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Cartagena, Spain

City and port on the Mediterranean

  • 26 min read
  • 14 chapters
The Town hall of Cartagena , an Art Nouveau work by Tomás Rico Valarino (1907).
Juan Sáez · CC BY-SA 2.0

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Through Mesolithic and Neolithic

Qart-Hadast was founded around 227 BC by the Barcids of Ancient Carthage. Known as Carthago Nova under Roman rule, it was the capital of Hispania Carthaginensis. It was briefly held by the Byzantine Empire in late antiquity, before being raided by Visigoths circa 620–625. The Islamic city rebuilt around the Concepción Hill, mentioned as Qartayânnat al-Halfa, was noted by the 11th century as a great harbor.

Unsubmissive to the terms of the Treaty of Alcaraz, Cartagena was taken by force by the Crown of Castile in 1245, with aggressive settlement policies being pursued afterwards pursuant to Cartagena's status as a prize of war. While Cartagena ended up as the sole Castilian port in the region for years to come, its constrained prominence conformed to Castile's limited attention to Mediterranean affairs in the late middle ages. It was secured by the Crown in 1503 after a period in private hands, growing in saliency because of its increasing trade prowess and its role in the Hispanic Monarchy's intervention in the Maghreb, and becoming the base of the Spanish Mediterranean fleet in the 18th century. Following the re-opening of the mines in the Sierra Minera, a mining industry developed after 1840, otherwise prompting the 1860 segregation of the mining district into a new municipality. Cartagena was a hotspot of the Cantonal Rebellion in 1873. Hammered by industrial re-structuring policies, it underwent a profound job crisis in the early 1990s.

The city hosts an important base of the Spanish Navy and a large naval shipyard. The city preserves a Roman Theatre, an abundance of Punic, Roman, Byzantine and Moorish remains, and a plethora of Art Nouveau buildings from the early 20th century.

History

Prehistory

There is evidence of the presence of individuals belonging to the genus Homo in the cave Cueva Victoria 1,300,000 years ago. This cave is located in the southeastern quarter of Cartagena.

Remains of Neanderthal individuals of the Mousterian culture were found in the Cave of los Aviones. This place is located close to Cartagena. There were also remains of Neanderthals belonging to the Mousterian culture in the Cueva Bermeja, which is located in the southwestern quarter of the municipality.

At the southeast corner of the municipality remains of humans of the Upper Paleolithic were discovered. The paleontological sites are the Abrigo de Los Déntoles cove, the Cueva de Los Mejillones, and the Cabezo de San Ginés (hill). The West of the municipality was also the scene of human activity in that period. Concrete evidence of this are the caves Cueva del Caballo and Cueva Bermeja.

The southeast end of Cartagena was inhabited again during the Mesolithic. Important points are the Cueva de los Pájaros and Cueva de los Mejillones (caves). Neolithic components such as ceramic shards have been found.

The southeast of Cartagena was again inhabited during the Neolithic. The sites are Las Amoladeras and Calblanque. The south of the Alumbres district was also inhabited during that period. The archaeological site is located in the Cerro del Gorguel (hill) and in it remains of a characteristic Neolithic hamlet were discovered.

The reasons for the dearth of human presence and structures in this municipality during the Neolithic period were the lack of rainfall and the absence of water courses. During the Bronze Age there was a similar situation.

The Argaric civilization inhabited the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (Región de Murcia and Almería) during the Bronze Age. Nevertheless, they did not significantly occupy this municipality, there were few structures belonging to them and they had little relevance here. They lived in the northwest.

Ancient history

The town is thought to have originally been named Mastia. Possessing one of the best harbors in the Western Mediterranean, it was re-founded by the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal around 227 BC as Kart-hadasht ("New City"), a name identical to Carthage, for the purpose of serving as a stepping-off point for the conquest of Spain.

The Roman general Scipio Africanus conquered it in 209 BC and renamed it Carthago Nova (literally "New Carthage," and therefore etymologically "New New City") to distinguish it from the mother city. It became a tributary community (civitas stipendaria). Julius Caesar gave the town Latin Rights, and Octavian renamed it in his honor as the colony Colonia Victrix Iulia Nova Carthago or Colonia Vrbs Iulia Nova Carthago (C. V. I. N. C.) depending on the source. The city was very relevant both in the Carthaginian and the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. In 298 AD, Diocletian constituted a new Roman province in Hispania called Carthaginensis and settled the capital in this city. It remained important until it was sacked by the Vandals in 435 AD.

During the Roman period, it was the site of major silver mines, yielding a daily revenue of 25,000 drachmae. It was known also for the production of garum, a fermented fish sauce, and for esparto grass which granted it a new name, Cartago Spartaria.

Middle Ages

The demise and fall of Western Roman sovereignty caused Cartago Spartaria to go into decline. It was occupied successively by the Vandals (409–425), the Visigoths (425–551 and 624–714) and the Eastern Romans (551–624), who made it the capital of Spania (the Byzantine Empire's westernmost province). During this time the Christian diocese of Cartagena lost its place as the primary diocese in Hispania to the more reliably Visigothic Archdiocese of Toledo, a primacy it would never recover.

Cartagena was re-conquered by the Visigoths, who held it until the Muslim conquest in 714 AD. By that time it was barely a fishing village. It was called Qartayannat-al-Halfa. It was subsequently ruled by the Umayyads (714–756), the Caliphate of Cordova (756–1031), the Taifa of Denia (1031–1076), the Taifa of Saragossa (1076–1081), the Taifa of Tortosa (1081–1092), the Almoravids (1092–1145), the Almohads (1145–1229) and the Taifa of Murcia (1229–1245). During the Islamic period, Cartagena primarily oriented itself to the sea, possessing at best a small rural hinterland.

Following the local refusal to abide by the 1243 Treaty of Alcaraz, a Castilian army led by the infante Alfonso of Castile took Cartagena by force in 1245 by means of a military operation combining land forces and a Cantabrian fleet. It was granted a fuero copied after Córdoba's in 1246. Similarly to the other subdued rebel towns, it early underwent an aggressive process of Castilianization. The diocese of Cartagena was restored in 1250, but its seat was established in Murcia since 1266, a decision later formalised in 1291. In 1270, Alfonso created the Order of Santa María de España for the naval defense of the Crown of Castile and established its headquarters in Cartagena. In 1296, Cartagena was briefly annexed to the Crown of Aragon, but returned to Castile by the Treaty of Elx in 1305, which fixed the final boundary between the kingdoms of Valencia and Murcia. Cartagena then lost its status as royal demesne and became a seigneurial jurisdiction, a situation which lasted until 1346. Cartagena did not fully recover until the 18th century, when it became a leading naval port in the Mediterranean.

During the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain, chronicler Andrés Bernáldez reports that seventeen ships carrying Jewish deportees reached Cartagena before continuing to Málaga; about 150 Jews converted to Christianity in Cartagena.

Modern history

On 3 September 1643, the Battle of Cartagena took place near the Cabo de Gata between a Spanish fleet and a French fleet.

In 1728, Cartagena became the capital of the Spanish Navy's Maritime Department of the Mediterranean and the city was heavily fortified with the construction of a modern castle in the place of a former Moorish Kasbah, several barracks and a huge Cartagena Arsenal. In a relatively short period of time, the population of the city grew from around 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants.

In 1757, during the Seven Years' War, a French Navy force was forced to take shelter in the port. A squadron under Michel-Ange Duquesne de Menneville sent to reinforce them was attacked and defeated by a Royal Navy squadron under Henry Osborn at the Battle of Cartagena.

In 1873, the city established a self-governing Canton of Cartagena and become the center of the Cantonal Revolution. Governmental forces besieged the city for several months until they surrendered.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Cartagena was the main base of the Spanish Republican Navy and one of the primary strongholds of the Republican Government. It held out against the forces of General Francisco Franco longer than any other city in Spain, being the last of its cities to surrender. The city saw its industrial activity increase during the 1950s, resulting in greater prosperity.

Hammered by industrial re-structuring policies, the city underwent a profound job crisis in the early 1990s, stirring up protests and the burning of the regional legislature.

Present

At the moment, Cartagena comprises part of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and is the seat of the Regional Assembly of Murcia. It is also capital of the maritime province of Cartagena, which was granted by the Royal Decree of 5 October 1607 under the reign of Philip III.

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