400 Years of War Between Spain and Portugal

You're standing in front of the Portón de Campo. This gate wasn't built by the Portuguese. It was built by the Spanish. And that already tells you everything you need to know about this city. Colonia del Sacramento was founded by Portugal on January 28, 1680. Six months later, Spain attacked, captured it, and renamed it Fuerte del Rosario. Six months. It didn't last a year in the hands of its founders. Then came the Treaty of Lisbon in 1681, and Portugal got it back. Then lost it again in 1705. Recovered it in 1715, via the Treaty of Utrecht. Lost it again in 1762, when Pedro de Cevallos ar…

The ruins in front of you are what remains of the Convent of San Francisco Javier. The Portuguese built it in the 17th century, just decades after founding the colony. It was one of the first solid buildings in the city: stone, not adobe. The convent survived invasions, sieges, and treaties. It even survived passing into Spanish hands. But it didn't survive time. What you see now are walls without roofs, arches that hold themselves up, and a ruined bell tower. On top of all that, however, there's something the Portuguese never imagined: the lighthouse you see in the center was built in 1857,…

You're in the Plaza Mayor. Look around: palm trees, Portuguese cobblestones, a colonial cistern in the center, 18th-century buildings in three different styles. This space was for almost a century the heart of the most contested colony on the Río de la Plata. It was a Portuguese square. Then a Spanish square. Then Portuguese again. Then Spanish again. Seven times in total the flag flying over these buildings changed. Why so much effort for a town of just a few thousand people? The answer wasn't here — it was across the river. Buenos Aires, the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Pl…

The building you're standing in front of was built in the 18th century. Inside you'll find the Espacio Portugués: period naval charts, uniforms, colonial jewelry, treaty documents, and a scale model of what the original city looked like in its early years. Look at the maps. Portugal spent more than two centuries exploring and charting the Atlantic coast of South America. When Manuel Lobo arrived to found this colony in 1680, he carried on his ships the accumulated cartographic knowledge of generations of Portuguese navigators. He knew exactly where he was: about fifty kilometers in a straigh…

You're on the Calle de los Suspiros. It's one of the most photographed streets in Uruguay. Uneven 17th-century cobblestones, low thick-walled houses, plants hanging from walls, light filtering between the rooftops. It looks like a postcard. And it is. But what you see under your feet — those cobblestones — were laid by the Portuguese. And the houses on that side of the street are Portuguese colonial. And the ones on the other side were rebuilt by the Spanish. And some were demolished and rebuilt by Uruguayans in the 19th century. All in fifty meters of street. Why is it called "Street of Si…

This is the Casa del Virrey. Or rather: what remains of it. The walls you see are a modern reconstruction of a ruin that stood abandoned for decades. But the history of this place has a very specific protagonist. Pedro de Cevallos. A name that should appear in every history book in the Southern Cone, but that almost nobody knows. Cevallos was the military man Spain chose to resolve the problem of Colonia once and for all. In 1762, during the Seven Years' War, he arrived with an army and captured the city. Portugal got Colonia back in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris. Cevallos had to leave. But …

This is the Iglesia Matriz of Colonia del Sacramento. It's the oldest church in Uruguay. The first version was built by the Portuguese in 1680, the same year the colony was founded. The Spanish bombed it that same year when they took the city. The Portuguese rebuilt it. It was bombed again. Rebuilt again. Four times like that. What you see today is the result of centuries of destruction and reconstruction. The thicker walls on the west side are the original Portuguese ones from the 17th century. Those on the east were rebuilt by the Spanish in the 18th century. The bell tower, by Uruguayans …

You're at the Bastión del Carmen, one of the highest points of the defensive wall. Look at the stones. This wall was built by the Spanish in the 18th century to defend against an attack... that never came. At least not by land. The paradox of the entire history of Colonia is that the walls didn't do much good. Every time someone attacked the city, they came from the river. And nobody built walls against the river. There's a fact that doesn't appear in tourist guides: in the ninety-seven years between the founding in 1680 and the definitive Spanish conquest in 1777, Colonia had fourteen diff…

This street was called the Calle del Comercio — Street of Commerce — for two centuries. The name wasn't a metaphor. It was a literal description. At the height of smuggling — which was more or less the entire period between 1715 and 1777, when Portugal controlled the city — this street was the nerve center of an operation that historians estimate moved between 20 and 30 percent of all imports into the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. How did it work? Like this: English ships, with commercial licenses from the Portuguese government, arrived in Colonia. They unloaded textiles, tools, metal…

You're looking at the Río de la Plata. Across the water, fifty kilometers away, is Buenos Aires. On clear days you can see the horizon line where Uruguay ends and Argentina begins. It's the same water that divided and united this region for centuries. On October 4, 1777, the last Portuguese governor of Colonia, Francisco José Rós, signed the surrender. It was the end of ninety-seven years of cold wars, hot wars, signed and violated treaties, and organized smuggling. Spain had the city. But not for long. Twenty-seven years later, in 1804, the Spanish colonial monopoly system began to collap…