In the end, some 33 acres of the city disappeared under water, four of the five forts were destroyed or submerged, and 2000 people were killed.
Geysers erupted from the earth, buildings collapsed, and finally the city was hit by tsunami waves, dragging what had not been destroyed out to sea. The city, largely built over sand, suffered instantly from liquifaction, with buildings, roads, and citizens sucked into the ground.
On the morning of June 7, 1692, a massive earthquake estimated at a 7.5 magnitude hit the island. He died just four years before the earthquake struck and was buried in the Palisadoes cemetery.
THE SINKING CITY LOST AT SEA CRACK
In fact, Morgan began to crack down on overt piracy as the grand era of privateering he had been part of began to enter its waning phase.
It may be seen as an indicator of the caliber of vice in Port Royal that in 1675 the notorious pirate Henry Morgan became the Lieutenant Governor. Far from home, they made their livings off of the slave trade, slave labor in plantations, and the money that the pirates brought in from their looting forays against the Spanish. It had also become the infamous home of pirates, sex workers, and Englishmen on the make. By the late 1600s it had become one of the largest European cities in the new world, second only to Boston. Located on the southeast coast of Jamaica, the natural harbor at Port Royal became the center of English life in Jamaica. Cromwell’s men failed spectacularly at taking Hispaniola and turned to Jamaica as a second choice, better-than-nothing option. It came under English power in 1655, after Cromwell sent English raiders to invade and capture the Spanish stronghold at Hispaniola (now Haiti and Dominican Republic, then the center of Spanish trade in the Caribbean). Lacking gold or other obvious exploitable wealth, the Spanish held it but did not focus much energy there. Jamaica had been held by the Spanish since Columbus first declared it “the fairest island eyes have beheld” in 1494. The English and their pirate friends were relatively new to the area. Needless to say, when the city was nearly destroyed, there were some parties that saw it as a convenient solution to an ugly problem. Port Royal, once called “the most wicked and sinful city in the world” was famous the world over for its booze-the blackout-inducing Kill Devil Rum, its pirates, and its sex workers. “The earth opened and swallowed many people, before my face, and the sea I saw came mounting in over the wall, upon which I concluded it impossible to escape.”Įdmund Heath, survivor and eyewitness to the devastating 1692 earthquake wrote these words in a letter from the safety of a ship moored in the city’s harbor, overlooking the ruins of his city.
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