Fort of Santa Cruz ( or Castelo da Santa Cruz), is a 16th-century fortification located in the civil parish of Angústias, municipality of Horta, on the island of Faial in the Portuguese Azores. Occasionally referred to as the Castelo de Santa Cruz by locals, it is situated in the historic centre of the city, on the edge of Horta Bay. It was constructed to work in conjunction with the Fort of Bom Jesus () at the mouth of the Ribeira da Conceição and Fort of Greta () along the coast of the extinct spatter cone Monte da Guia, to defend the entrance to the harbour and southern access to the Bay.
History
A study of the defensive conditions of the archipelago of the Azores, from pirates and privateers, attracted by the riches of the ships returning from Africa, India and Brazil, began in the middle of the 16th century by the military engineer Bartolomeu Ferraz. In his plan to the Portuguese Crown, Ferraz warned of the vulnerability of the islands of São Miguel, Terceira, São Jorge, Faial and Pico to pirate attacks or Protestant military forces. His plan justified the need to improve the security conditions at the ports and protect ships in Azorean waters: "... because the three islands import a lot...and [for they] principally aid the carracks from India and [because] the French against reason, justly or injustly, take everything they can..."
During the reigns of Kings John III (1521–1557) and Sebastian (1568–1578), along with new regiments sent to the region, military architect Tommaso Benedetto was sent to reformulate the defenses (in 1567), during the regency of Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal. Benedetto understood that with a determined maritime force, the defense of the islands could be concentrated at ports and anchorages, by the local population and under the responsibility of the municipal authorities.
Primitively referred to as the Castelo de Santo António nu lugar da Cruz (because of the chapel located within its walls), the fort that would be known as Santa Cruz, was planned-out during Benedetto's visit in 1567, which also included the stationing of an artillery company on its grounds. Its construction was unlikely to have taken long: in fact, a Royal order for the director of Public Works, Luís Gonçalves, obligated him to visit the islands of Faial and São Jorge to get those projects completed.
Subordinate to the administrative authority of Terceira, Horta was ever fearful of attacks; the Battle of Salga (1581), led the military to strengthen the fortifications along the coast of Faial, repairing existing defences and constructing new battlements. During the Iberian Union crisis (1583), Santa Cruz defended Horta from a Spanish armada under the command of Pedro de Toledo, who disembarked in the nearby village of Pasteleiro. After marching from their beachhead to the village of Horta, the Spaniards attacked and defeated the regiment, eventually capturing and executing the Captain-major António Guedes de Sousa at the doors of the fort. The Spanish garrison was recalled to Terceira, when the local population complained that they could not support nor lodge the occupying armada. Ironically, this was a regrettable decision: on 6 September 1589 an English fleet, under the command of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland as part of his Azores Voyage of 1589, arrived in Horta harbour, captured a carrack from India and seven other ships at the port, and attacked the village, sacking the buildings and forcing the residents to flee into the interior. When they attacked the fort, the building was defended by seven soldiers, the vicar and captains Gaspar Dutra, Tomás Porrás, Domingos Fernandes and João Francisco. The privateers took all the artillery pieces that they encountered on the island (except two that they did not find in Porto Pim) and burned down buildings within the fort. Repaired, but with insufficient artillery, the military regiment could do little but prevent ships from off-loading their forces. This was the case in August 1597, when Walter Raleigh and his men attacked, sacked and set the village of Horta aflame, during the campaigns of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
After 1650, and until the second half of the 20th century, the fort served to house and garrison a small number of troops from the Horta garrison.