Why study the mapping of Port Royal?
Port Royal is notorious in history due to its connotations with piracy and debauchery, described by visitor Ned Ward in 1700 as the 'Dunghill of the universe, the refuse of the whole creation'.1 However, due to the loss of life, buildings, land and documentation following the earthquake in 1692 there is little factual historical knowledge known about Port Royal, instead it exists primarily as legend. For example, whilst due to legend we are aware that Port Royal was considered a 'wicked' city with sinful inhabitents interested only in piracy, gambling and prostitution, it was also home to:
'Smiths, Carpenters, Bricklayers, Joyners, Turners, Cabanittmakers, Tanners,Curriors, Shoemakers, Taylors, Hatters, Upholsters, Ropemakers, Glasiers, Painters,Carvers, Armourers, and Combmakers'
and other 'everyday' people who are overlooked by history in favour of legend due to the lack of historical evidence and presence.2 In addtion, due to the lack of advances in mapping and surveying we have few complete maps of the physical land making up Port Royal prior to 1692 and even less depicting the layout of the town. Whilst there has been some movement towards the excavation of Port Royal as an 'underwater city', the majority of the information we have we have gleaned from official primary documentation such as patents awarding land, wills and probabate inventories indicating the placement and profession of individuals and personal correspondence allowing us an insight into the minds of inhabitents. Using these primary sources we can start to piece together some assemblence of life and livelihood in Port Royal prior to 1692, aside from the concept that it was a city of sin. Not that we can refute either, the idea that Port Royal did not feed into its reputation as the 'Sodom of the New World' with reports suggesting over 20% of the buildings in Port Royal were 'brothels, gaming houses, taverns and grog shops.' and the people were often 'pirates,cutthroats, whores and some of the vilest persons in the whole of the world'.3 However, it was also described as 'the Store House or Treasury of theWest Indies' and by recreating a map of Port Royal using manuscript sources we can see the economic significance of the city due to the overwhelming presence of commerce (both legal and illegal), warehouses and through the status of the people who lived there.4