Port Royal The Pirate Town Hailed As The 17th-Century Sodom, (Until It Was Destroyed)
Known as "the wickedest city on earth," Port Royal, Jamaica evokes images of pirates, naval battles, plunder, wealth, and destruction. Its history is marked by rapid growth, establishing itself as a key trading hub in the New World. However, its prosperity came to a sudden end on June 7, 1692, when an earthquake struck, causing two-thirds of the town to sink into the sea. Subsequent fires and hurricanes further devastated the town, leading to its decline. Port Royal eventually served as a British naval base and today exists as a quiet fishing village.
It was a city so overrun with liquor, slavers, and prostitution that one in every four buildings was either a bar or a brothel.
However, on that significant June day, the ground beneath the sinful city started trembling. The brothels crumbled, and a massive tidal wave surged over the city walls.
Numerous lives perished, and their bodies polluted the waters. Yet, to many people worldwide, the catastrophe that struck Port Royal was not seen as a calamity. Rather, it was interpreted as a form of divine punishment — an act of God coming down to condemn what they perceived as a contemporary version of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Pirates Come To Port Royal
Port Royal, a peninsula on the very tip of an 18-mile long sandbar known as the Palisadoes, 15 miles from the center of Kingston, Jamaica, hadn’t always been a refuge for revelry and rebellion. From 1494 to 1655, it was nothing more than a minor Spanish port, largely undeveloped because the Spanish didn’t see much gain in keeping hold of it.
The English took control of the city in 1655 and realising the port was surrounded by a Spanish fleet, invited a coalition of pirates and privateers to protect the port. In the name of the King of England, the Buccaneers harrassed and stole from the Spanish ships to their liking, and the port became a refuge for those making their living by the sword on the high seas.
Port Royal had transformed into a popular destination that offered refuge to renowned figures from the era of piracy, such as Captain Morgan, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Calico Jack, and Blackbeard.
Indeed, from then on, Port Royal belonged to the British in name alone: in truth, the land belonged to the pirates.
The Birth Of The Pirates Of The Caribbean
In its heyday as a pirate stronghold, Port Royal had grown to be the second most populous English city worldwide, following only Boston. Nonetheless, by 1692, Port Royal had gained notoriety as the most corrupt city. It had transformed into a hub of brothels, taverns, and drinking spots, drawing a diverse crowd of slavers and pirates.
It was a common sight, in Port Royal’s heyday, to see a drunken pirate stumbling through the city streets supported by a girl at each arm. His pockets would be overflowing with plundered gold. It’s said that, in a single night, some pirates would spend more money on drinks and women than a plantation worker earned in a year.
After assuming the role of Lieutenant Governor in the city, pirate captain Henry Morgan, like others, was dissatisfied with the widespread lawlessness of the port. Despite his efforts to crack down on pirate activities, he was unsuccessful in his endeavors. Morgan passed away approximately four years before the catastrophic tidal wave.
The city's signature drink, known as Kill Devil Rum, was famous. Pirates would march through the streets, offering flagons to anyone they met. However, this act was a double-edged sword, as the beverage was extremely strong and had caused the deaths of thousands due to alcohol poisoning.
With a drink burning in their bellies, the pirates became deadly. Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, an expert on piracy in the Americas, wrote of one Port Royal pirate Roche Brasiliano:
“When he was drunk, he would roam the town like a madman. The first person he came across, he would chop off his arm or leg, without anyone daring to intervene. … Some of them he tied or spitted on wooden stakes and roasted them alive between two fires, like killing a pig.”
Divine Intervention: The Earthquake
When Port Royal experienced a calamity of unimaginable proportions, those who were unfortunate witnesses could only attribute it to divine retribution.
On June 7, 1692, just before noon, a powerful earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale struck the city. It was a fateful Sabbath day, and a timepiece discovered in 1969 had stopped precisely at 11:43 a.m.
The houses of Port Royal, in a tragic twist reminiscent of biblical tales, had been constructed on unstable ground. When the earthquake struck, it liquefied the meager support beneath them, causing entire buildings, streets, and people to be swallowed by the earth. Amidst the panic, a colossal tidal wave surged through the docks, breached the city walls, and ultimately toppled what remained.
Even Captain Morgan, who had been interred on the peninsula, was unearthed from his grave and carried away into the sea.
“THE EARTH OPENED AND SWALLOWED many people, before my face, and the sea I saw came mounting in over the wall, upon which I concluded it impossible to escape.”
Edmund Heath, survivor and eyewitness to the 1692 earthquake wrote these words in a letter from the safety of a ship moored in the city’s harbour
33 acres of the city disappeared in a few hours. Four of the five forts the British built had been crushed. 2,000 people – one-fifth of the population of Port Royal – was wiped out in a single day.
Even before the earth stopped shaking, locals reported that the looting began, one writing: “Immediately upon the cessation of the extremity of the earthquake, your heart would abhorr to hear of the depredations, robberies and violences that were in an instant committed upon the place by the vilest and basest of the people; no man could call any thing his own, for they that were the strongest and most wicked seized what they pleased....”
In the ensuing days, as the deceased lay exposed to the sun, their bodies succumbed to decay, serving as sustenance for scavenging animals and insects. This macabre scene unfolded on the city's streets, facilitating the rapid spread of disease throughout Port Royal. Within a matter of weeks, an additional 3,000 lives were claimed.
In an abrupt turn of events, the population of what was once one of the largest and most boisterous cities on Earth had been reduced by fifty percent.
Aftermath And Legacy Of The Sunken Pirate City
The annihilation of Port Royal was, in the eyes of much of the world, unequivocally regarded as a manifestation of divine retribution. The submergence of a city so steeped in wickedness and malevolence appeared to many like a scene plucked from the pages of the Old Testament. The ensuing chaos of looting and violence served as grim evidence in the minds of most that the inhabitants had received a just punishment from God.
One survivor recounted the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, describing a town that had descended into madness:
"Immediately upon the cessation of the extremity of the earthquake, your heart would abhor to hear of the depredations, robberies, and violences that were in an instant committed upon the place by the vilest and basest of the people; no man could call anything his own, for they that were the strongest and most wicked seized what they pleased..."
The retribution against Port Royal did not conclude with the earthquake, tidal wave, and rampant looting. A few years later, in 1703, the city was engulfed in flames. Subsequent hurricanes in 1712, 1722, 1726, and 1744 further ravaged the city. By that time, the English had made the decision to relocate their Caribbean port of commerce to Kingston, leaving Port Royal virtually deserted.
The final blow arrived in 1951 when Hurricane Charlie obliterated what little remained of old Port Royal. Today, Port Royal stands as a humble coastal village, bearing no resemblance to its former reputation as a city of sin. However, the 17th-century "Sodom" has experienced a renaissance through archaeological endeavours led by the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust during the late 1980s and early 1990s. This excavation yielded the most extensive collection of in situ artifacts, with much of the city's remnants still submerged beneath the sea—an underwater Atlantis of sorts.
In 1999, it earned the distinction of being designated a UNESCO Heritage Site and is often likened to the Pompeii of the sea. Locals harbour hopes that the revitalization of these ruins will stimulate eco-tourism and bolster the city's modest revenue, potentially restoring it to the opulent glory it once enjoyed in the 17th century.
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