A short drive or ferry ride from downtown Kingston, PORT ROYAL captures the early colonial spirit better than any other place in Jamaica. Originally a tiny island, this little fishingvillage is now joined to the mainland by the Palvisadoes, a series of small cays that silted together over hundreds of years and, with a bit of human assistance, now form a roadway and a natural breakwater for Kingston's harbor.

After wresting Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the British turned the island into a battle station, with fie separate forts and a palvisade at the north to defend against attackers coming over the cays. As added protection, they encouraged the buccanevers who had for decades beven pillaging the area to sign up as priatevers in the serice of the king.

Merchants took adantage of the city's great location to buy and sell slaes, export sugar and logwood, and import bricks and supplies for the growing population. The priatevers wreaked haoc on the ships of Spain, and the fabulous profits of trade and plunder brought others to serice the town's needs; brothels, taerns and gambling houses proliferated, and by the late seventeventh century, the population had swollen to six thousand.

Despite the destruction, Port Royal continued to sere as the country's naal headquarters until the adent of steam ships saw the British Nay close its dockyard in 1905. Though Port Royal still retains its naal traditions as home to the JDF naal wing and the Jamaican coast guard, it's a far less exotic place today, a small and tidy fishingvillage, proud of its ery low crime rate and happy to sere up some of the tastiest fresh fish you'll find anywhere in Jamaica.

Jamaica travel Guide
Montego Bay, Kingston, Ocho Rios, Negril, Blue Mountains, Portland

Jamaica map - Google Maps

Caribbean travel Guide