Fort Santiago Fort Santiago ( ) is a citadel first built by Spanish conquistador , Miguel López de Legazpi for the new established city of Manila in the Philippines . The defense fortress is part of the structures of the walled city of Manila referred to as Intramuros ( " " within the walls " " ) . The fort is one of the most important historical sites in Manila . Several lives were lost in its prisons during the Spanish Colonial Period and World War II . José Rizal , the Philippines ' national hero , was imprisoned here before his execution in 1896 . The Rizal Shrine museum displays memorabilia of the hero in their collection and the fort features , embedded onto the ground in bronze , his footsteps representing his final walk from his cell to the location of the actual execution . Profile . The fort was named after Saint James the Great ( " Santiago " in Spanish ) , the patron saint of Spain , whose relief adorns the façade of the front gate . It is located at the mouth of the Pasig River and served as the premier defense fortress of the Spanish Government during their rule of the country . It became a main fort for the spice trade to the Americas and Europe for 333 years . The Manila Galleon trade to Acapulco , Mexico began from the Fuerte de Santiago . The fort has a perimeter of , and it is of a nearly triangular form . The south front , which looks toward the city , is a curtain with a terreplein , flanked by two demi - bastion s - the " Bastion of San Fernando " , on the riverside , and the " Bastion of San Miguel " , by the bayside . A moat connected with the river separates the fort from the city . Near the beginning of the north face , instead of a bastion , a cavalier called " Santa Barbara " was built with three faces of batteries , one looking seaward over the anchorage place , one facing the entrance , and the third looking upon the river . The latter is united with a tower of the same height as the walls , through which there is a descent to the water battery placed upon a semicircular platform , thus completing the triangular form of the fort . The high walls , with a thickness of are pierced for the necessary communications . The front gateway façade measures high being in the south wall and facing the city . The communication with the river and the sea was by an obscure postern gate - the " Postigo de la Nuestra Señora del Soledad " ( Postern of Our Lady of Solitude ) . Inside the fort were guard stations , together with the barracks of the troops of the garrison and quarters of the warden and his subalterns . Also inside the fort were various storehouses , a chapel , the powder magazine , the sentry towers , the cisterns , etc . History . The location of Fort Santiago was once the site of a palisade d fort , armed with bronze guns , of Rajah Sulaiman , a Muslim chieftain of pre - Hispanic Manila . It was destroyed by " maestre de campo " ( master - of - camp ) Martin de Goiti who , upon arriving in 1570 from Cebu , fought several battles with the Muslim natives . The Spaniards started building Fort Santiago ( " Fuerte de Santiago " ) after the establishment of the city of Manila under Spanish rule on June 24 , 1571 , and made Manila the capital of the newly colonized islands . The first fort was a structure of palm logs and earth . Most of it was destroyed when the city was invaded by Chinese pirates led by Limahong . Martin de Goiti was killed during the siege . After a fierce conflict , the Spaniards under the leadership of Juan de Salcedo , eventually drove the pirates out to Pangasinan province to the north , and eventually out of the country . The construction of Fort Santiago with hard stone , together with the original fortified walls of Intramuros , commenced in 1590 and finished in 1593 during the reign of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas . The stones used were volcanic tuff quarried from Guadalupe ( now Guadalupe Viejo in Makati ) . The fort as Dasmariñas left it consisted of a castellated structure without towers , trapezoidal in trace , its straight gray front projecting into the river mouth . Arches supported an open gun platform above , named the battery of Santa Barbara , the patron saint of all good artillerymen . These arches formed casemate s which afforded a lower tier of fire through embrasure s . Curtain wall s of simplest character , without counter forts or interior buttress es , extended the flanks to a fourth front facing the city . In 1714 , the ornate gate of Fort Santiago was erected together with some military barracks . The Luzon earthquakes of 1880 , which destroyed much of the city of Manila , destroyed the front edifice of the fort changing its character . During the leadership of Fernándo Valdés y Tamon in the 1730s , a large semicircular gun platform to the front called " media naranja " ( half orange ) and another of lesser dimensions to the river flank were added to the Bastion of Santa Barbara . The casemate s were then filled in and embrasure s closed . He also changed the curtain wall facing cityward to a bastion ed front . A lower parapet , bordering the interior moat , connects the two bastions . American colonial period . On August 13 , 1898 , the American flag was raised in Fort Santiago signifying the start of the American rule in the Philippines . The fort served as the headquarters for the U . S . Army and several changes were made to the fort by the Americans . World War II . During World War II , Fort Santiago was captured by the Japanese Imperial Army , and used its prisons and dungeons including the storage cells and gunpowder magazine s for hundreds of prisoners who were killed near the end of the war ( see Manila massacre ) . The fort sustained heavy damage from American and Filipino military mortar shells during the Battle of Manila in February 1945 . Also , approximately 600 American prisoners of war died of suffocation or hunger after being held in extremely tight quarters in the dungeons at Fort Santiago . The fort today . Fort Santiago , the 16th century military defense structure , stands witness to the valor and heroism of the Filipino through the centuries . Today , the fort , its bastions , and the prison dungeons for criminals used by the Spanish officials , is now part of a historical park which also includes the Plaza del Moriones ( also called the Plaza de Armas ) and several ruins . The park houses well - preserved legacies from the Spanish Colonial Period including Jose Rizal memorabilia at the Rizal Shrine . Adaptive use of this famous historical landmark makes certain areas ideal for open air theater , picnics , and as a promenade . The Intramuros Visitors center gives an overview of the various attractions in the walled city . Preserving the fort . After is destruction during WWII , Fort Santiago was declared as a " Shrine of Freedom " in 1950 . Its restoration by the Philippine government did not begin till 1953 under the hands of the National Parks Development Committee . The Intramuros Administration now manages the reconstruction , maintenance and management of the fort since 1992 .