Forte Real de São Filipe
Cidade Velha, Santiago, Cabo Verde

Constructed: 1587-1593
Used by: Portugal
Conflict in which it participated:
Pirate Shenanigans

600 miles left of the westernmost point of Africa, there are the Cabo Verde Islands. They were uninhabited when discovered by Genoese and Portuguese seafarers at or around 1456, and despite there being nobody there to exploit, the Portuguese sent settlers to what would be named Santiago Island, in 1462. The town they built, Ribiera Grande, was the first permanent European settlement in the tropics, and it served as the capital of Cabo Verde.

One might reasonably ask, what would the Portuguese have even wanted with a handful of uninhabited islands that were relatively close to Africa's west coast? The answer is, to support their participation in the vastly lucrative slave trade! Through the 16th century countless persons were rounded up in Africa to be slaves, a process with which they were only too happy to cooperate. Some of the particularly lucky slaves lived long enough to visit the Cabo Verde Islands, their first stop on an exciting sea voyage that would eventually land them in Europe and beyond.
The Portuguese plied their trade peacefully and profitably, but the sea was a wild and wooly place, and pirates were frequent visitors to far-flung Portuguese settlements. Those settlements came under even greater risk after 1580, when Portugal and Spain joined under the Iberian Union, which effectively made Portugal's overseas possessions Spain's overseas possessions. This gave such heroic English pirates as Francis Drake (1540-1596), who weren't legally at war with Portugal but were at war with Spain, an excuse to do what he did best, which was raid, pillage and burn things.

Drake did just that, sacking Ribiera Grande in 1578 and 1585. The Portuguese authorities grudgingly admitted that they needed to fortify their colony on Santiago Island, and ground was broken on Achada Forte, a hill overlooking the port and town, in 1587. The fort's placement probably made some of the townsfolk nervous, as any shots fired at a notional attacker would go over the town...and any return fire would also put the town at risk. Duck, townspersons!

The Portuguese were always concerned with their immortal souls lest they not name everything after a saint, so the Royal Fortress of Saint Philip was named for Philip the Apostle, which made sense because he is the patron saint of hatters. Inside the fort was the Governor's residence, the chapel of São Gonçalo and a cool-looking cistern, in which crystal-clear, life-giving water was collected. A powder magazine, barracks and warehouse were in there as well. "It is believed" that the forte was armed with a whopping "nine 18-gauge pieces," which one imagines means 18-pounder guns.

And worthy as this stellar example of the art of starfortery was, it was only a single cog in the Ribiera Grande-defendin' machine. An additional seven small fortifications, likely little more than fortified batteries, also dotted the area around the town. These were intended to work in tandem with the big Fortaleza, laying down a deadly, unendurable crossfire of metal against those attempting to attack the city. Remains of some of these fortlets are allegedly still visible, but I'll be darned if *I* can see 'em from the satellite imagery. And the names of these fortifications were:

Forte de Santo António
Forte de São Veríssimo
Forte de São Brás
Forte de São João dos Cavaleiros
Forte do Presídio
Forte de São Lourenço
Forte de Santa Marta

Surely everyone involved was relieved to have an opportunity to name even more things after saints.

Ribiera Grande's ultimate undoing came about thanks to French privateer Jacques Cassard (1679-1740). Leading an eight-ship squadron from his flagship, the mighty 74-gun Parfait (which warship name absolutely delights me), Cassard's 3000 seamen and 1200 soldiers descended on the island of Santiago in 1712. Details regarding the utilization of the aforementioned network of forts are few, but the upshot was that the French force completely immolated everything on the island of Santiago, collecting so much booty that they were forced to leave behind goods valued at over a million livre, France's currency at the time...and while Google doesn't seem to want to help me in the conversion of the now-defunct livre into USD, we can assume that a million of the things had some value at least.


The Forte Real de São Felipe from the north: Sorry, ancestors of Francis Drake, but you won't be attacking us from this direction!

Cassard's wildly successful crusade against Portuguese, Dutch and English possessions in the Caribbean and Cabo Verde area used as its excuse for plunder the War of the Spanish Succession (1704-1714). The French expedition concentrated on wiping out everything that Portugal needed for the slave trade, which sounds noble until one learns that Cassard took many slaves as booty in the process, cheerfully selling them for the enrichment of himself and his sovereign, King Louis XIV (1638-1715).

Upon his return to France, Cassard was knighted for his trouble, but Santiago island's capital city of Ribiera Grande didn't fare as well. The French had done such a number on the whole island that the Portuguese moved Santiago island's center of power a few miles east to the town of Praia, which was on a plateau above a nice natural harbor, and thus easier to defend against future attack. Moving the Portuguese capital of Cabo Verde to Praia was a slow, deliberate process, which wasn't complete until 1770. Not only was Ribiera Grande demotoed to village status, but it also lost its name, because there was another, more important town called Ribiera Grande elsewhere on the Cabo Verde islands. Our once-proud, starfort-defended city was now a village called Cidade Vehla, "Old City."

The Forte's pleasingly medieval-looking vaulted cistern.
And once that had happened, Cidade Velha's infrastructure, including the ill-starred Forte Real de São Filipe, began its inexorable slide into decay. Cabo Verde's fortunes as a whole also declined in the 19th century, as increasing numbers of nations outlawed slavery. Conveniently located on a shipping lane, Cabo Verde continued to be of some use to Portugal, as a handy spot at which to resupply its globetrottin' navy.

Cabo Verde rumbled along in an increasing state of unhappiness over its colonial status, which disaffection came to a head with armed revolt in the early 1960's.

Fortunately for everyone except Portugal, Portugal lost the ability to retain its overseas colonies when everything fell apart at home in the 1970's, and Cabo Verde became an independent nation in 1975. The Forte Real de São Filipe, meanwhile, had some restoration work done from 1968-1970, and underwent further restoration in 1999. Today the Forte awaits discerning visitors, offering a breathtaking vista o'er the town.