Construction was delayed due to complaints from local residents forced to relocate to make way for the building and from disagreements between Sánchez and the Governor of Havana.

The fort was built of limestone quarried from the Havana shoreline and the fortification incorporated thick sloping walls, a moat, and a drawbridge.

The governor, Francisco Carreño, ordered the addition of an upper story as barracks and a munitions store, but on completion, the fort proved to be too small for practical use.

[citation needed] Colonial Cuba was a frequent target of buccaneers, pirates and French corsairs seeking Spain's New World riches.

[1] Havana's inability to resist invaders was dramatically exposed in 1628, when a Dutch fleet led by Piet Heyn plundered the Spanish ships in the city's harbor.

[2] Nearly a century later, the British Royal Navy launched another invasion, capturing Guantánamo Bay in 1741 during the War of Jenkins' Ear with Spain.

[4] When Havana surrendered, the admiral of the British fleet, George Keppel, the 3rd Earl of Albemarle, entered the city as a new colonial governor and took control of the whole western part of the island.

The arrival of the British immediately opened up trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society.

[4] In 1781, General Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, reconquered Florida for Spain with Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban troops.

The Conveyance of Dower lists all the cattle that had belonged to Pedro de Arias in Panama, the estate, the slaves, and the horses as a "pure and perfect gift irrevocable in favour.

[17] The only other woman who served in high office in the 16th-century Spanish colonies was Aldonza Manrique of Venezuela, who inherited the governorship when her father, Marcelo Villalobos, died in 1526.

[7] In 1634, Juan Vitrián de Viamonte added a watchtower with a weathervane sculpted in the form of a woman, by Gerónimo Martín Pinzón, an artist from Havana, and based on the figure crowning La Giralda in Seville.

[citation needed] In December 1543, Rodrigo Arangel brought the news to Dona Isabel in Havana of her husband the explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto’s death.

Some people claim she moved back to Spain with the money she received while others believe that after she heard of her husband's death, she was "broke with grief upon hearing it, and a few days later she died.

[citation needed] In 1977, on the 400th anniversary of completion, the building was inaugurated as a museum and used to display exhibitions of Cuban contemporary and international art.

The museum contains exhibits of Cuba's maritime past from pre-Columbian days through to the 18th century with the Royal Shipyard of Havana, one of the largest in the world, which built nearly 200 ships for the Spanish Crown.

[citation needed] The museum features a huge four-meter model of the Santisima Trinidad located on the main floor with a large interactive touch screen in Spanish, French, and English.

The second level of the museum hosts many other historic and contemporary models of ships with links to Cuba and offers locations for viewing the harbor and city skyline.