BARGE FORTRESS
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Fortress turned municipal museum, the Museu Nacional Resistência e Libertade, with temporary exhibitions.
This fortress, built in the 15th century, is in the middle of a military defensive complex completed by the Fort of Consolation and the Fort of Sao Joao Baptista de Belengas. In these dungeons of suffering that fill up halfway at high tide, many prisoners were held over the centuries. Nevertheless, this fort was not enough to defend this strategic point during the Peninsular War and then the Napoleonic invasion of 1807, commanded by Junot. In 1836, this fortress was the victim of a fire that completely destroyed the Governor's Palace and caused the explosion of the fort's powder magazine. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was used to house the Boers returning from Mozambique after the British victory in South Africa. During the First World War, Germans were incarcerated there. Finally, it was used as a high security political prison during the Estado Novo of Salazar's fascist regime (1934-1974). It was from here that Alvaro Cunhal, the general secretary of the Communist Party at the time, escaped in a spectacular way with a dozen comrades. He left a series of drawings of his time in prison. During the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974, it was one of the strategic points of the revolutionaries. It was then used as a shelter for terrorists from the former Portuguese overseas territories during decolonization. Today it is a municipal museum: Museu Nacional Resistência e Libertade with regularly scheduled temporary exhibitions.
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