Port Royal, Jamaica, Pirate Hideout

The Pirate's Realm

Port Royal sits just south of Cuba on the southern coast of Jamaica. It was founded by the British, who after gaining control of the island from the Spanish in 1655, began fortifying the settlement next to the deep harbor which eventually would hold as many as 500 ships.

Pirates in the Caribbean

Port Royal, Jamaica

Out of fear of Spanish invasion, buccaneers were drawn away from nearby Tortuga to help discourage attack, and after peace with Spain in 1660, those same buccaneers easily acquired letters of marque to plunder their merchant ships.

The early 1670's began a twenty-year boom where Port Royal became a large and busy port rivaling even Boston- a city of over 7000 practically overrun by buccaneers who were as despised for the drunkenness and prostitution as they were loved for their loot. Most notable among the Port Royal pirates was Henry Morgan, whose sacking of Panama ironically led to a change of British policy toward their main source of income. A new anti-piracy law in 1681 and a new governor brought convictions and executions of the illicit merchants as their attacks began to include even English ships.

The final blow came on the morning of July 7, 1692, when a massive earthquake and following tidal wave brought widespread destruction. Two-thirds of the city fell into rubble or sank into the sea.

Port Royal Today-

Today, the small fishing town near Kingston is a well-known tourist destination for pirate enthusiasts, and nautical archeologists as well as treasure hunters regularly survey and make valuable recoveries from the sunken site that was once called the Sodom of the New World.

• Port Royal: a Seventeenth Century Haven for Pirates and Privateers
  11 May 2010 at 11:45am
  Why Port Royal, Jamaica became a haven for privateers and pirates in the seventeenth century and what caused its demise. What happened when all of these circumstances' combined in one place? The capturing of Jamaica ...
  
• Port Royal - Jamaican port, once a haven of pirates | Earth-Tourism ...
  10 May 2012 at 7:46pm
  Port Royal – Jamaican Port, once a haven of pirates. For nearly fifty years Port Royal was one of the wealthiest ports in the world, having grown to prominence as a haven for pirates employed by the British to attack rival French and Spanish ...
  
• Port Royal is a Underwater Town in Jamaica - Tourism Update
  18 Apr 2012 at 6:57am
  Port Royal, Jamaica In 1692, an earthquake demolish the city of Port Royal and sink to the bottom of the Caribbean sea. Port Royal is a city of the Caribbean pirates are now under the Port of Kingston, Jamaica.
  
• The Buccaneers – Pirates of the Caribbean | Free Information About ...
  28 Apr 2012 at 7:18am
  In the history of Jamaica and the Caribbean, the Buccaneers was the most notorious and feared group of armed men. Led by the Legendary Henry Morgan and operating out of their base in Port Royal, Jamaica, this group of ...
  
• Patterson, Port Royal & Pickney ~ The Character Depot
  18 Apr 2012 at 11:23am
  They were unsuccessful and took Jamaica from the Spanish instead. ... Over time, Port Royal gained the reputation as 'the wickedest city in the world' based on its community of pirates, drunks, robbers and prostitutes.
  

Port Royal, Jamaica, Pirate Hideout

Port Royal Rediscovered / Port Royal info / Port Royal- Pirate Haven