El Puerto de Santa Maria

History and Overview

El Puerto de Santa María is located in the Northeast of the Cadiz province on the Guadalete River outlet.

The first trace of the earliest settlements in El Puerto de Santa Maria are from the Lower Palaeolithic times, as demonstrated by the remains at "El Aculadero". Other archaeological sites of great interest are "Las Arenas" and "Doña Blanca", dating back to the Phoenicians sometime between the Eighth and Ninth centuries B.C.

Legend has it that the City was founded by an Athenian leader -Menestheo- who after the Trojan Wars, founded a city which he named after himself, Puerto de Menesteo.

In the year 711 the Muslims fought and won a battle against the Visigoth Armies known as the Battle of the Guadalete. From that moment on the city was incorporated into the Muslim territory and its name was changed to Amaria Alcanter, Alcanate, or Alcanatif, which mean Port of the salt mines, Arch or Bridge.

In the year 1260, the city was conquered from the Moors by Alfonso X, who named it Santa Maria del Puerto, and who organised the distribution of the land among the new settlers. From 1368 to the eighteenth century El Puerto was under the Lordship of the Medinaceli family, and it was during this period that the city had its greatest days of glory. Christopher Columbus was a guest of the rich families of El Puerto who also helped him to prepare for the voyage which would lead him to the Discovery of the New World. It was here that the Santa Maria was outfitted; this ship was the property of Juan de la Cosa, a sailor who was a pilot for Columbus in 1492 and, who in 1500, made the first world map ever known to include the newly discovered continent of America.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, El Puerto was the winter head-quarters and base for the Royal Galleys and the site of the General Captaincy of the "Mar Océana". This fact would determinate the role the city played in the preparations of important naval expeditions. After the proclamation of Philip V as King in 1700, the city requested its incorporation to the Crown, which took place on May 31st 1729 when the Court spent that summer and the following one here. The eighteenth century began with important commercial activities of a great number of learned shipping magnates which gave way to the first years of the nineteenth century, when the city became General Headquarters for the French Army during the War of Independence and under the reign of José Bonaparte (1810 - 1812).

During Fernando VII´s reign (1814-1833), in the liberal triennium period (1820-1823), El Puerto de Santa Maria is again occupied and taken as General Headquarters by the troops of the Santa Alliance, the French army known as "The hundred Thousand Children of Saint Luis" under the command of the Duke of Angulema, with the purpose of putting an end to the liberal resistance taking refuge in Cadiz and to liberate King Fernando VII. The newly liberated king disembarked in El Puerto de Santa Maria and abolishes the Constitution of Cádiz of 1812, imposing the absolute power of the crown.

Starting from that moment, the changes of history, the successive religious and civil confiscations, the social and political changes, as well as the development of the sherry industry, cause the expansion of the local economy and the urban space, marking the life and people of this city.

Today, El Puerto de Santa Maria is great for shopping as well sitting in cafes and restaurants and watching the town go by. You can also catch a ferry from the port across to Cadiz and it is planned that a Bridge will be built between the two towns. El Puerto is a great base for discovering places up and down the coast. It has a train station which takes you into Cadiz as well as Jerez and Sevilla.

History and Overview courtesy of www.elpuertosm.es.