Calamari

Calamarí was an Indigenous settlement on the sheltered Caribbean bay where Cartagena de Indias later rose. Its shores and islands lay close to routes into the Magdalena basin, while the bay offered anchorage protected from the open sea. The people of the coast possessed gold ornaments that attracted the attention of the first Spanish expeditions.

Pedro de Heredia encountered resistance when he reached Calamarí and founded Cartagena in 1533 on the site of the Indigenous settlement. The new port became a vital link in Spanish Atlantic commerce, including the forced transportation of enslaved Africans. Its wealth invited attacks: Francis Drake captured and ransomed the city in 1586. The Spanish crown responded by strengthening its defences. In 1610 Cartagena also became the seat of an Inquisition tribunal, extending its jurisdiction over a large part of the Spanish Caribbean.

Walls and forts came to guard the town and the narrow channels leading into the bay. In 1741 a large British expedition under Edward Vernon attacked Cartagena but failed to take it. Its fortifications and harbour made the city a principal Caribbean stronghold of New Granada, while the older name Calamarí recalled the settlement that preceded the Spanish port. During the independence struggle, the state of Cartagena prohibited the import of enslaved people in its 1812 constitution; royalist forces reconquered the city in 1815.