Plan of Havana

1587?

Name(s) currently unknown

Seville, ESP, Archivo General de las Indias (current location)

This map of the harbor and town of Havana emphasizes the entry into the port, the Castillo de la Real Fuerza and the main plaza with houses arrayed around it. In the mid-sixteenth century, when this plan was drawn up, Havana was not yet fortified. So there is no city wall—a feature that will be common on later maps.

The star-shaped building at the center of the map is Castillo de la Real Fuerza, built as part of the efforts to fortify Havana from attacks by pirates and corsairs. The chain barrier that can be seen stretching across the harbor was installed after French pirates sacked Havana in 1555. Below the Castillo, the plaza mayor appears, with a make-shift church at its center.

Maps of cities in Spanish America were frequently drawn up for colonial administration, rarely were they signed. This one is no exception.

As with many administrative documents from New Spain, this map is now held in the Archivo General de Indias, in Seville.

In 1519, after foundering in two poorly chosen sites, the town of San Cristobál de la Habana was moved to a sheltered bay on the island’s north coast. The reborn Havana soon became the last port of call for transatlantic ships. French pirates sacked and burned Havana in 1555, requiring to the port to be rebuilt and its fortifications strengthened with a chain link barrier at the bay’s mouth, and the star-shaped Castillo de la Real Fuerza.

España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, Archivo General de Indias

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

González García, Pedro, et al. 1997. Discovering the Americas: The Archive of the Indies. New York and Paris: Vendome Press.

Martín Zequeira, María Elena and Eduardo Luís Rodríguez Fernández. 1995. La Habana colonial, 1519-1898: guía architectura. Havana and Seville: Ciudad de la Habana, Junta de Andalucía.