CASA FUERTE

These ruins have been classified as historic monument since 1960. In 1647 Don Juan Sedeño Albornoz was relieved from his duties as field master in Barcelona del Cerro Santo (Barcelona has not yet been founded). It gives the ground of the present casa fuerte to the missionaries. 68 years later the Franciscans began building a convent. In December 1816, Simón Bolívar organizes the headquarters of his military operations. To do this it transforms the convent into a species of citadel, dotted with trenches where it increases holes in walls for cannons. This is how Le could withstand General Pascual Real when he took Barcelona on February 8, 1817 with his army of 4 500 men, and thus waiting for General Francisco Bermúdez's reinforcements for a historic victory. On the Bolívar Bridge, we still imagine the accolade of the two men and famous sentence of Simón Bolívar: " You are the liberator of the liberator! " On 5 April 1817, the Bloody Spanish Colonel D. Juán Aldama took a position at the strategic locations of the city pending heavy artillery. On the morning of 7 the "casa" falls. General Pedro María Freites heroically resists wounded arm, but must order the retirement, accompanied by Governor Francisco Esteban Ribas. Both men fall into the hands of enemies. Prisoners are taken to Caracas and executed on Plaza Mayor (present Plaza Bolívar) on the 17 th of the same month. The wicked royalist the massacre of 1 600 supporters (men, women and children!).