Port Royal: Shaky Morals, Shaky Ground
ENDNOTES
Natural disasters have historically presented a threat to human life and civilization and have often altered the course of nations and cultures. Famous examples include the volcanic eruption in Pompeii, which claimed two thousand lives and left a whole city fossilized in ash, and more recently the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, which caused 20,000 deaths and a nuclear disaster requiring the evacuation of 154,000 people. Humans have attempted to adapt and protect themselves from such disasters as best they can but these “Acts of God,” to use an insurance term, have altered the course of world history. One such event during the Atlantic trade era was the earthquake that destroyed much of Port Royal, Jamacia in 1692.
“A correct draught of the harbours of Port Royal and Kingston, with the keys and shoals adjacent &c. from a late accurate survey, by Mr. Richd Jones, engineer,” (1756), Wikimedia Commons.
Present-day Jamaica is the home to the small port city of Port Royal, located at the end of a long spit protecting an important deep-water harbor. In the 1600s, Jamaica, along with other Caribbean islands, was making a name for itself, emerging as a key location for producing cane sugar, one of the most profitable commodities of the Atlantic world. Islands such as Jamacia and Hispaniola emerged as points of conflict between many European nations as a result of this trade. When the British failed to take Hispaniola from the Spanish, they sailed to the Spanish colony of Jamaica instead.1 In 1655 the British successfully invaded Jamaica, and quickly began constructing a fort on the island’s spit. This spit, known as the Palisadoes, is an eighteen-mile-long stretch of sand that reaches out into the Caribbean, forming a cay
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