Fortaleza de São José da Amura

Fort São José of Amura (Fortaleza de São José da Amura in Portuguese), also known locally as Amura Fort (Fortaleza de Amura), is a fortification located in the city of Bissau, region of Bissau, capital of Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa.

In the last quarter of the 17th century, French presence in Guinea intensified with the activities of the Senegal Company, a chartered company created to trade in slaves to the Antilles. It was in this context that the captain-major of Cacheu, António de Barros Bezerra, reported back to Lisbon the French pretensions to build a fortification in Bissau in a letter to the Portuguese sovereign dated March 4, 1687, saying that they had sent ships with materials for the construction of a fort, although he had managed to prevent this by working with the local king on whose lands the projected fortress was to be built. On the same date, the Portuguese factor of Cacheu also informed the king of the French desire to build a fort on the islet next to Bissau, possibly the islet of Bandim.

The new governor of Cape Verde, Veríssimo Carvalho da Costa, on a visit to Guinea, also informed the sovereign about the matter, in a letter dated from Cacheu on 2 April 1687, referring to the measures agreed together with the captain-major to avoid the French establishment:

We uniformly agree that the fortress of Bissau should be built with it, which we amused the French not to build with it, because if it were not for the king [of Bissau, Bacampolo-Có] so fond of Your Majesty they would have managed to do so, for which they asked permission., and he would not give it to him, saying that Your Majesty had in his land a church which was his fortress. And adds:

I tell Your Majesty how I have sent to Bissau, which is 30 leagues away from this stronghold, to speak with the King, and today, on the 2nd of April, his reply arrived, which I send to Your Majesty as well as what I wrote to him, and I am told by his letter, and by the people I sent there, the uproar with which he and his nobles and people received the memory that Your Majesty has of him, and the joy with which they will also receive the priest Fr. Francisco de Pinhel, and more religious missionaries, and the dress and other things that Your Majesty was served if you sent him; he immediately gave me the best place that island has to make a fortress...

Text adapted from “Fortaleza de São José da Amura” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fortaleza de São José da Amura ranks #4,153 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking. See how Guinea-Bissau compares in the castle statistics.

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