Hundreds of years ago, long before the Spanish arrived in Jamaica, there were millions of indigenous peoples surviving all over South America. They were nomadic, following resources as they grew and depleted. Through those nomadic traditions, and the result of major natural events (such as earthquakes and severe drought), the tribes of the Amazon migrated north into the Caribbean. When Christopher Columbus made his disruptive entrance in Jamaica in 1494, there were more than 200 villages on the island. He noted that most of those settlements were clustered around Port Royal.
A protection for Kingston Harbor, Port Royal is located on a palisadoes. Palisadoes is the Portuguese word for tombolo, an Italian word meaning 'mound'. Both terms refer to a naturally occurring deposition landform that connects one small island to a larger island. This formulation of deposits in often called a 'spit' or 'bar' in North America. When the palisadoes is more than a strip of land emerging only at low tide, the smaller of the two connected islands is known as a 'tied island'. Tied islands can sometimes create a lagoon, that eventually fills up with sediment.
In Jamaica, both Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport exist on palisadoes. During the tumultuous early years of the 16th century, the British founded Port Royal, once they ousted the Spanish. We also know that Jamaica lies in the Caribbean hurricane belt, and thus experiences destructive weather for a few months each year. Still, the silt palisadoes of Port Royal live on even today.
Sometime in the 17th century a British Royal Navy Admiral started to turn rogue. Sir Henry Morgan abandoned his fealty to Naval duties and instead took on a pirate work ethic that included raiding Spanish settlements in and around the Caribbean. All in the name of the King, he would claim. While it is true that he was following orders from the king at the beginning of the campaign, by 1670 Morgan was working on his own agenda. After burning much of the coast of Panama, the British Crown declared Morgan a rogue pirate and sought his arrest.
It was a tumultuous time in the Caribbean, as the British and Spanish were constantly vying for more lands, while a struggling Jamaican government fought for independence. In 1688, wealthy Morgan, who was a master manipulator who hoodwinked both sides, succumbed to an illness and died. The Jamaican Palisadoes cemetery, is the final resting place of the Pirate Henry Morgan. Ironically, just four years later the cemetery was swallowed by the sea after a rare 7.5 magnitude earthquake.
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