Port Royal, Jamaica

Timeline

1. 1655–1659Port Royal (formerly Caguaya) · JamaicaIn May 1655, Admiral William Penn (father of the Quaker William Penn) and Robert Venables, after their failure at Santo Domingo, turned on Jamaica and seized the spit harbor. The English first called it Cagway, soon changing it to Port Royal. By 1659, some two hundred houses, shops, and warehouses had sprung up around the fort. The port became a garrison supply base and a lookout post against Spanish counterattack, not yet the privateering metropolis it would become.
2. 1657–1675Port Royal · JamaicaTo compensate for the shortage of garrison troops, Governor Edward D'Oyley invited the 'Brethren of the Coast' to use Port Royal as their home port, issuing letters of marque to privateers who targeted Spanish shipping and coastal towns. Christopher Mings, Henry Morgan, and others set out from there to raid Campeche, Portobelo, and Panama. Merchants simultaneously financed legitimate trade and privateering profit-sharing, creating what was called 'forced trade.' Morgan's 1668 sack of Portobelo yielded spoils far exceeding the value of the entire island's sugar exports that year, and the port quickly grew wealthy.
3. 1675–1691Port Royal · JamaicaIn the late 17th century, Port Royal was crammed onto some 51 acres of sand, with taverns, goldsmiths, and warehouses packed tightly; in 1688 over two hundred ships called at the port, and the population may have neared ten thousand, earning it the reputation of 'the most wickedest city on the face of the earth.' After Morgan became lieutenant governor, the authorities gradually ceased relying on pirates for defense. In 1687, Jamaica passed anti-piracy laws, and the gallows replaced protection. Meanwhile, Barbados-style sugar plantations spread across Jamaica, the slave trade's share of the port's revenues rose, and the city shifted from a privateering metropolis to a colonial trading port.
4. 1692Port Royal · JamaicaNear midday on June 7, 1692, a violent earthquake liquefied the saturated sand, sending the northern district along with several forts sliding into Kingston Harbour, followed by a tsunami. The pre-quake population was about 6,500; the earthquake and tsunami directly killed roughly one to three thousand people, and subsequent epidemics claimed about two thousand more. Rebuilding of the surviving third of the city was repeatedly set back by fires and hurricanes, and Kingston on the opposite shore quickly took over its commercial functions. The history of 17th-century Port Royal as a Caribbean privateering and trading metropolis thus came to an end.