Real Fuerza de Santiago de Arroyo de Araya (Castillo de Araya)

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History has a lot of value, therefore it is important to visit and know this place, remembering that you have to take the necessary measures to be in the place, to know someone to guide you since there are no adequate personnel to do it.

Its physical, tourist, structural and historical attractiveness is very good, however it lacks security, a point to reinforce to attract more tourists

The Royal Fortress of Santiago de Arroyo de Araya, better known as the Castillo de Araya, is a castle located south of the town of Araya 10 ° 34′47 ″ N 64 ° 15′28 ″ W / 10.57972, -64.25778 , in the state of Sucre, Venezuela. It was erected by the Spanish to defend the Araya salt flats from Dutch incursions. For its construction, mortar blocks made from the elements of the region itself were used, so it is common for them to find a large number of remains of mollusks and other marine organisms in the area. Its construction was decreed in Madrid on January 15, 1622 and the works began in January 1623 and will last until the year 1630, when the last bastion was finished. Despite the fact that the Araya salt flats were discovered by Pedro Alonso Niño and Cristóbal Guerra in February 1500 (two years after Christopher Columbus's journey in 1498 along the Venezuelan coasts) when he made exploration and conquest expeditions on the coast of Paria to the Spanish crown, the richness and the optimum of the salt of these salt flats is reviewed by Pedro Mártir de Anglería in 1515 and by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. Even so, it was not until 1601 when the Spanish Empire, in the face of the constant incursions of Dutch pirates into the salt flats of the Araya peninsula and with the firm intention of seizing the pearl exploitation of the island of Cubagua and other resources such as tar, began a study to build a fortress in Araya. In this sense, Governor Diego Suárez Amaya, Bautista engineer Antonelli and Captain Pedro Suárez Coronel visited the site in 1604. The situation reached a critical point when in 1605 eight Dutch pirate ships confronted the Spanish fleet, which the defeated, thus the Spanish destroyed the facilities that the pirates had built in Araya, this Spanish victory was consolidated with the execution of the Dutch prisoners, including their commander, the pirate Daniel de Moucheron, which was carried out on the hill that today it bears his name. The plan for the construction of the fort was temporarily stopped when the truce between Spain and the Netherlands was signed in 1609, however it was resumed in 1621 when the truce ended. Juan Bautista Antonelli in 1622 would return to the Araya Peninsula by order of the king to restart the construction of the castle intended to reject the incursions of the Dutch, who tried to seize that region, due to the large deposits of salt there, since it was a vital element for the salting process of herring, cod and tuna that fished in the North Sea of ​​present-day Canada or Newfoundland. On November 30, 1622, one of the most important naval battles in America took place in the 17th century, when 43 Dutch ships attacked Araya in order to interrupt the construction of the fortress and definitively seize the peninsula, being rejected finally on January 13, 1623 by Governor Diego Arroyo and the Dutch commander died. After eight years in a row with Antonelli at the helm of the works, in 1630 the governor of Cumaná, Cristóbal de Eguino, sent him to Madrid to inform the king and the Junta de Guerra of all the works carried out and about to be completed. His dedication was praised and, as a prize, he was offered "to have him present for the Plaza de Cristóbal Roda in Cartagena, when he vacated." The Board asked him to return to Araya to finish the work and, in addition, he was ordered to first go through San Juan de Puerto Rico in order to "arrange what is convenient for his defense."

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