Kwhite houses line the streets. Flower pots and climbing plants make wooden balconies look like small botanical gardens. Roof overhangs draw silhouettes on the walls, a door knocker shows a lion’s head.
The old stone covering bores into the soles of the shoes, the chessboard pattern defines the course of the street. Then the central square opens up, where a fountain murmurs, the scent of flowers hangs in the air and the church facade almost overwhelms you with its baroque splendor. The bell tower rises above it into the sky.
Which city is it about, that breathes aura and history at every turn? Not a specific one, but many at the same time. Because the colonial cities of South America all developed according to a similar scheme and testified to the development of power of the conquistadors.
They lusted after gold, slaughtered Indians, wiped out entire cultures, sent armies of slaves into tunnels and shafts. In their ancestral homes, the cities, the foreign rulers created palaces and dependencies, while churchmen were responsible for the spiritual conquest of the natives and this manifested itself in the building of magnificent monasteries and churches.
Source: Infographic WORLD
The colonial history with its brutality and arrogance still shocks, but it is history. Some of the natives are still waiting for compensation and official apologies.
However, the structural heritage of the former oppressors has a positive effect today: the cities that wrote dramatic chapters of subjugation and conquest are now developing a strong attraction and are thus flushing urgently needed funds into the coffers. This can be seen as a strangely fair compensation for the injustices of the colonial era. We present six of the most beautiful colonial cities in South America.
Cusco in Peru: last traces of prehistory
It hurts. It hurts to know what a splendor from the time of the Incas, the greed for gold and the destructiveness of the invaders fell irreparably. Cusco in Peru was the political and economic center of the Inca Empire and acted as the “navel of the world”.
The Spaniards razed almost everything to the ground. They tore the gold coverings from the temple walls and melted them down, leaving the basic structures at best and building houses, churches and palaces over them. The main sun temple had to give way to the monastery of Santo Domingo – overlay as a sign of triumph.
The Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu
The Inca city of Machu Picchu, built in the 15th century, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in South America. It was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.
Source: WELT/Christoph Hipp
Under these omens, Cusco’s colonial architecture deserves eternal shame, but one cannot deny its appeal. But on the contrary.
For many travellers, the extensive main square is the most beautiful in the country, surrounded by arcades, the cathedral and the Jesuit church. The past is kept alive by the Inca Museum, remains of foundations such as in the alley Siete Culebras and areas of ruins above Cusco, led by the huge fortress of Sacsayhuaman.
Potosí in Bolivia: center of Spanish colonial trade
“Sometimes you will see them walking on four legs like cattle, with their burdens on their shoulders, and others pulling forward like worms,” wrote the chronicler Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela (1674-1736). He used it to describe the inhuman forced labor of the Indians in Cerro Rico, the so-called rich mountain. Like no other city in South America, Potosí in Bolivia stands for the misery and exploitation of the indigenous people.
In Cerro Rico, where work is still going on, the colonial rulers siphoned off large quantities of silver. They would probably have been enough for a silver bridge to Spain, as the saying goes, which city guide Óscar adds: “And a bridge back with the bones of the indigenous people who died in the mines.”
Potosí, located at over 4000 meters, is one of the highest places in the world
What: Flickr Vision
While the sacred legacy of the colonial rulers is reflected in around twenty churches, including those of San Francisco and San Lorenzo with opulent baroque decor, the Casa de Moneda is one of today’s most popular sights. It was once the center of Spanish colonial trade.
The labyrinthine large complex in the heart of the city wraps around several courtyards and served as a mint, where silver was melted. And he also stirs up memories. Óscar warns that many indigenous people have died here too.
Quito in Ecuador: Well-preserved World Heritage Site
“Monastery of America”. “Baroque Jewel of the Andes”. Quito in Ecuador, where the city’s colonial history began in 1534 with two hundred Spanish settlers, bears this epithet. Over time, clerical ostentation and missionary zeal brought forth more than thirty churches and monasteries.
Das Grandhotel an der Independence Square (Plaza Grande) in Quito
Quelle: LightRocket via Getty Images
Religious treasures worth seeing are the Cathedral, the Franciscan Church of San Francisco, the Dominican Church of Santo Domingo and the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús. This extravagantly designed Jesuit church offers some consolation in that not all the riches left the colonies for the Iberian Peninsula – seven tons of gold leaf decoration speak a language of their own.
Despite the severe earthquakes, Quito is the “best preserved, least changed historical center in Latin America”, according to Unesco’s 1978 justification for including Quito in the World Heritage List – as the world’s first city, by the way. Bonus material in Ecuador’s capital includes Andean backdrops, a cable car, and a trip to the Equator Monument.
Ouro Preto in Brazil: City of the Gold Rush
Inside it smells damp, musty. Stairs pave the way for visitors. The darkness of the corridors is illuminated. “Officially, a total of 650 tons of gold were mined at the time, and around 300 tons were probably smuggled in addition,” says Guide Gustavo, looking back on the gold rush of the 18th century.
It leads through the Minas do Palácio Velho, one of several hundred mining complexes that were once spread across the small Brazilian town in the state of Minas Gerais. The drudgery of the slaves can only be imagined with a lot of imagination. On the slave market, the price for a “well-built, strong” black man was a kilo of gold.
If you want to discover Ouro Preto, you have to cope with long, steep streets. The Praça Tiradentes provides relaxation in the upper part. Here and elsewhere, doors and window frames gleam amid bright white facades: in red, yellow, sky blue, dark green, and turquoise. Galleries and souvenir shops have found their way into the interior of the revamped buildings, as have cafes and restaurants.
Colorful decor, dark heritage: In Ouro Preto, slaves were worth their weight in gold
Quelle: AFP via Getty Images
Baroque and Rococo characterize approximately twenty churches. Highlights are the Franciscan church of São Francisco de Assis and the Carmelite church of Nossa Senhora do Carmo, in whose sacristy fabulous painting kitsch reigns.
Angels and saints, such as the Carmelites Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, wear kissable lips with a few extra layers of lipstick. Another eye-catcher is a sculpture of Christ with an insanely wild head of hair.
Mompox in Colombia: Secluded in the swamp
“Mompox, it’s not for everyone, you have to get there first,” is what locals say when they greet visitors. How true! The town is isolated southeast of Cartagena off the beaten track inland, surrounded by swamps and lakes.
In 1537, the Spaniards founded a trading post here, on a branch of the Río Magdalena in Colombia. Mompox gained importance through the key role in the colonization of northern South America and through churches such as Santa Bárbara, Santo Domingo, San Juan de Dios. The city is also known for its goldsmith work.
“Morbid charm” and “time standing still” are insipid phrases – but they apply here. The little town exudes a sympathetically outdated yesterday, seems to have slid through the epochs like in a bubble.
Cat in Mompox: The Colombian city inspired Gabriel García Márquez
Quelle: AFP via Getty Images
The tropical heat also contributes to the fact that Mompox follows its own rhythm. During the day people, horse-drawn carriages, donkey and mule carts drag themselves through the sun-baked streets. In the evenings, the residents open the doors to let the daytime heat out of the rooms of the houses and put rocking chairs outside.
Mompox helped Colombia’s Literature Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez for inspiration and made Alexander von Humboldt breathe heavily, not only because of the oppressive climate, but also because of the penetrating smell of crocodiles – but fortunately that has gone.
Cartagena in Colombia: The Patron of Human Rights
Colombia’s Cartagena is one of the most impressive of South America’s colonial open-air museums. Magnificence and prosperity were entrenched behind massive, kilometer-long walls.
The Caribbean port had made the city a hub for gold and silver, a hub between the “New World” and Europe, and also a target for pirate attacks. The city’s Gold Museum sheds light on what the precious metal meant to indigenous cultures – namely, not nearly what drove the Spaniards to stop at nothing in their greedy search for the Eldorado.
Cartagena is considered by many to be the most impressive colonial open-air museum in South America
Quelle: Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Ships with black Africans for the slave market also arrived in the port. One who provided them with food and medical care, but at the same time dragged them to the side of the Christian faith with baptism, was Petrus Claver (1580–1654), patron of human rights. Follow the footsteps of the saint in the Jesuit complex.
The Inquisition, however, wrote unfortunate chapters, which moved into its headquarters in a massive city palace, which already inspires respect from the outside. On the square in front of it, the liberty hero Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) rises up on a horseback; he was instrumental in liberating parts of South America from Spain’s knout.
Seven Amazon countries sign joint pact
The Amazon countries of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Peru want to better protect the world’s largest rainforest. They signed an agreement that provides for close cooperation.
Source: WELT/ Markus Kowalski
This article was first published in March 2020.