dress.

Story
The India Catalina was a native Indian in Colombia before the Spaniards came. She was the daughter of the chief but she was kidnapped and taught Spanish. When the first governor of Cartagena went exploring he took her with him and she acted as a translator. It was largely because of her that her people where completely annihilated. A monument was sculpted of her by  Eladio Gil Zambrana and is positioned in a large plaza next to a busy road. Smaller replicas were used as a symbol of her treachery to her race.

Opinion
I think that using her as a symbol of treachery is  a bit unfair because she was kidnapped and treated like a slave so she didn't really have a choice.


Blas de Lezo 


Context
It is in the park in front of the fort Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.

Materials
Large stone pedestal and bronze statue.

Description
He is a larger than life statue made of bronze, holding his sword in a salute with his left hand. He only has one arm, one leg and one eye.

Story
Blas de Lezo was born in February/3/1689 in Spain. He joined the French navy in 1701 as a midshipman. His first battle was in 1704 when he fought in the War of Spanish Succession and lost his leg. He was promoted to ensign.

He participated in 23 battles in all his life, costing him an arm, a leg and an eye.

His last battle was by far his pinnacle achievement. As an Admiral he defended the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas against 186 ships, 2620 pieces of artillery, 27,000 men, 10,000 of those foot soldiers, and 600 Indian archers, all led by a British Admiral named Edward Vernon. Blas de lezo had 6 ships to command and 2000 men.

He won by sinking his ships in the mouth of the harbour so the enemy couldn't get his ships in, forcing him to attack the fort on foot without many cannons. Then he dug trenches around the fort so Vernon could not get his scaling ladders up against the walls.

He won but died 4 months after Vernon's retreat from an infected wound.

After Vernon lost he wrote to Blas de Lezo and said “I am only leaving to go to Jamaica to gather reinforcements, I'll be back to attack!” and Lezo replied “Tell your King that he'd better make a better navy because your ships are only suitable for carrying coal between Ireland and England now!”


Angry Governor
Pedro de Heredia, the first governor of Colombia.



Context 
The statue is positioned in Los Coches Square, which is entered by three grand arches in a row with a bell on top.

Materials
Bronze and stone

Description
He is up high on a pedestal so he is glaring down on everyone, also he is wearing a big sword and an armour breastplate so he looks very menacing. His expression is furious and his huge beard helps make him look like a very bad person to get in an argument with.

Story
He was born in Madrid and his parents were rich and of a royal background.
Once he was involved in the tracking down of six people that tried to assassinate him in an alley. The fight left him with a badly disfigured nose that required the intervention of one of the royal doctors. In retaliation he found and killed three of his attackers. He fled Madrid to the New World to escape punishment.

He travelled to the West Indies with his brother and inherited a sugar mill. When the governor of Santa Marta, Colombia died Pedro de Vadillo was sent there as a interim governor and Pedro de Heredia as his lieutenant. Pedro de Heredia got in an argument with the old governors lieutenant which resulted in the drowning of the later in a river that is now named after him. After the interim governor finish he continued with his post and learned a lot about the native Indians.

Later he sailed back to Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and then to Spain.
When in Madrid he got royal approval to take a fleet and conquer the Bay of Cartagena. When in the Caribbean he first stopped at Puerto Rico, and then Santo Domingo. In Santo Domingo he enlisted the service of a few Indian slaves and Catalina, an enslaved Indian Princess who was fluent in both Indian and Spanish.

He conquered all of Colombia and nearly half of Equador. He also founded the city of Cartagena de Indias.


The Martyrs Ride
Pegasus is one of the statues on the Martyrs Ride.

Context 
The Martyrs Ride is a big, long and skinny plaza with roads ringing it.

Materials 
Bronze and stone

Description
Martyrs Ride has busts down either side and a large statue on a tall pedestal is the centre piece, the Pegasus in the picture above are off to one side, about to take off over the bay.

Story
In 1811 Cartagena declared independence from Spain.  Back at Spain things weren't doing so well, England was getting very powerful and giving Spain a lot of trouble and they couldn't afford to lose one of their colonies. They sent out a fleet to recapture Cartagena and the siege lasted for 5 months. The Spanish cut off the roads that all the food for the city came in on. They then proceeded to try to starve the city out. It took them five months although they had speculated it would take one month. When the Spanish finally attacked the fort everybody was starving so they could not defend it properly, so they surrendered. One physician managed to leave Cartagena after the battle and went and gathered an army inland, he then marched back to Cartagena and retook the city. The Martyrs Ride is a monument to the Martyrs of Independence.


Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes

Context 
He is in a small park in the center of town.

Materials
Stone and bronze.

Description
He looks very royal sitting at his posh bench with his posh cloths with his posh expression.

Story
He was born on 29 September 1547, in Alcalá de Henares, a city about 35 kilometres from Madrid.
He was very poor and he joined the navy in 1670 and went to battle in 1571 against an Ottoman fleet. He came down with a fever but he begged to be allowed to fight and they eventually allowed him to. He got hit with three bullets but lived, one of them making his left hand useless. It took him six months in hospital before he was declared fit to serve again. He continued to serve for a while longer.

In 1575 he sailed for home with letters of commendation to the King. Along the way he was captured by Algerian corsairs. After 5 years of slavery and 4 unsuccessful escape attempts he was ransomed buy his parents.

When he got back he tried writing plays. He was relatively unsuccessful. After a while he became bankrupt and was arrested for tax discrepancy. In jail he came up with the idea for a book about Don Quixote.


Simon Bolivar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco.

Context 
He is sitting on a horse in the middle of the city, in the middle of a park, in the middle of a ring of trees and fountains.

Materials
Bronze and stone.

Description
He is sitting with his back straight on a horse, waving his hat at an invisible crowd. (The birds on his arm are pigeons so the colour of their feathers makes them look like bronze but they are actually real.)

Story 
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (better known as Simon Bolivar) was born in 24 July 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela. He was from an aristocratic family and his parents had vast estates and also owned lots of gold, silver and copper mines. His parents had to leave him in the care of Doña Ines Manceba de Miyares for unknown reasons. He was back in the care of his parents in a couple of years but his father died when he was three and his mother died when he was nine. He lived in the same house but he was raised buy a number of professors and a nurse. His favourite teacher was Simón Rodríguez.

When Bolivar was 14  Simón Rodríguez was accused of a conspiracy against the King so he was forced to leave the country. So he joined the military. He travelled to Paris and was there when the first Napoleon was crowned Emperor. He imagined something that huge happening to Spain.

When Bolivar got back to Venezuela he was given military command in Gran Colombia by a group of people that were powerful but against Spanish rule.

He went to a few places and stirred an uprising, he then attacked the Spanish troops and destroyed them. He then went to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela and liberated that. After that he marched to Bogata, the capital of Colombia, and liberated that as well. He next marched to Cartagena to get reinforcements but was attacked by a group of people that still wanted to be supported by Spain, just not ruled by them. He fled to Jamaica, but after an attempt on his life was made he fled to Haiti, where he was granted protection.

He marched out of Haiti a while later and started attacking Spanish places and fighting for independence.

He also started fighting for Peru and Ecuador's independence.

He finally achieved his goal of unity and independence. He united most of the Caribbean, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. He made a federal government that was interested in the rights of the individual. This system was rejected. He then made himself the dictator of Gran Colombia.

All in all he wanted independence and unity but he was also quite fond of power. He may have been the most important man in Colombian history.


Saint Pedro Claver
Pedro Claver talking to a slave.



Context
He is positioned in a plaza that is shaped like a T and he is in the left wing of the T.

Materials
Bronze

Description
The are two men talking to each other, the one on the left is Pedro Claver and he is wearing long robes and a crucifix, the other man is clearly a slave, wearing nothing but a peace of cloth around his waist.

Story
Saint Pedro Claver was the first person in the New World to become a saint. He gave slaves food and clothes and baptised 300,000 people although most were Africans.

Claver was born in Urgell, a town near Barcelona on the 26 June 1581. His family were farmers and strictly Catholic. He went to university in Barcelona and decided to devote himself to God. After joining the Society of Jesus in Tarragona and completing his Novitiate he was sent to do a study of philosophy in Palma, Mallorca.

He volunteered to go to the Spanish colonies in South America as a missionary in 1610. He lived in the Jesuit houses in Bogota and Tunja while he did six years in theology. He was touched deeply by the conditions of living as an African slave and when he graduated as a minister at Cartagena he wrote that he was now a servant of the slaves.

By now slave trade had been active in Cartagena for a century and about 10,000 arrived per year in conditions so horrendous that a third of them died on the crossing from Africa to Colombia. When a ship of slaves came into port Claver would go to the quay and go on board the ships. It was normally difficult to move about in the ships as they were generally packed full of scared, tired and sick slaves. He would treat the sick, feed all of them and give them better clothing.


The Fat Lady 
The “Fat Lady” statue by sculptor and artist Fernando Botero.

Context
The statue is sitting in the middle of a plaza surrounded by old Spanish style houses.

Materials
Bronze and limestone.

Description
She is very fat.

Story
Fernando Botero was born in Medellín, Colombia on the 19 April 1932.

Botero's Father was a sales man and he died when Botero was four, his Mother was a seamstress.
He went to a normal school but then sold his drawings and used the money he was paid to go to the high school Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia.

His style exaggerates the fatness of people so they are all very plump. He now considers himself the most famous Colombian artist, although his statues can be found all over the world and he only lives there one month of the year.

You can find his artwork in Paris and most Spanish countries.

Bibliography
Anon, Simon Bolivar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar 
Anon, Pegasos,  http://www.sonesta.com/Cartagena/index.cfm?fa=localarea.attractions1 
Anon, Pedro Claver, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Claver 
Anon, Miguel de Cervantes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes 
Anon, India Catalina,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Catalina
Anon, Fernando Botero,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Botero 
Anon, Cartagena, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartagena_Colombia
Anon, Blas de Lezo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo
Anon, Pedro de Heredia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_de_Heredia

Cartagena Knockers (cont.) - by Gary

 So there I am innocently walking the streets photographing door knockers when quite suddenly it's revealed to me, a miracle insight as it were, that the store mannequins, you know those life size figures used in store fronts to display clothes, well they are a little unusual in this town.  Many of the female forms appear to be particularly well endowed!

I wonder why?  I develop theories.  I investigate.  Like any scientifically motivated person I begin to assemble a photographic record of my investigations.

Vicki makes some speculations of her own.   Specifically that this line of enquiry may not be altogether conducive to equanimous relationships with the locals (and maybe her).  She suggests perhaps I better get back to studying decorations on the doors.   She is probably right, I'll go back to the knockers.  But first let me present some of my interim findings..... you be the judge.

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Cartagena knockers – by Vicki

Cartagena’s climate and Spanish heritage have given rise to Mediterranean style architecture. In the Old City we see large doors on the street frontage - signatures of wealth and protection. Many of the doors have smaller doors cut into them, some are decorated with rows of raised knobs, and others have ornate door knockers.

Strolling the streets of the Old City we marveled at the large doors and had lots of fun spotting door knockers.

The doors are heavy and sturdy, personalised with ornate door knockers.

Door knobs and door knockers come in all manner of designs. 

Iguana door knockers are very popular in the renovated Old City.

Lion door knockers come in African, Asian and antique versions.

Water themed door knockers are rarer and more of a challenge for the serious spotter to find. 

My absolute favourite door knocker is the bearded man.

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Exploring Cartagena, the Old City – by Vicki

Wealthy contemporary Cartagenians prefer to live in high rise apartments

The Old City, a world heritage site, stands pretty much as it stood when Colombia first began its lengthy struggle for independence from Spain (1811). Economic stagnation in many respects “saved” the Old City – few people could afford to make changes and when prosperity finally returned in the 20th century people chose to live elsewhere. It’s a city which reflects the riches of colonial Spain in the 1700s through its churches, housing, and commerce.

Centro and San Diego
The upper and middle class suburbs of Centro and San Diego are where most tourists explore and where the most extensive renovations have been made.

Torre del Reloj or Clock Tower entrance.  The gateways through the fortified
walls provide a sense of arrival, a barrier to the traffic and a great pedestrian
experience around Centro.

Passing through the Torre del Reloj, the first of many fine plaza’s unfolds

The grand old houses of the upper class are two and three storey’s above the street. 

At street level coral stone blocks inset with large heavy doors are all that
can be seen of many houses. 

 

But once across the threshold the true nature of these elegant houses is revealed,
with indoor/outdoor living spaces flexibly connecting themselves to beautiful,
shady landscape courtyards, often featuring the cooling charm of water.

Nowadays many of these houses have been converted to stunning boutique hotels.

Centro has a charm that captivates - street plaques, balconies, narrow lanes. Glimpses of churches rising heaven wards can be seen across roof-tops. Gardens and parks are a refuge from the crowds. Novel street barrows engender a smile. In the evening the buildings reflect a warm glow – shell pink, cream, and ochre - but at midday they are bleached under the intense sun.

Life imitates art, art imitates life.

Getsemani and La Matuna
We also explored the old slum areas of Getsemani and La Matuna, which have their own fortified wall onto the laguna but which sit outside the main fortified wall. Getsemani still remains the poor cousin to Centro and is less visited by the cruise-ship tourist. Our walking route from Mojombo to the Old City took us through Getsemani, provding ample opportunity to explore the lanes and squares. Houses are smaller, mostly one storey. UNESCO dollars have not remade this part of town and a kaleidoscope of colour and stone can appear at any corner.

 

Manga
Manga, the suburb where we stay has some interesting features for the sharp eye to enjoy. Grand casas are well loved, there are many apartments and relic fortifications, but anti-social activities raise the ire of some.

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Exploring Cartagena: Jewel of the Spanish Main – by Vicki

Cartagena is a wonderful city - rich in history, infinitely explorable, a feast of colour and stone. The Old City, a world heritage site, is ringed by stone walls and bastions encasing lanes strung with pastel coloured houses – houses the colour of tumeric, jacaranda, cornflour blue, ochre, shell pink, verdant green, acqua ... and white. Churches are solid, tall and imposing outside but plain inside. Above the street are balconies and bougainvillea. At street level are shop fronts, boutique hotels, cafes and restaurants. On the street are food and drink sellers, teeshirt and hat sellers, and boat loads of tourists. But... watch out for the holes in the footpaths.

 

Cartagena seems a safe place to explore when the favelas (slums) are far away on the urban fringe. On the street we see Policia at regular intervals day and night. The wealthy are very wealthy and the poor work hard to make ends meet – there is not much in between. Donkeys pulling carts and people with barrows selling fruit and vegetables ply the streets. After dark people search the day’s garbage, little of this penetrates the tourist experience of the Old City.

 

At the heart of the Old City is tourist oriented gloss. At the periphery Cartogenians experience a different city in over-loaded buses, small yellow taxi’s, and kamikaze motorbike taxis. We enjoy walking through these spaces – tasting food, exploring lanes, and resting in church squares.

 

We walk along the stone walls seeking to understand how the five rings of defense worked. Land reclamation has filled the mangrove creeks and pushed the foreshore seaward. The series of islands originally settled by the Spanish can only be discerned after some research. The layout of the bastions and fortifications bears no relationship to the present landscape but mostly remains intact.

 

Stories of conquest abound. First the Spanish conquered the local indian tribes and sent their plunder back to the King of Spain. Next came the pirates and privateers, with some gaining incredible wealth and fame. Then the French and Britain Navy fought the Spanish. All the while malaria and yellow fever, bought to the continent by African slaves, was almost overwhelming everyone.

 

Statues celebrate key moments in the development of Cartagena – settlement to independence. Alongside this statues of modern art add to the diversity of this amazing city. Museums covering the Inquisition, gold artifacts from indian tribes, naval history, and the history of Cartagena inform and tell the story of Neuvo Granada.



Most days we go forth to explore. Early morning and late afternoon are the best time, when the sun in less intense and the humidity bearable. Some days we follow a theme, other days we explore a small area of the Old City.

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Curacao – by Gary

The Dutch West India Company established shop on this island in the mid 17th century, locating on the Schottegat, an excellent natural harbour.  Willemstad, the new company town quickly developed importance as a trading post, particularly in the lucrative slave trade, and with wealth came the construction of many fine colonial buildings.  During the 18th and 19th centuries the island, like so many valuable ‘possessions’ in the Caribbean, changed hands multiple times between the Dutch, English and French, returning to stable Dutch rule in 1815.

With the abolition of slavery in 1863 the economy languished, only picking up again with the 1914 discovery of vast Venezuelan oil fields.  The Royal Dutch Shell Company, in partnership with the Dutch government, recycled the former slave markets as a major refinery for the South American crude, taking advantage of the island’s deep water harbour and political stability.  New wealth and émigrés poured in to the island.  During WWII with Germany occupying Holland and the US reliant on the flow of Curacao’s oil, Uncle Sam occupied the island.

The white elites of the island attained political independence in 1954 and wealth continued to concentrate in the hands of relatively few.  But by the late 60s increasing awareness of the failure of the black population, the vast majority, to participate at a meaningful level in the island’s wealth brought social instability and riots, resulting in a substantial realignment of political power.  But as always the elites were maneuvering to their best advantage.  By the 80s Royal Dutch Shell, now a major multi-national with bigger fish to fry, had let the island’s refinery infrastructure languish.  It was well below acceptable world standards, dirty, unsafe and producing low grade distillates.  The company, having secured ample return on investment simply walked, giving the refinery to the Curacao government.  But what were they to do with the site?  With few alternatives and reliant on the industry, government leased the site to a Venezuelan oil company, who continue to run the refinery pretty much unchanged.

Today Curacao bears many similarities to Bonaire.  A more-or-less independent country, it falls within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with the Kingdom retaining responsibility for defense and foreign policy.  The island also retains strong ties with Venezuela (always a difficult bedmate, it’s currently in political, economic and social freefall!). Curacao is relatively flat, dry and environmentally ravished.  In non-urban areas it retains a thin covering of vegetation dominated by prickly acacias and cacti.  Densely populated by multi-lingual humans who speak Dutch, Spanish, Papiamentu (a creole language) and English, their major economic pillars seem to be oil, tourism, various forms of corporate tax evasion and land speculation.

Cruise ship tourism is major.  One day while we were there three ships simultaneously debouched more than 10,000 people into the small city of Willemstad – but they only stay a few hours.

They come for this!  Willemstad is inscribed on the World Heritage List for its remarkable assemblage of colonial architecture built with the wealth of trafficking human beings.

The buildings within the city’s Fort Amsterdam are mostly used for government administration – the Fort Church (detail right) includes a canon ball lodged in its wall courtesy of Captain Bligh, fired from the Bounty.

Willemstad straddles the entrance to the Schottegat, a well protected natural harbour.  Pedestrians cross via the amazing Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge, which pivots open and shut to allow ship traffic to pass.  It's shown here shut and opening.

There is also this equally amazing high level vehicle crossing – one of the highest in the Caribbean.

Venezuelan boat people bring fresh vegetables and fish across from their country, setting up colourful floating markets along the edge of the Schottegat.

Deeper in the Schottegat is the refinery.  Pollution remains a major issue but the island is dependent upon oil revenues.

The city is surrounded by fairly humble worker housing – although Curacao enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean.

Out further, at Spanish Waters where we kept the boat (bottom right), wealthy Dutch are busy building their dream tropical retreats.

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