An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Puer­ta de los His­panoles (Port-of-Spain) was ini­tial­ly found­ed to­wards the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry when the Spaniards fi­nal­ly es­tab­lished a per­ma­nent set­tle­ment at San Jose de Oruna (St Joseph) in 1592.

Since the main high­way to the sea was the Ca­roni Riv­er, a land­ing place with a tiny gar­ri­son of half-starved sol­diers was sta­tioned on a mud­flat where lat­er the town was to be built. Three years lat­er, Sir Wal­ter Raleigh, the in­tre­pid Eng­lish pri­va­teer, swept in­to the Gulf of Paria with the dou­ble pur­pose of find­ing the fa­bled city of gold, El Do­ra­do, and pun­ish­ing the Span­ish Gov­er­nor, Don An­to­nio de Berrio for some treach­ery met­ed out to Cap­tain Whid­don, an­oth­er Eng­lish­man who had land­ed some months ear­li­er.

Raleigh en­ticed the en­tire gar­ri­son aboard his ship, plied them with wine and then mas­sa­cred them all be­fore pro­ceed­ing to San Jose to burn the town and kid­nap the Gov­er­nor.

Things were not much bet­ter in the 17th cen­tu­ry, as the for­ti­fi­ca­tions at Puer­ta de los His­panoles seems on­ly to have con­sist­ed of a mud re­doubt with an in­ner pal­isade of pick­et­ed logs, form­ing a wall around a guard­house and ar­moury of sorts.

The for­ti­fi­ca­tion again proved use­less in 1716 when sloop com­mand­ed by a young pi­rate named Ed­ward Teach hove in­to sight. Lat­er known as the fear­some Black­beard, he was then a prot�g� of the in­fa­mous sea-dog, Ben­jamin Hornigold. Teach plun­dered a brig loaded with co­coa and bound for Spain be­fore burn­ing the ship while the gar­ri­son quaked be­hind its mud walls.

The ar­rival of Don Jose Maria Cha­con as gov­er­nor in 1784 saw changes tak­ing place as he was dis­sat­is­fied with the weak de­fences of the is­land. More­over, the cap­i­tal had moved from San Jose to Puer­ta de los His­panoles. In ad­di­tion to forts at Gas­pa­ree Is­land and on the Laven­tille Hills, Cha­con had the sea fort moved to a small mole or is­land near the shore where a stone wall en­closed a block­house and six can­non.

The new de­fence was named Fort San An­dres. These pre­cau­tions were to naught since in 1797, Ad­mi­ral Ralph Aber­crom­bie came to Trinidad at the helm of a huge mil­i­tary force.

The lit­tle fort could do noth­ing since the British fleet lay too far off for can­non­ade and the land­ing par­ty came ashore too far to the west to be tar­get­ed. More­over, the Span­ish ad­mi­ral, the cow­ard­ly Apo­da­ca, had aban­doned his ships and burnt them with­out any at­tempt at re­sis­tance.

The de­tach­ment at Fort San An­dres was small and many were sick from yel­low fever. Giv­en the hope­less­ness of mount­ing a de­fence of any sort, Cha­con thought it wise to ca­pit­u­late. The is­land passed in­to British hands.

The British re­tained Fort San An­dres as a civ­il de­fence post, re­in­forc­ing the walls and re­plac­ing the guns. The block­house was al­so ren­o­vat­ed and used to ac­com­mo­date a small de­tach­ment of po­lice of­fi­cers (from 1851) and sol­diers of the West In­dia Reg­i­ment whose pres­ence was nec­es­sary to main­tain law and or­der on the wa­ter­front. For a short while, the build­ing al­so served as a cus­toms of­fice.

A sig­nal staff was erect­ed in 1813 with­in the bat­tery and it was used to send and re­ceive mes­sages from Fort George), which were trans­mit­ted by a se­ries of flags and balls hoist­ed up on the pole which would be spot­ted by the sig­nal­man at Fort George via field-glass. The fort is de­scribed in 1855 thus:

"The old Sea-Fort which for­mer­ly ex­ist­ed at the King's, now Queen's Wharf, may be num­bered among the "things that were;" it ex­ists, but on­ly to re­mind the old in­hab­i­tants of its use in for­mer days, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing Mar­tial Law. There are a few iron guns on it, but they are scarce­ly ever used, and the flag-staff" serves to hoist the Union-Jack on the ar­rival of a Ship-of-War or some state day. The east­ern room once used by Mil­i­tary Guard, is now oc­cu­pied at night by a few Po­lice­men."

De­vel­op­ment of the area known as Sea Lots in the 1870s and 1880s saw the lit­tle islet on which the Fort stood grad­u­al­ly en­croached up­on by land un­til it was left high and dry. From 1936-1951, the Traf­fic Branch of the Trinidad Con­stab­u­lary was housed at Fort San An­dres. The Fort still ex­ists, al­though the orig­i­nal block­house is gone. It is now to the west of City­gate and is home to the Mu­se­um of the City of Port-of-Spain. The can­non and the stone breast­work built by Cha­con may still be seen.