The Ozama Fortress and Tower of Tribute was constructed between 1503 and 1507 by the order of the first governor of Santo Domingo, Nicolás de Ovando.  Perhaps the oldest stone edifice in the Colonial Zone, construction began after a devastating hurricane provoked the relocation of an entire settlement from the eastern side of Ozama River to its current site. 

While built primarily to protect the city against invasion, it also provided provisional quarters for the governor himself and other noted residents such as Diego Columbus (son of Christopher Columbus) and his wife María de Toledo while many of the stone manors you see today were being constructed.  But the fort’s most notable long-term inhabitant was Gonzalo Fernando de Oviedo, who chronicled the conquest of the Caribbean in his “General and Natural History of the Indies,” which he wrote over ten years from within the fort’s walls.