25. Port Royal

Port Royal, a well-known harbor in the West Indies in the seventeenth century, was suddenly destroyed in an earthquake. How did some people explain the cause of the happening? Read the article and see if you agree with the author.

Now that we are able to work amid the treasures under the sea we can hope to recover more of them. In fact, we are winning the freedom of the seas, and in a few years we shall be recovering exciting things from the deepest water.

There is, for example, Port Royal which lies next to Kingston, the capital city of Jamaica. Port Royal first entered history in 1494 when its fine harbour was discovered by Christopher Columbus. Indeed, except for the harbour, it was not an exciting discovery; there was no fresh drinking water and no good farm land, nor was it a comfortable place in which to live. In its fine harbour, however, five hundred ships could lie safely, and this was enough to decide Port Royal's future. Every country in Europe was trying to control the West Indies, and any good harbour was a welcome port for their ships.

Port Royal was taken and retaken in frequent battles, but at last it fell to the British. By the end of the seventeenth century it was a large, rich city where eight thousand people lived.

Many people have described the scene in this busy port, packed with people and full of life. The city was built on a narrow strip of land. Its houses were built on piles over the water, and crowded close together. The streets were narrow and the houses were high. As well as shops, houses, factories and workshops, the port contained three forts, two prisons, a Governor's House and many churches.

Port Royal was well-known. Indeed, it was notorious for giving a welcome to all the worst thieves and pirates in the West Indies, men guilty of every kind of crime, who were invited to make their home there. The city suffered for the money they brought, and terrible stories were told about the lives they lived. People who wanted to get rich quickly crowded into the port ready to cheat and steal, and the effect of this was that decent honest people were not welcome in Port Royal. It was a dangerous, cruel city, where fortunes were made in a day and lost in a night. It was risky to walk in the filthy streets alone: sailors arriving with pockets full of money were found murdered the next morning. Every other house was a drinking place, and murder was frequent and familiar; every other sailor was a pirate. Thieves who could not hope for mercy at home came to Port Royal. Anything was forgiven there.

A few British officers controlled the port, but they were little interested in keeping order in the streets. They spent a quiet life with daily visits to each other, and did not try very hard to control the crime prevalent in the port. A few soldiers could not, in fact, have controlled the pirates.

On Tuesday, 7th June, 1692, this unhappy city woke on a bright midsummer morning. It was uncomfortably hot. The sky was a hard, bright, cloudless blue. The sea was smooth and shining like glass, and there was not a breath of wind moving the air. Ships ready to sail had to remain in harbour, because there was no wind to fill their sails.

This strange, breathless silence was the only unusual thing that morning. Sailors were returning to their ships after drinking and fighting all night. The wildest men were being taken to the port prisons. Markets were opening and the city housewives were walking to the shops. Lessons were starting in the schools. Street children were happily swimming in the harbour among the ships. Important members of the City Council were on their way to a meeting planned for that morning. Everyone was hoping for rain.

The Council members never arrived at their meeting. The housewives never reached home again. The school children never finished their lessons. For between eleven o'clock and twelve Port Royal seemed to shake itself like a dog after a swim. One earthquake shock quickly followed another without pause, and instantly the whole city was seized with fear. Everyone rushed into the streets where they saw a terrible scene.

The whole city seemed to be turning upside down. Stones from falling buildings poured into the streets. Entire buildings were tumbling into huge cracks in the earth. As the earth opened up, the sea came rushing in. Men were thrown about like toys, sometimes falling into deep holes in the earth, whereupon the rushing sea would pick them up and throw them back into the street. Often they disappeared forever and the earth closed over them.

The damage was all done in a few minutes. Three great shocks shook the city and a huge wave struck it at the same moment. The sound of crying and moaning filled the air, and over everything there hung a veil of dust. No one could help anyone else; it was each man for himself. One moment men stood in the sun—the next moment they had disappeared.

By evening most of Port Royal was gone. More than two thousand people had died, and more had disappeared. Two forts had been destroyed. The prisons, containing all their prisoners, had gone. Most of the ships in the harbour had sunk. The only big British ship in the harbour had been thrown out of the water into the middle of the city, where it rested on top of the biggest church in the city, St. Paul's. For a short time two hundred people found protection in the ship. At last it, too, was washed back into the harbour—and the sea then closed over St. Paul's Church!

Most of Port Royal disappeared in deep water. When news of this dreadful event reached other places there was only one opinion about it: this was God's punishment on an evil city! Port Royal had sold itself to the devil and deserved its terrible fate!

Port Royal never recovered from this shock. The harbour continued in use, but a new city was never built. Perhaps people really believed that the city deserved its fate. Soon treasure-hunters came. Everyone knew that the sunken ships and the ruins of houses contained treasure. Many men tried digging among the ruins. Swimming under water was not easy in the seventeenth century, but eventually, in 1882, one lucky man found three million dollars in a sunken Spanish treasure ship. Others could see the roofs of houses under the water, and so they broke through and stole anything they could find.

Slowly the scene changed. Underwater buildings fell quickly into ruins. Sand and water covered the sunken city. The waves pushed the ruins about, and after a few years it was impossible to see where the city lay. However, stories were told about the bells of St. Paul's Church; people said they could hear the bells ringing under the water during storms.

Several people have tried to explore Port Royal. In 1965 Robert Marx, an underwater archaeologist, was invited to do the job by the Government of Jamaica; by using modern equipment he hoped to rescue the remains of the city and stop the sea from further destroying them.

At first he tried to make a map of the city with photographs from the air. Many things can be seen from airplanes that cannot be seen on the ground. Shadows show up the shapes of old cities and farms. However, the water of Port Royal is dark and dirty and consequently, the air photographs were unclear, and all the map-making had to be done under water.

Robert Marx and his few helpers spent months swimming around the ruins. It was dangerous work. They moved through the dirty water using only the sense of touch. Sharks could swim behind them unseen. Sometimes the swimmers leaned on walls which began to fall, and if they tried to hold them up, heavy stones would fall upon them, holding them fast until their friends were able to save them.

In order to clear the sand around the ruins, they used a big air pipe through which sand was sent up to a boat in the harbour. Light things, such as rings and coins, were sucked through this pipe, but bigger things were carried up in sacks. Many of the drowned buildings were inns, and the swimmers found hundreds of bottles and knives and spoons and cups and plates and tins. Many things were found lying on the tables where they had been set.

The most exciting find was a great box containing hundreds of silver coins. The explorers could not control their excitement as sacks of money came up from the sea floor! This was high pay for their work!

The archaeologists were not looking for treasure. They wanted to build the old city again. They wanted to obtain a clear idea of the scene in Port Royal in June, 1692. Firstly, they found old streets and houses and then brought up actual bricks for building the houses on land. A map of the city is now being made. However, the best places for digging are still to be found—even archaeologists get tired of collecting broken pots and plates! The richer houses and the forts will undoubtedly contain more things of value and interest. Meanwhile the archaeologists are learning how people lived in Port Royal in the seventeenth century.

From Exploring Our Past, ed., Joan Mackintosh, 1973.