Port Royal. Port royal - a pirate capital on the seabed What sea does port royal go to

Port Royal was located on the Palisadoes sand dune, two dozen kilometers long, at the mouth of Kingston Port in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1518, it quickly grew into the most important trading post in the Caribbean due to its strategic position on the trade routes between the New World and Spain. Over time, Port Royal became a notorious center for pirate gatherings, gambling, women of easy virtue and drinking. It even got the nickname of the craziest city on earth.

The glory days of Port Royal did not last too long. At the height of his brilliant wealth, on June 7, 1692, a major earthquake shook Jamaica. The sea swallowed the city, killing 2,000 and injuring 3,000 people. The local clergy called the destruction of Port Royal God's punishment for the sins of the local people. Today, this place, with a population of less than 2,000, is of neither commercial nor political importance.


The first Europeans in Jamaica were the Spaniards under the leadership of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Spain secured control of the island for 146 years until the English invasion in 1655. Spanish ships and plunder them. The strategy was so successful that Spain was forced to defend its property all the time. Their ships were robbed by pirates on a regular basis.

Port Royal meanwhile prospered. Between 1655 and 1692 it grew much faster than any other English-founded city in the New World. During the period of maximum prosperity, there were 2,000 buildings in which 6,500 thousand people lived. Its particular inhabitants spent their money on gambling and drinking. Port Royal gained a reputation as a den of evil and godlessness.


Charles Leslie wrote of Port Royal in the 1660s: "Wine and women have depleted their wealth to such an extent that ... some were literally reduced to poverty." The paintings in this collection depict the earthquake of 1692, which destroyed the city and partially flooded it.


Port Royal's extravagance came to an abrupt end on June 7, 1692, when a major earthquake and tsunami submerged two-thirds of the city. A series of fires and ensuing hurricanes never again allowed the former glory to return. Port Royal remains a small fishing village today. The submerged part of Port Royal is an important archaeological site in the western hemisphere. Many artifacts from the 16th and 17th centuries were discovered here. Many of these can be found in the Museums of History and Ethnography at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston.

Punishment heavenly

This hot June day in 1692 in Port Royal (Jamaica) began as usual. Well-armed French, Spanish and British ships bobbed in the bay, but it was difficult to determine this by the state flags - the flagpoles of most of the ships were bare and stuck up to the top with solitary splinters.

The flags had not been taken down out of false modesty - these ships were now owned by pirates, and the affiliation to the coastal brotherhood so clearly displayed showed that gentlemen of fortune felt completely safe in Port Royal.

The new owners of the ships were right there nearby. Someone sold a local merchant a batch of goods found in the hold of another victim, someone, having already received his share, squandered it in the nearest tavern, more than returning the money, usually to the same merchant with whom he bargained fiercely half an hour ago.

The "mistress" of Jamaica - Britain - was tens of thousands of miles away; the governor of the island sat tightly in his chair and, receiving wild profits from each pirate raid, guaranteed his patronage to the coastal brotherhood, and the former owners of Port Royal - the Spaniards - bypassed the ominous island. So everything that happened on this day can only be explained by the punishment of the Lord.

On June 7, at 11:43 a.m., a rolling thunder rumbled over Jamaica, as if thousands of powder magazines had exploded at the same time. The earth shook and cracked. Houses that a moment ago stood unshakably on solid foundations fell into these cracks entirely, along with their owners.

At the same moment, gigantic waves, coming from nowhere, picked up the anchored ships and threw them with devilish force right into the center of the city. Those who managed to escape, jumping out from under the collapsing dwellings, found themselves under a hail of cannonballs, cannons and wooden fragments, which were recently powerful ship hulls.

In a few minutes it was all over. Port Royal - the thunderstorm of the Atlantic, the capital of the pirates of the Caribbean, having taken with him more than five thousand lives, disappeared on the seabed, as if he had not been in the world.

Soon, not far from the crash site, the new capital of Jamaica, Kingston, appeared, and everyone gradually forgot about Port Royal.

Treasure Seekers

Almost two hundred years after the cataclysm, in 1870, the British Admiral Charles Hamilton reported to the Admiralty that when approaching the port of Kingston in good weather, at the bottom one could see ... stone buildings that form regular streets.

The Admiralty was busy with other matters and ignored the admiral's message. Port Royal again disappeared into oblivion, now until 1936, when the American treasure hunter Harry Riesenberg became interested in it.

For many months, Risenberg and his comrades explored the underwater ruins, combing the flooded pirate capital over and over again. Finally, either satisfied with what he found, or completely disappointed in the results of the expedition, Risenberg ended his search and retired home. What treasures he extracted from the seabed remained unknown.

In 1959, the American National Geographic Society sent an expedition to excavate the sunken city. Underwater archaeologists were well prepared: old maps of Port Royal were obtained from the archives, they were compared with the modern coastline of Jamaica and they tried to draw a new map of the city hidden by water. After painstaking work, the walls of Fort James began to clearly appear on the map, protecting the entrance to the bay, private houses and royal port warehouses. They decided to start with them.

The main difficulty of the search was that the buildings, which were described by Admiral Hamilton, were covered with a thick layer of silt over the years and now looked more like underwater hills of different heights. The dredger was launched. Soon, along with sand and mud on the deck of the barge, where the dredger was installed, fragments of tiles and plaster, pieces of coal and bricks, broken pottery fell down ...

Realizing that there was nothing to look for in the royal warehouses - either everything had already been destroyed by water, or the people of Rysenberg and other treasure seekers were actively “working” here, the expedition moved to private houses. Here, the finds were more diverse: copper trays and pots, aluminum spoons, pieces of a hearth, and even a cauldron, at the bottom of which were found the remains of food, which, apparently, was being prepared at the very moment of the disaster.

The very first dive of the diver brought the main find: a gold watch overgrown with coral polyps was raised from the bottom of the sea. On the inside of the lid, we managed to read the name of the watchmaker - "Paul Blondel".

But that was not the value of the find. To make sure the watch was of the same age as Port Royal and not later lost, it was sent to the Science and Technology Museum in London, home to the world's finest and most complete collection of antique clocks. The museum reported that the watch was made in 1686 in Amsterdam. With the help of X-rays, it was possible to establish that the hands of the clock, before they were eaten by corrosion, showed 11 hours and 43 minutes. So the exact time of the disaster was established.

Somewhat later, the society's expedition discovered artillery shells, various utensils, ships' yardarms, rusted guns and ship's cannons. However, the Americans soon completed their search program. After all, their purpose was only preliminary reconnaissance. A more thorough survey began in 1966 under the patronage of the government of Jamaica.

King chest

On May 1, 1966, the next excavations began. Once again, archaeologists were rewarded for their labors. Finds in Port Royal made it possible to find out what the whole city of the 17th century looked like.

Expedition leader Robert Marks wrote: “During the excavations, we even come across food, such as oil, which has become hard as a stone. We know what kind of tobacco they smoked then - we found a whole leaf of tobacco. We can tell what kind of spirits they drank at that time: we analyzed the contents of corked bottles. There were rum, wine and brandy. We lifted up about two hundred and fifty nearly intact pieces of pewter. This is more than has been found at all other underwater archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere combined. We found six thousand earthenware pipes, silverware, pocket watches and a copper rum distiller.”

There were also more interesting finds. Once, divers pulled out a chest with the coat of arms of the Spanish King Philip IV from the bottom. The chest contained several thousand perfectly preserved silver coins from the second half of the 17th century.

How did the silver of the Spanish treasury end up in Port Royal, which belonged to England? The chest is not a god to be the prey of pirates, because they always shared the loot. For hiding even one copper coin, the guilty person was threatened with death. The solution to this riddle was found in the archives.

It turns out that back in 1690, a couple of years before the disaster, not far from the island of Jamaica, three Spanish galleons with a cargo of silver were wrecked. The divers and fishermen of Port Royal lifted the treasure from the bottom and kept it for themselves. And then the city sank, and the ocean again took back the Spanish silver, which now went to the government of Jamaica.

“Terrible clouds were gathering over the Caribbean in the distant seventeenth century ... The Jolly Roger looked out from the distant depths of the sea, ferocious cries of people thirsting for gold, women and human blood were heard. Seagulls sang in the sky, either cursing someone, or remembering the dead ... It was a hard time. A time of bloodshed, violence and robbery. A time when even the most dangerous robber could become a great man, when people trembled with fear at the word “pirate”, when real bloody battles flared up here and there near every patch of the sea. It was the time of the dominance of pirates in the Caribbean. A lot of films have been made about this, many books have been written ... And only a few know the truth about them.

Where did piracy come from?

The distant sixteenth century ... It all started then. Off the coast West Indies. It was at this time that the first pirates appeared and settled there. They united together into one and indivisible " Coastal Brotherhood”and were only engaged in robbing the Spanish ships that sailed by. Soon to replace French pirates came the English, who also stood in good standing with the local authorities. The whole point was that the new time, the new era interpreted for people and new rules. Throughout Western Europe, here and there, the Reformation took place - a change in the church system. Something similar happened in England. Such a policy in a number of countries often infuriated the popes, who in every possible way incited and intimidated many opponents with their "faithful" countries. Thus, Catholic Spain also strengthened its influence against the reformers. She had great dominance in Atlantic. It was the Spaniards who first discovered New World and studied it. Spanish ships and sailors were in good standing around the globe. The power of their war machines was incomparable. But Spain was also famous for the fact that it enjoyed good confidence among the popes, preached Catholicism and in every possible way oppressed any dissent. So Spanish Invincible Armada even went to war with England, trying to subdue her. But the war failed, the campaign failed. Among other things, the English monarchs enjoyed all the support of pirates, who in the foreign policy arena struck at their opponents, at the same time robbing their ships and taking away all the good that was there. In particular, in such "campaigns" such as Admiral Drake, O'Reilly and other pirates. Most of them even got their place in the government of England.

Tortuga

But the French also did not waste time, but continued to carry out predatory raids against the Spaniards. Among them appeared "special" people - buccaneers. They were no longer the usual thugs that they used to be. They were cruel and merciless killers already trained in life. They were from French sailors who were wrecked or captives who got to pirates and have become them. Professionals trained only for robbery and murder attacked and plundered Spanish ships, and returned with rich booty. But the question arose: where to return? For many years, the buccaneers have entertained themselves with the idea of ​​creating a single naval base capable of covering any robber who wants to sail to a single seaport. To do this, the port must be fortified with various reefs, which will not allow ships to sail close, surrounded by a rocky coast, which will help shelter many cruel robbers and murderers from various attacks from the authorities. This place has become Tortuga- a port city, a refuge for robbers and bandits. It was there that all the riches began to be brought, it was there that the darkest and most gloomy place was where the pirates loved to spend time in debauchery, revelry, drunkenness and fun.

But again, this was not always the case. Days and years passed, times changed ... And soon Tortuga was no longer the place to somehow fenced off from problems. In particular, there were constant attacks from the authorities, who made Tortuga the property of France. So later this place became unsuitable for the existence of pirates in it. And they, in turn, began to look for a suitable place for themselves. And so it became Port Royal.

Port Royal

Port Royal - a city on an island Jamaica, capital of an English colony in the seventeenth century. The city has 5 stone forts such as Fort Charles, Fort Walker, Fort Rupert, Fort James and Fort Carlisle. The city itself is also surrounded by powerful reefs. These reefs in the past did not give any navigable ship go to the port, but subsequently served as a good defense against raids of all kinds of rabble, who tried more than once to destroy and plunder this port. This port was founded by the Spaniards in 1518. In it, Spanish sailors found a convenient place to store their untold wealth. In the middle of the seventeenth century, as a result of wars, both religious and political, the British recaptured this port and made it their colony. The population of the port was small. By the end of the seventeenth century, it barely exceeded seventeen thousand people. In economic terms Port Royal occupied a very advantageous position. All of its products were shipped directly to England. Many ships visited this port. So in 1688, this port city was visited by as many as two hundred ships, with a displacement of eleven tons. Exports were dominated by products such as sugar, fruits and rum. In addition, there was a whole slave trade. And they sold the slaves smuggling”, both French and English, and Spanish pirates. Moreover, the income from such a "smuggling" slave trade was very high. So in essence Port Royal began to occupy a leading place in the trade policy of the countries of the old world. But this city became a favorable refuge not only for English merchants.

Pirates also chose Port Royal. With the arrival of the British to these lands, there were already up to 1200 robbers and murderers in the port. Reasons for this attraction Port Royla for pirates it was as follows - in the port it was possible to safely repair the ship and even hide the booty, in addition, the wide harbor allowed most ships to be safely placed in it, and various reefs also made it possible to protect themselves from various attacks on the port. Among other things, this place was ideal for hitting the Spanish ships. English and French pirates sailed many times from Port Royle on combat sea voyages against Spanish ships, inflicted incalculable damage on them and returned with rich booty. There were many such trips. They very often ended in bloody and cruel fights, the death of sailors, hundreds of thousands of people. One of these campaigns was the campaign against Panama in 1671. When the Spanish city was on fire in the midst of thirty English ships. These ships, or rather their guns, razed the city to the ground. During this campaign, a huge ship was destroyed, the captain of which was an outstanding person - Henry Morgan.

Henry Morgan

This is one of the outstanding pirates, an English navigator. His life is full of adventures, like his unexpected fate itself. Cruel and treacherous, he lived a glorious life at the same time. A simple boy from Wales, he was hired as a cabin boy on a ship that sailed to the island Barbados. There he was sold into slavery. Long years of painful wanderings were not in vain for him. Soon he managed to buy his freedom, and in the future, Morgan moved to Jamaica. There he boldly joins a pirate gang. Soon, Morgan's career began to grow every day. He acquires his ship, becomes unanimously the captain of the team. Subsequently, several more ships begin to adjoin his small detachment. And so Morgan and his team go from solo robberies to serious campaigns. In particular, one of these campaigns was a trip to Panama. Soon, an instruction was given from England - to “ask for the carpet” of Morgan. He was arrested and sent to his country for trial. Everyone expected a cruel verdict, but Morgan was acquitted. His robberies and robberies were saved by the fact that he robbed Spanish ships in every possible way. And, as you know, Spain was the enemy of England. So besides the fact that Morgan was treated kindly and released, he was also given the position of Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, and he lived in such a position in high esteem until the end of his days.

Epilogue

A Port Royal eventually ceased to exist. At the end of the eighteenth century, an earthquake hit Jamaica and most of the port was flooded. As a result, by the beginning of the new century, there was no one else on this godforsaken land. But the memory of this place and the role that pirates played in it is unforgettable. You can still see or hear in movies or books about Tortuga, or about pirates, or about their city - Port Royal.

Hello friends. Have you watched Pirates of the Caribbean? I hope so, because I never tire of watching this movie over and over again. The story is based on piracy stories from the 17th century. Exciting pirate adventures led by Henry Morgan and Edward Thatch, known to us from the movie as Blackbeard. What do we know about the Pirates of the Caribbean? For me, this is an interesting and exciting topic, about which you can talk a lot, but today we will talk about the pirate capital of Port Royal.

History of the Pirate Capital Port Royal

The development of the city fell on the golden age of piracy. At that time, there was an active struggle for world domination, in which England took an active part. Large expenditures were required to arm the navy, and to reduce them, letters of marque "letters of marque" were distributed, which gave the owners of private ships a legal basis to attack enemy ships. In other words, pirates who wrecked enemy ships and shared the booty with the British crown were considered official for England and were not punished by law. Pirates were under the auspices of Elizabeth I. They were called "Privateers".

After the British were defeated in the capture of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and Dominican Republic) in 1654, they did not waste time and sent a flotilla to Jamaica. Due to the difficult military situation in the region, there were almost no Spaniards on the island at that moment, which allowed the British to easily capture Jamaica. They moved the capital from Santiago de la Vega to Port Royal. The reason for this was a deep and capacious harbor, which could receive even the largest ships and control sea routes, which only made it easier for pirates to access the booty going to Spain from the Atlantic Ocean.

5 stone fords were erected in the city to defend the city. And they had something to defend. According to some reports, in 1688 210 ships entered Port Royal, while all the ports of Britain received only 224 ships. A huge amount of money and gold determined the fate of the city. Port Royal had a reputation as the most sinful city on earth. After long wanderings, the pirates returned home and spent money on food, alcohol, women and gambling. Orgies, violence and murder have become commonplace here. But this did not last long, as they say: "All good things come to an end."

On June 7, 1692, as a result of a strong earthquake, 2/3 of the city was flooded and went under water to a depth of 15 meters. More than 5,000 people were killed, and about 50 ships sank in the harbor. The earthquake destroyed 1500 thousand buildings, the entire city was destroyed. What is it, the punishment of the Lord for the sins of the inhabitants or a coincidence? The colonial administration was forced to move the capital to the small village of Kingston, which remains the capital of Jamaica to this day.

Of the 5 stone Fords, only one survived - "Fort Charles". The earthquake changed the coastline a lot. Now it is quite difficult to reproduce the picture of that time.

On the territory of the former capital there is a museum with archaeological finds from the bottom of the sea where the city sank.

For me, this was a very interesting and informative tour. Perhaps the reason for this was that I read a lot about pirates and watched a video about Port Royal, where a picture of a 17th century city was restored using computer graphics. Seeing everything live, I only filled in the missing gaps. Therefore, before visiting, I highly recommend collecting more information in order to feel the place and enjoy the tour.

Ford Charles is open daily from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, admission price is $2.

1. Despite the fact that Port Royal is one of the main attractions of the country, the place is quite deserted. If you plan to buy souvenirs there, then they are not there. You won't even buy water there, so keep that fact in mind when visiting.
2. You will be under the open sun all the time, there is practically no shade there. Therefore, be sure to take a protective cream with you.

This is interesting

Port - Royal (Port Royal), the city is located in the south of the island of Jamaica, south of Cuba.
It was founded by the British, and in 1655, control over it passed into the hands of the Spaniards. Port - Royal became a fortified settlement, with a good, large and deep harbor, where more than 500 ships subsequently moored.

Until the end of the 17th century, the city of Port Royal, the capital of the island of Jamaica, was called "Pirate Babylon"; a city whose fate proved that at least sometimes, but higher powers still punish evil on Earth...
The British, who took Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655, founded the Royal African Company here, which was engaged in the trade of Negro slaves.

Jamaica has become the main slave market in the world. And besides, insatiable merchants from Port Royal increased their capital by concluding agreements with Caribbean pirates.
Merchants equipped ships and bought up loot in pirate raids; it is not surprising that the port of the Jamaican capital soon became the main base and favorite harbor of the “gentlemen of fortune”.
Port Royal was filled with criminals and money-hunters from all over the world.
Here, no one was interested in the origin of money from this or that person, the goods brought by him, and even more so, the past of a successful businessman ... Around the harbor, one after another, taverns, hotels, gambling and brothels opened their doors.

After a punitive expedition, the pirates withdrew from the island of Tortuga, fearing new raids by the Spaniards. And starting in the 1670s, a twenty-year pirate boom began in Port Royal.

Port Royal became a large and busy port that rivaled even a city like Boston. The seven thousandth Port Royal was practically captured by pirates. On the one hand, pirates were despised for drunkenness and prostitution, on the other, they were loved for their booty, which they brought back after their sorties.

The counters of countless shops were full of jewels, overseas fabrics and rare weapons.
Pirates in luxurious camisoles, with bright scarves on their heads and earrings in their ears, proudly walked the streets, drank from golden goblets, ate on silver dishes, dressed their mistresses like queens, and recklessly littered with ducats, sequins, piastres...

The scandalous fame of a chic and dissolute city in the Antilles, a nest of piracy and the slave trade, has reached Europe.
The influential people of England demanded to put an end to the prosperity of "Babylon", recently - the pearl in the British colonial crown, now - a hotbed of worldwide robbery.
The king himself decided on a military expedition to Jamaica.
But the "lobby" of Jamaican millionaire merchants was too strong in London too.
Having bribed the highest court dignitaries, the patrons of the pirates went unpunished...

Among the dashing filibusters who settled in Port Royal, there were such prominent personalities as Henry Morgan, who received the nickname Cruel from the pirates (!)
Morgan, at first a maritime robber and then commander of the British naval forces in Jamaica, tried to make Port Royal a more peaceful and law-abiding city; to do this, he began to pursue his former “colleagues” just as mercilessly as he had previously robbed peaceful ships with them.
But Henry the Cruel died, unable to cope with the Caribbean pirates. (It is interesting that Morgan became the founder of the famous family of American billionaires; his descendant J.P. Morgan was considered the richest man in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century ...) And Port Royal continued to make noise and have fun until ...

It happened at noon on June 7, 1692. The blue cloudless sky was suddenly completely covered with clouds, a terrible tropical storm broke out with a downpour. Then the ground beneath the city shook. Houses instantly became heaps of ruins, fires broke out.
Sea waves invaded the land, demolishing the remains of buildings. A huge strip of the coast, along with many quarters, sank into the water.
Five thousand people in a few seconds found their death in fire, water or under the ruins. Countless treasures, mountains of looted gold, warehouses with goods went to the bottom. "Pirate Babylon" ceased to exist faster than the sun leaned towards the horizon...
Believers said: "Their sins overflowed the cup of patience of the Lord."

Today, Port Royal is a small fishing village near Kingston. Port Royal attracts many tourists and treasure hunters who conduct constant surveys and find valuables from the long sunken port, which was once called the "Sodom of the New World".