It is said that about 25% of the city (yes, one out of every four buildings) was either a brothel or a bar. While Port Royal had a cathedral and four churches, the remainder of the city was a bit less pious.
In 1689, nearly half of the town’s population was involved in the privateer trade and the results were more amazing than you could imagine. This official sanction led to Port Royal becoming one of the most popular ports of call in the Caribbean for British and French pirates who, for all intents and purposes, turned piracy into a major employment industry. The remainder could be spent by the privateers themselves. Privateering was officially sanctioned by the British Crown, meaning that privateers with an official letter of marque and reprisal (basically a Pirate license) were required to pay a portion of all booty to the town government. Pirates and piracy did not just define the politics of the region, they also helped define the economy. In the meantime, let’s discuss more of the fun stuff). This left no spare assets to retake Port Royal, resulting in Governor D’Oley’s defense strategy being an incredible success (this tactic did eventually backfire on Port Royal, but we will get to that later. The regular pirate attacks on Spanish shipping and settlements required the Spanish government to devote more and more of their resources to defending themselves. The British Government of Port Royal welcomed pirates and sheltered them if they protected the city from the Spanish. Originally, the Caribbean was primarily a Spanish domain. This tactic had an interesting impact, redefining a lot of how the Caribbean developed. The Brethren concentrated their attacks on Spanish towns and ships, as the Spanish shipping interests were considered to be a threat to the growth of the town.
The Brethren of the Coast are the same pirate group to which the famous (or infamous) Henry Morgan belonged, and yes, he is the fellow they named Captain Morgan rum after-he was that famous! (He also went on to become Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica-who says crime doesn’t pay?) Just like in Pirates of the Caribbean, the Brethren did have a code of conduct, but the movie took some liberties with this code. He invited a group of privateers call the Brethren of the Coast to make Port Royal their home port. In 1657, the Governor of the settlement, Edward D’Oley, found a unique solution to his defense worries. Nicholson created this artistic impression of events which occurred during the J“Port Royal Earthquake.” The scene recreates the destruction caused by the quake and resulting tsunami which sent much of Port Royal into the sea.īased on its location, Port Royal was a strategic jewel in the Caribbean, and the British were not about to leave it undefended. Earning every bit of its reputation Robert W. That’s when things started to get interesting. The British were responsible for renaming the settlement: Port Royal. The Spanish controlled the island for about 146 years until it was conquered by the British in 1655. The island’s main value to the Spanish was based on its proximity to trade routes, and its convenience as a port for ship repair and hull scraping. It took about 15 years longer for permanent settlement to follow.
The Spaniards were the first Europeans who came to the island (arriving with Christopher Columbus in 1494). The site had a great location relative to the rest of the Caribbean, so it was unsurprising that it was occupied by European settlers. Port Royal is situated on a small island in the mouth of the Kingston harbor. The birth of a pirate legend Port Royal, pre-1692. In fact, there might be no city more deserving of the name in all of the Caribbean. Port Royal wasn’t named the world’s wickedest city without good cause. In fact, even though there have been five movies in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Hollywood and the movie industry hasn’t even scratched the surface of how amazing the city actually was at its height-which coincidentally (or not) was also the height of the golden age of piracy. The history of the city of Port Royal in Jamaica has more pirates in it than Johnny Depp’s filmography on IMDB.
The greatest pirate story ever told won’t come in the form of yet another Pirates of the Caribbean sequel it has already occurred-300 years ago.