Place

Seige Room

The Siege Room is accessed from the courtyard with a slight upward slope. The siege room exhibits show how the Castillo’s cannons were used to defend the fort. Most exhibits are in English and Spanish.  A double wooden door opens into the Siege room. Above the door is a slight ledge. Above the ledge is a barred window with a wooden shutter that also opens inward.  The room is about 20 feet wide and 30 feet long, with an arched ceiling about 17 feet high.  Standing at the entrance to th room, the description, moving from left to right, includes:  Soldiers Through Time Exhibit. Several modern photographs of re-enactors dressed as soldiers from the Spanish Era to the World War 1 Era.  Deadly Explosion 1702 Exhibit. Part of a tactile cannon barrel sits on a cement and wood pedestal. The text explains that the 18 pound iron cannon was uncovered in the moat.  In the corners of the back wall are two tactile cannons on carriages with large wheels. These are working replicas, so please do not climb on or move pieces of them. Small wooden barrels are located between the wheels of each cannon.  Defending the Fort 1740 Exhibit. A 3- dimensional, miniature, diorama shows soldiers, each about 6 inches tall, peering over the northeast bastion wall preparing to fire a cannon. Text describes a battle in 1740.  Francisco Menéndez. 1705 to 1770. Text explains that Menéndez, a former slave, escaped to St. Augustine in 1724. By 1738, he had become a captain in the militia and commanded the first free Black settlement in North America. An illustration shows him wearing a black triangular hat over curly jaw length hair.  He has an angular face. He is wearing a long black jacket with gold closures over a long red vest and black breeches, that end just below the knee. White fabric is wrapped around his neck. Two inches of ruffled white lace shows above the vest and wrists. He wears tall white knee socks, with black shoes with a wide gold buckle on the top. His right hand rests on thin cane with a tassel at the top. He holds the hilt of a black sheathed sword in his left hand.  A tactile wooden gun rack.  Spanish Colonization Exhibit. An historic map of the ocean off the coast of Florida. An illustration of a man in a blue uniform with red cuffs and socks, wearing a black triangular hat, and holding a musket. Historic maps of St. Augustine. The text explains that the first colonists in St. Augustine endured hunger, privation and disease. Yet it was critical to the Spanish Empire as a base to patrol Florida’s coastline for pirates, rescuing shipwrecked survivors and salvaging wrecks.

Quick Facts

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Wheelchair Accessible

The Castillo was originally built to act not only as a refuge for the townspeople but also as a military warehouse. The Spanish used the western casemates for food storage, and they would have looked much like the supply room. Other casemates were filled with military supplies such as gunpowder, hardware, ship repair materials, and as many as 20,000 cannonballs.

All of the stone casemates were constructed between 1738 and 1756, a time of almost constant warfare between Spain and England in the New World. The walls were raised to 35 feet during this remodeling, and these arched ceilings were constructed. Vaulted casemates disperse the weight of the structure throughout the supporting walls and foundation, so they are able to hold much more weight than a simple squared roof. This made these rooms "bomb proof" and allowed the Spanish to place more cannon on the gun deck above. When the casemates were finished, the Castillo was able to defend itself, the city, and all approaches to the city out to three and a half miles, the maximum range of the 16-, 18-, and 24-pounder cannon mounted along the fort's walls.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

Tags

Last updated: February 11, 2021