December 16: Points of Interest in The Walled City

The Church of San Pedro Claver

Peter Claver was a Jesuit novitiate sent with his order to New Spain in the 1600's. He arrived in Cartagena and after completing his novitiate, was ordained a priest. He was eventually called to ministry among the slaves arriving from Africa on slave ships. Many of them were ill and dehydrated, and he took food, water, and medicines into the holds of the ships and comforted the miserable souls he found in chains there.

Cartagena had become a slave trading hub by the early 1600's. Slavery was condemned by both the Pope and the King of Spain, but it had become such a lucrative undertaking that it thrived in the Caribbean. As many as 10,000 slaves per year entered Cartagena and were sold into slavery. Many of them ended up building the walls and forts that surround Cartagena.

Here is our guide Billy Parrot beginning the tour of the church with a statue of San Pedro Claver. Peter Claver continued his ministry for 40 years. He converted an estimated 700,000 people to Catholicism and allegedly baptized some 300,000--many in the courtyard of the Cloisters, which now stands next to the church built in his honor some 200 years after his death.

Interior of the Church of San Pedro Claver. Claver was canonized in 1888, some 200 years after his death. Part of the due diligence for his elevation to sainthood included testimonials from many people whom he comforted by wrapping his cloak around them as they suffered, and who later claimed that they lived disease free for the rest of their lives. The remains of San Pedro lie at the bottom of the altar visible through a glass panel.

The dome of the church was added in 1921.

The cloisters next door to the church was where Claver lived with his order. This is a view from the courtyard of the cloisters.

The cloisters seen from the cistern in the courtyard where Peter Claver baptized many slaves.

Second floor gallery in the cloisters.

Bronze sculpture showing a kneeling Peter Claver supporting a slave. He came to be known as "The Slave of the Slaves" and is now touted in Cartagena as the "Father of Human Rights" in the Western Hemisphere.

A small altar in the living quarters of Peter Claver. The wood floor is original and over 400 years old. The figure in the altar is a statue.

Claver suffered at the end of his life from Parkinson's disease, and was finally bedridden in his last years. Ironically, he was cared for on his death bed by and ex-slave hired by the Superior of the house. This ex-slave treated Claver very badly until his death. Life is just not fair.

Palacio de Inquisicion

Our next stop, The Palace of the Inquisition. Built in 1770, this large colonial style building was built at the command of Phillip III of Spain. Cartagena had become a vital shipping, trading, and economic hub for the Spanish Empire. Many of the merchants involved in commerce in Cartagena at the time were Portuguese and were suspected of being "crypto-Jews," or Jews posing as Catholics.

Exterior facade of the Palace of the Inquisition, showing the ornately carved coral stone entrance.

Interior courtyard of the Palace of the Inquisition.

WARNING: THE NEXT SEVERAL IMAGES ARE TROUBLING. SKIP AHEAD IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET BY EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CRUELTY TO HUMANS.

The purpose of the Inquisition was to search out, torture, punish, and hopefully convert to Catholicism any witches, heretics, Jews, Protestants, atheists, sorcerers, and other perverts. And if they couldn't convert you, their next task was to get you to confess to any of the above, after which they would execute you in the name of King Phillip and God. If you were caught with any of the above items in your home--dead animals, potions, skulls--you would be tried as a witch.

This is a list of recorded questions asked of persons suspected of heresy or witchcraft. Examples of questions:

Why did you become a witch?

How fast can you fly?

How many children have you cast the "evil eye" upon?

What words do you utter when you fly?

What is the recipe for your witches brew?

Has the devil put ribbons on your curses?

This is the "witch scale." If you were suspected of being a witch, they weighed you--naked of course--and if you were less than 60 KG (about 120 pounds) you were suspected of being a witch. Witches were known to fly, and if you weighed less than 60 KG, you were considered light enough to fly, and therefore probably a witch.

This is the garrote. Suspects were strapped into this contraption with the metal strap around their shoulders to hold them against the wooden back. Questions were asked, and if you gave unsatisfactory answers, the screw mechanism was turned, forcing the metal point into your spine. If you confessed or converted, the inquisitors stopped. If not, they kept turning the mechanism until your spine was penetrated and the point came out of the front of your throat.

This is the rack. Tied hand and foot, the ropes were tightened with every incorrect or unsatisfactory answer. In some cases, a rope was attached to genitals to extract the correct answer.

Obviously the blessing from the Bishop that Tim received on Sunday didn't work. Look where he wound up!

While you were being tortured, you were overseen by two Inquisitors who sat at this console under the sign of Christ to be sure you were interrogated "correctly."

Perhaps the most gruesome of all the torture instruments: the breast ripper. This heinous device was heated and then clamped onto the naked breast of a suspected witch and clamped down, searing and penetrating the flesh. The breast was then ripped from the suspect's chest wall. All this in the name of Christ.

This is the skull clamp. Victim's heads were put into this device and squeezed with the screw clamp until you either gave the acceptable answer to the charges agains you, or your skull was crushed.

BTW Tony, our guide, was a show unto himself. Penciled eyebrows, eyeliner, matte makeup, and an emerald-and-silver ring on every finger. He was the queen of drama and described in great detail how these devices worked.

This is the spike collar. If the inquisitors didn't like or didn't believe your answers to the charges against you, they applied this collar which probably penetrated your spine and carotid arteries. Your death would have been evidence that your were lying.

This dastardly device had two sharp points under your chin forcing your head upwards. With endless questioning and accusations, fatigue would cause your muscles to weaken and you would essentially impale yourself on the spikes.

This is the garruche. Resistant cases were tied to this device with arms and legs behind, and torso hanging below. If you "lied" you were hoisted 2 or 3 stories into the air and dropped onto the pavement. Your thorax, ribs, and shoulders were fractured.

The chopping block of course.

And finally, the guillotine for the most resistant cases.

All in all, during the tenure of the Inquisition in Cartagena, 1,900 people were executed for crimes against Spain and the Church. The number of people who were tortured, and who converted to Catholicism to save themselves is unknown.

Unimaginable human cruelty in the name of God and country. Sort of like today, don't you think? Will the human species ever learn?

Hotel Santa Clara for Lunch

We were wandering through the streets of Old Cartagena looking for Las Bovedas when we stumbled across the Hotel Santa Clara. It was lunchtime, so we decided to stop. The entrance doesn't look like much, but this is a Sofitel Legend Hotel. Pretty nice once we went inside.

Ceiling of the entryway of Hotel Santa Clara showing the original beams and vaults. This building dates to the 1600's when is served as a convent.

A beautiful example of colonial Spanish architecture. The columns are solid coral--politically incorrect in our time. But beautiful nonetheless.

This building is the setting for Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1944 novel "Of Love and Other Demons," the story of a 12 year-old girl with long flowing red hair who survives rabies to become a revered healer.

Lunch on the gallery restaurant on the lovely restful courtyard. A nice respite from the hot sunny streets of Cartagena.

Las Bovedas

The Vaults, which are attached to the fortress wall around the city, were built in 1792. They are the last major construction of the Spanish colonial period. They were used to store weapons and artillery, and later prisoners were kept here.

The 23 vaults of Las Bovedas now house shops selling original Colombian artesanal items.

Las Bovedas from the government building across the street.

Zenu Gold Museum

The Zenu people were a large indigenous tribe that occupied the northern part of South America from 200 BC until about 1600 AD. They were farmers and goldsmiths who adorned themselves with ornately hammered and filigreed objects of gold.

The Zenu lived on the floodable plains of the area, and constructed and ornate system of canals and trenches to control floodwaters from the rivers. They built up mounds and ridges where they constructed their homes, and which protected them during flood times. Then when the water receded, they collected the rich silt the rivers had deposited in their trenches and canals and piled the rich soil on top of the ridges where they grew crops.

At its peak, this system of canals covered 500,000  hectares (about 1.2 million acres) of northern Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. Remnants of the larger canals can still be seen from the air.

Entrance to the Zenu Gold Museum fronting Plaza de Bolivar.

The museum is located in a lovely colonial building. Coral arches and columns are common in Cartagena.

The friendly Kalamary people who occupied the area of Cartagena at the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors were part of the greater Zenu tribe. They greeted the Spaniard in full Zenu gold regalia, which of course immediately caught the eye of the gold-seeking Spaniards.

Part of Zenu culture was that when a man died, his wife was sacrificed and buried along with him, because the Zenu believed in a sort of heaven, and a man could not enter heaven without his wife. The Zenu traditions of burial had the couple buried head to head with the heads elevated and lain atop a cache of gold and silver adornments, urns, and vessels along with emeralds and pearls--all thought to be needed in the afterworld. Then they planted a tree atop the couple's burial mound.

The Spaniards quickly identified these graves and plundered them for their gold and precious gems before going on to seek the source of the treasures in the surrounding land. According to history, gold nuggets the size of goose eggs were pulled from the rivers around the Kalamary village.

In addition to the European diseases of syphilis and small pox that decimated the susceptible Zenu people, many were killed outright for their treasure. The remaining native people were herded onto reservations where their descendants still live. A familiar tale in the Americas.

Cartagena Cathedral

Officially the Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Spanish: Catedral Baslica Metropolitano de Santa Catalina de Alejandria) is located in the historic center of old Cartagena. 

The Cathedral was built starting in 1577, dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria. She was an Egyptian princess who converted to Christianity in her youth and was martyred for her beliefs. She was also one of the holy appearances that allegedly came to Joan of Arc.

The Cathedral is undergoing a renovation, so these photos don't do it justice. It is a lovely colonial building. note the ubiquitous coral columns seen all over Old Cartagena.

Cartagena Medical School

I'm always on the lookout for historic buildings related to medicine. In wanderings in Old Cartagena, we stumbled actress the medical school established in 1888. It is a very modest building compared to the grand sites we have visited today, and it was not open to the public. But I thought it was worth a photo post.