Baluarte de Santiago

The Baluarte de Santiago is a squat stone bastion on Calle Francisco Canal, between Gómez Farías and 16 de Septiembre, about five blocks from the Palacio Municipal in the historic centre of Veracruz. Finished in 1635, it was one of nine bastions of the wall that surrounded the colonial city and port, built at the southern end of the walled town facing the Gulf to defend it from the constant pirate attacks. It is also known as the Baluarte de la Pólvora or "el Polvorín", because the powder for its 22 cannons was stored in its basement.

Veracruz's walls and their other bastions were demolished in 1880, which leaves this as the only one still standing; another stretch of the old wall was found in 2015 next to the former Maritime Customs House. The walls facing Avenida Gómez Farías still bear bullet marks from the execution of Veracruz insurgents in 1812. INAH declared the bastion a historic monument and opened it as a museum in 1991.

The museum's main exhibit is the Joyas del Pescador, the Fisherman's Jewels. In 1976 the octopus fisherman Raúl Hurtado Hernández found gold bars and pre-Hispanic jewellery in a colonial shipwreck on the seabed about 20 km north of the city. Not knowing their value, he kept some pieces and sold others, part of which a jeweller melted down; he was jailed for plundering the national heritage and finally acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1979. The 42 surviving Mixtec gold pieces, including a shield (chimalli), small pots, earrings with turtle heads, bracelets with monkey figures and serpent-shaped beads, have been on display here since 1991. INAH currently lists the museum as temporarily closed, but the outside of the bastion, with its thick walls, sentry box and small bridge, can still be seen from the surrounding garden.