Patricia Green | Port Royal development now outstanding universal value

“Emancipendence” week must always represent a significant milestone in Jamaica’s history. On August “first morn,” 191 years ago in 1834, approximately ninety percent of the Jamaica population received Emancipation from slavery, then 128 years later in 1962, Jamaica as a British colony gained Independence. The nation is now celebrating its 63rd Independence year. Currently, there is cry for removal of the Monarchy as head of Jamaica and for a new constitution. Let us also remember the constant refrain for Reparations.

Intimately tied to all of this is that on July 12, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) inscribed “The Archaeological Ensemble of 17th Century Port Royal” on the prestigious World Heritage (WH) List. This too is historic. Jamaica now has two properties on this List adding to the “Blue and John Crow Mountains.” This UNESCO List contains 1,248 properties globally. Only 19 (1.5 per cent) are from the independent Caribbean territories, with nine in Cuba. This emphasizes global imbalances. To help redress this, UNESCO has designated Africa, the Caribbean and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as priority regions, so Port Royal significantly fills a gap. Are there historic and current connections between Jamaica’s Port Royal inscription, Emancipation, Independence, the Monarchy, Constitution reform, and especially Reparations?

Recalling some key historical underpinnings directly related to Port Royal from my July 13 Gleaner commentary, English King Henry VIII divorced his wife, the Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon. He also severed ties with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, then established his own Church of England and became its head. He captured property from the Catholic Church and gave to many English noblemen who gained instant wealth. When his daughter Mary became Queen and married the Catholic Spanish King Filipe II who established the “invincible” Spanish Armada naval fleet, she gained the nickname “Bloody Mary” because of trying to regain property and reinstate Catholicism in England. On Mary’s death, her sister became Queen Elizabeth I, who in 1588 defeated the Spanish Armada, giving England naval dominance. On this foundation of European political positioning and alliances, religious persecutions, naval supremacy and land grabbing, colonial explorations and conquests flourished in the Caribbean.

England transitioned from the Monarchy into a Commonwealth and in 1655 under Cromwell, captured Jamaica from Spain. Immediately, a town grew at the entrance of what is now called Kingston Harbour and quickly became the English naval stronghold and commercial entrepôt, “Port Royal.” Emancipendence and Reparation cries are significantly related to Port Royal, Jamaica:

1. Port Royal history is that the Indigenous Taino people of Jamaica advised the Spanish to avoid that location, which the Spanish reported to the English who ignored warnings that the location was unsound for urban development. This serves as tangible proof that Spanish urban planning was directly influenced by the Indigenous people giving precedence to the 1573 “Laws of the Indies” established by Filipe II as settlement ordinances.

2. Port Royal had an architect, Robert Snead from the city of London building substantial developments from one room to sometimes seven, including two-storey brick buildings on stone foundations, with cellar and attic expansions. Rent in Port Royal was as high as in Cheapside, the business hub of London. Yet, streets were undulating and subsiding in a city without fresh water hence residents drank rum instead, occasionally receiving water shipments from the Rock [Rockfort].

3. Port Royal, Jamaica was the first in the Americas to obtain in 1661, the royal Seal and Coat of Arms after Charles II returned the Monarchy to England in 1660. This coat of arms basic design remains today with the indigenous Taino people as supporters in symbolic heraldic representation of animals.

4. Port Royal was the headquarters of the “Royal African Company” (RAC) 1672-1731, the business venture of the Monarchy to trade Africans as slaves “black gold.” The coat of arms of this RAC modelled Jamaica by replacing the Tainos with Africa people.

5. Port Royal, by 1672, had approximately 89,000-100,000 Africa people shipped by the RAC for enslavement and transshipment to Jamaica then to the Caribbean and the Americas, especially Spanish colonies.

6. Port Royal facilitated knighthood and governorship of Jamaica to RAC business partners with the Monarchy sanctioning buccaneers, privateers, pirates, merchants and planters, and rewarded them including with lands in Jamaica. Most notorious was Sir Henry Morgan who possessed many ships, was a pirate, Governor of Jamaica, and owned sugar plantations worked by enslaved persons.

7. Port Royal in 1692, after only 37 years, was described as the “richest and wickedest city in the world” when an earthquake sank two-thirds of the town, including the African human cargo who perished inside the six well-armed forts at Port Royal and on ships docked in its harbour. Only one, Fort Charles, remained standing after the earthquake.

8. Port Royal earthquake decimation came about while English ships were on the Atlantic Ocean laden with human cargo, hence immediately the town of Kingston was established 1692 as the Port Royal replacement port.

9. Port Royal greatest wealth attribute came from its Africa slave-trading human-trafficking activity making it globally the most cosmopolitan location in the 17th century.

10. Port Royal had been more fortified than all of its contemporary ports such as Cartagena, Columbia; Havana, Cuba; Vera Cruz, Mexico; Porto Bello, Panama.

Are there possibilities to link Port Royal with Africa, such with the WH property inscribed 1979, “Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions, Ghana”? How may Port Royal be linked with Kingston which is already declared a UNESCO Creative City of Music in 2015? What about issues of climate change that are impacting port cities, especially in small island environments?

A decolonised perspective should now be applied to Port Royal. I term this as, “making the invisible, visible in cultural heritage representation.” More questions may emerge. Where does Port Royal fall inside the geo-political environment of urban development? Who should own the Port Royal history? What should really be the global significance of Port Royal today?

Patricia Green, PhD, a registered architect and conservationist, is an independent scholar and advocate for the built and natural environment. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.