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.

• Big up Kingston - Pirates & Parrotfish in Port Royal
  1 Jul 2009 at 2:30pm
  Filed under: Jamaica, Caribbean. It's June 1692, and you're a resident of Port Royal, a thriving settlement in the harbor of modern-day Kingston.
  
• Big up Kingston - Welcome to the real Jamaica
  22 Jun 2009 at 2:00pm
  Filed under: Jamaica, Caribbean ... late 17th Century, Kingston was birthed by the destruction of the infamous Port Royal, Caribbean capital of...
  
• San Francisco and Port Royal,Jamacia
  11 Jun 2009 at 5:01am
  Soon Port Royal, Jamaica, surpassed Boston as England's most prosperous settlement.
  
• 7 fascinating under water ruins
  10 Jun 2009 at 7:30pm
  World's Wickedest City, Port Royal (Jamaica) One of the advantages of marine or nautical archeology is that, in many instances, catastrophic...
  
• Oddball Museums - Pirate Soul Museum - Key West
  9 Jun 2009 at 2:57pm
  ...shivering museum experience that transports you and your family back in time over 300 years to Port Royal, Jamaica, at the height of the...
  

Port Royal, Jamaica, Pirate Hideout

Port Royal Rediscovered / Port Royal info / Port Royal Quake