Notorious Pirate Havens - Part 4: Port Royal

Following Henry Morgan's appointment as lieutenant governor, Port Royal began to change. Pirates no longer needed to defend the city. The selling of slaves took on greater importance. Upstanding citizens disliked the reputation the city had acquired. In 1687, Jamaica passed anti-piracy laws. Instead of being a safe haven for pirates, Port Royal became noted as their place of execution. Gallows Point welcomed many to their death, including Charles Vane and Calico Jack Ransom, who were hanged in 1720. Two years later, forty-one pirates met their death in one month.

On 7 June 1692 around 11:40 in the morning, three earthquakes and a tsunami struck Port Royal. Sixty-six percent of the city disappeared into the sea, while ships anchored in the harbor were swept inland. Two thousand people died instantly, and disease and injuries claimed an estimated two thousand more lives in the weeks that followed. As news of the devastation spread, so did the belief that this was God's punishment for the wickedness and sinning that had made Port Royal infamous.

Reverend Heath, a survivor of the devastation, wrote: "[S] ome were swallowed up to the Neck, and then the Earth shut upon them; and squeezed them to death; and in that manner several are left buried with their Heads above ground." A merchant described the city as "[t]hose houses which but just now appeared the fairest and loftiest in these parts were in a moment sunk down into the earth and nothing to be seen of them...." One year later a visitor noted that "the principal parts of Port Royal now lie four, six or eight fathoms underwater. Indeed, 'tis enough to raise melancholy thoughts in a man to see chimneys and the tops of some houses, and masts of ships and sloops, which partaked of the same fate, appear above the water, now habitations for fish."

Today, about 1,800 people reside in Port Royal, now a poor fishing village. Most visitors are tourists. Others are archeologists who conduct underwater excavations of old Port Royal. It is a unique site for when the earthquake struck, it froze Port Royal like a photograph captures an image. The catastrophe preserved life as it was lived at that precise moment in time rather than permitting erosion by the passage of years or alteration by succeeding generations. Since the 1980's, the Institute of Nautical Archeology at Texas A & M University has

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