The ruins of Casa Fuerte are a national monument and a reminder of the battles for Venezuela's independence in the city of Barcelona.
This building surrounded by gardens, or rather what history has left from it, is the former monastery of San Francisco. In 1811, the building passed to the founders of the Republic of Venezuela, and in 1817, Simon Bolivar turned it into a fort to protect the city from attacks.
In March 1817, Bolivar was forced to escape from Barcelona, leaving an Irishman attached to his headquarters, colonel Charles Chamberlain and Pedro María Freites, who served as military governor of Barcelona (and was later recognized as a hero of the battles for the country's independence).
Bolivar took most of the weapons and some artillery. So the city turned out to be unprotected and seemed to be easy prey, and the conquest of Barcelona was of great political and military significance. A few days after Bolivar left Barcelona, the Royalist troops plundered the city. The inhabitants had only to take shelter behind the walls of the monastery. Chamberlain committed suicide, and Freites was severely wounded and taken prisoner. Nobody came to help the inhabitants, who were helpless and scared. On April 7, 1817, one of the most dramatic and bloody episodes in the epic of independence occurred: the monastery passed into the hands of the royalists, and more than 700 people became victims of a cruel massacre.
After the assault, the wounded General Freites along with Francisco Esteban Rivas, the mayor of the province of Barcelona, was sent to Caracas and shot on Plaza Mayor on the orders of captain-general Salvador de Moxó.
Currently, the statues of General Pedro María Freites and Eulalia Chamberlain (also the heroine of the battle in Casa Fuerte, and wife of Charles Chamberlain), who died in this last defense, watch the shady greenery of the park in front of Plaza Bolivar in Barcelona.