Port Royal

Port Royal stands on the Palisadoes, a narrow spit at the entrance to Kingston Harbour on Jamaica’s southeastern coast. Its sheltered deep water made it a valuable harbour for ships crossing the Caribbean. After England seized Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the port became a centre of trade and a base for privateers operating against Spanish possessions.

The harbour’s prosperity was abruptly broken on 7 June 1692, when a violent earthquake struck. Much of the town sank or slid beneath the water and sand, carrying buildings and their contents into the harbour. The catastrophe destroyed a large part of a port that had become one of the most important English trading centres in the Americas. Its submerged remains preserve traces of the seventeenth-century town and the goods that passed through it.