Fort Recovery is a fort on the West End of Tortola

Tortola

Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Local tradition recounts that Christopher Columbus named it Tortola, meaning "land of the Turtle Dove". Columbus named the island Santa Ana...

 in the British Virgin Islands

British Virgin Islands

The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...

. In historical records, the fort is often referred to as Tower Fort, and the area around the fort is still referred to as "Towers" today. A hotel is now built around the Tower.

History

The site was originally an earthen fort which was probably built by the Dutch privateer

Privateer

A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...

 Joost van Dyk

Joost van Dyk

Joost van Dyk was a Dutch privateer who was one of the earliest European settlers in the British Virgin Islands in the seventeenth century, and established the first permanent settlements within the Territory...

 in 1620, when the truce, which had existed between the Dutch and the Spanish in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, ended.

Somewhere between 1623 and 1630, Fort Recovery may have been used as a barracks for wounded and ill soldiers; this is probably the source of the name "Fort Recovery".

The Fort was later abandoned when the Territory fell into decline after the British seized control of the islands in 1672. However, during the turbulent colonial era commencing with the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

 and extending to the Napoleonic wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 the fort was rebuilt in its current form. When the British rebuilt the fort, the Martello Tower was clearly added to try to compensate for the lack of elevation of the cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

 at the Fort.

The fort fell into disrepair again in the early 19th century when the main theater of conflict moved from the colonies to mainland Europe, and the economies of the islands were insufficient for its upkeep. It may also have been that, if the fort was designed to protect a source of freshwater, when the source dried up (there is no freshwater pond there today) the necessity for the fort disappeared.

Design and location

The fort itself is of a tower structure. The fort is a very early example of a Martello Tower

Martello tower

Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....

, a type of fortification used extensively along the British south-east coastline during the Napoleonic wars.

The location of the fort is somewhat unusual in that it is built close to the sea, on level ground (instead on in an elevated position on the hills rising behind it) and not close to either a port or population source. It has been suggested that the fort was built to protect a freshwater pond that was located near the area. This is plausible; Tortola has no rivers, so wells and freshwater ponds were precious resources. The other possibility is that the fort was built to secure the trail that linked Soper's Hole to Pockwood Pond and Road Town

Road Town

-See also:* Government House, the official residence of the Governor of the British Virgin Islands located in Road Town-External links:*****...

 as previous Spanish attacks had landed in Soper's Hole and then proceeded overland to Pockwood Pond and Road Town. It would have been difficult to fortify effectively Soper's Hole against Spanish cannon, but a fort on the soldiers' overland route could delay an attack and prevent another massacre of the type that occurred in 1646. The difficulty with this theory is that it still cannot explain why the fort was not elevated. Also, although it is not clear whether the fort was erected before or after the attacks of 1646 and 1647, it seems more likely that it was actually built before.

Sources

• Isaac Dookhan, History of the British Virgin Islands, ISBN 0-85935-027-4
• Vernon Pickering, A Concise History of the British Virgin Islands, ISBN 0-934139-05-9