Ribadeo,
corsair port (18th century)
External threat
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Ribadeo’s defence system was aimed especially at combating pirates, privateers and the traditional enemies of the Spanish crown, the Dutch and the English.
The corsair presence, both national and foreign, can be explained by the extraordinary characteristics of the port of Ribadeo, a place of natural shelter, and its location within the great maritime itinerary that linked Europe and North America. José Cornide, in his description of the Galician coast, referring to this port, notes: ‘it is wide, comfortable and capable of accommodating vessels of all kinds, up to seventy-gun ships’.
To this must be added the constant military confrontations sustained by the Spanish crown, which turned the north coast of Galicia into a war zone, favourable for corsairs in search of booty.
The English occupation of 1719
The most serious situation arose in 1719 when the town was occupied by the English in the context of the hostilities between Spain and England after the unsuccessful expedition to Scotland planned by Philip V.
On 30th August 1719, news reached Ribadeo that an enemy squadron had made two landings in the port of Santoña, burning some of His Majesty’s ships and with the aim of preventing the same from happening to another two that were in the local port, The Council agreed to cover the posts of Esteiro, Rinlo and Rio de Vilaselán, ordering four sentries to be posted at each one and fifty armed men at the last one, leaving the Castle of San Damián in charge of the mayor, who would distribute arms and ammunition among the population.
The precautions were of little use, and on 27th September, three enemy ships entered the estuary, shelling the Fort of San Damián and the bastion of La Atalaya. Neither the crew of San Damián nor the cannons stationed at the Atalaya were able to stop the assault, and the English subsequently disembarked.
The conditions that the English army imposed on the town of Ribadeo in order not to cut the population to pieces were too onerous: 2,000 doubloons, 30 oxen, 20 goats and 12 pipes of wine. In the end, and after much negotiation, the English settled for 600 doubloons to leave the port, as well as the wine and the odd ox.
English landing in Vigo in 1719
Corsairs in Ribadeo
In the port of Ribadó, we have references of the arrival of corsair preys since 1741. At first, it was Basque corsairs who used the local wharf as a base for their activities, but shortly afterwards, we began to have evidence of the presence of corsairs from Ribadó.
These were wealthy neighbours and merchants of the town with the capacity to arm a ship with cannons, which they would use, under a privateer’s licence, to attack enemy ships.
Corsair activity was understood as a lucrative activity, in which to invest wealth and credits in the hope of obtaining the maximum profit. The high level of profit was justified by the great risks inherent in the task. Basically, a privateer was a person, or ship, that had in its possession one of the so-called ‘privateer’s patents’ that granted its bearer the licence to engage in privateering. In other words: to attack and seize the enemy’s merchant ships, although they could also be warships. The privateer then carried a part of the money obtained from the sale of the booty or the captured ship, with another part of the profit going to the Treasury of the privateer’s country.
The paquebote Nuestra Señora del Carmen (1744), the galley Nuestra Señora de la Portería y Animas (1744) and La Casualidad (1798) were some of the ships used in the corsairs to seize and take several English and Dutch vessels loaded with oil, wine, meat and fruit to Ribadeo.
The rebuilding of the Fort
Destroyed in 1719 during the English attack on the town, the Fort of San Damián was rebuilt in 1743 under the direction of the military engineers Juan Vergel and Arnold Hontabat.
The works were carried out ‘in haste’ by royal order, and began in August 1743, finishing in November of that year at a cost of 6742 reales, paid for by the Royal Treasury, the Province and the Town Council itself.
José Cornide in his ‘Descripcion circunstanciada de la costa de Galicia y raya por donde confina con el inmediato Reino de Portugal’ of 1764 describes them as follows:
‘It is circular in shape, old and without a moat or barracks for the troops because its enclosure is small. It has seven or eight iron cannons mounted towards the sea and several gun ports. Its garrison is made up of twenty men and an officer who is sent from Praza da Coruña and moves every four months.
It has no barracks, and the troops are placed in an immediate house. It is capable of containing 150 men in its enclosure in case of need’.
The population of the time would leave a record of their regret for not having carried out these improvement works on the fortification 25 years earlier, in clear reference to the episode of the English occupation and the insufficiency shown by the town’s defences to repel the foreign attack.
Years later, in 1763, the Fort was to be completely reformed and enlarged, according to the design of the prestigious military engineer Francisco Llovet, achieving the layout it still has today.
Francisco Llovet (1705 – 1785) was assigned to Galicia as chief engineer and lieutenant colonel in 1750. Established in Galicia until 1764, he carried out an intense work, drawing up numerous projects, plans and maps of its estuaries and ports, as well as the fortifications of the kingdom. Particularly important were those related to the Royal Arsenal of Ferrol and the fortifications of the Pescadería in A Coruña.
The enlargement of San Damián was planned in accordance with the orders of the Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia, Carlos Francisco de Croix, Marquis de la Croix, at the request of the governor of the fort, demonstrating the importance that Ribadeo, and specifically its fortifications, had for the crown and the defence of the kingdom.
A triangular castle or battery was planned, enclosed on the sides by a simple embrasured wall, with a moat ten feet wide and nine feet deep.
Inside, a vaulted gunpowder magazine and quarters with a capacity to house 2 officers and 60 men were planned. The fortification was equipped with 10 cannons, 5 guns of 48 and 5 of 46 spread over fourteen gun ports.
In the map of the Kingdom of Galicia drawn up by the military engineer Feliciano Míguez in the same year, 1763, the Fort of San Damián is included among the most important forts and fortresses on the coast and estuaries of the Kingdom of Galicia. It states that of the castles and fortresses located in the northern part of the Galician coast, only the Battery of Cedeira and the Castle of San Damián are in good condition.
Between 1768 and 1769, small works were carried out under the direction of Clemente Haedo (1768) and Baltasar Ricaud (1769), which would end up shaping the present space that has survived to the present day.
These works included, among others, the construction of the castle governor’s quarters, an increase in the surface area of the kitchens, a new layout for the stables and new rooms for the officers of the infantry and artillery detachment.
