Welcome to the Caribbean in the 17th Century
The first map is a quick look at the most important places the story visits.
**New Spain: The viceroyalty that later became Mexico.1463Please respect copyright.PENANAfdDoW9bvyK
**Spanish Main: South America.1463Please respect copyright.PENANAjVbWNRsUg6
**La Hispaniola: the island currently divided in Rep. Dominicana and Haiti1463Please respect copyright.PENANAMnOEvxfR69
**Bajamar Islands: Original Spanish name the English tried to adopt, and over time changed into Bahamas. Bajamar = low tide.1463Please respect copyright.PENANAPvlecbOg3p
**Windward Islands: Lesser Antilles.
TORTUGA
The French stronghold, berthing of the Brethren of the Coast, is a tiny slice of land ten miles north of modern Haiti. Pretty much a long hill stretching from east to west with good timberland and some patches and strips of flat land with good soil for growing tobacco.1463Please respect copyright.PENANAqoPzJmi2hL
The tiny square under the words "bien cultivèe" points at the location of Fort-de-Rocher, a 40-cannon fortress built by Governor Jean Le Vasseur about 1635.1463Please respect copyright.PENANAAOR02TVyVd
Cayona was located between Fort-de-Rocher and the coast, and it was the main of two towns --the other one is believed to have been on the west end of the island, and was the English base camp, until the French kicked them out. Then they took over Jamaica in 1655 and moved there.1463Please respect copyright.PENANANVgb7L9sc2
If you take a look at the map, you'll see the crosses all along the northern coast, pointing at reefs and shoals that make it almost unreachable from the sea. 1463Please respect copyright.PENANAblEHaDn08B
Cayona Bay, on the south coast, was enclosed by two massive reefs you can see on the map, and pilots needed to know their thing on the steering wheel to slip a boat between them in order to reach the port.
PORT ROYAL
On this map of Jamaica, the arrow at the bottom points at a soil and sand bar south of Kingston Bay. That was were Port Royal was located, the town with more taverns than homes that god-fearing people called "New Babylon".
It was the main city and harbor of the island, and the seat of colonial government.
On June 7, 1692, an earthquake and the following tsunami swallowed two thirds of the city --including Morgan's grave!-- killing more than half the population.
The survivors crossed the bay. Some of them moved to Spanish Town. The government of the island and rest of the people founded Kingston.
Jamaica was first a Spanish colony. The English first attacked it in 1596. Four attacks later, in 1655, they finally took it over and it became an English colony.
Funny trivia bits:
*Port Royal is the only city portrayed in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. However, they're set in the early 1700s, and by then the city didn't exist anymore.
*This wasn't the first Caribbean Port Royal. That title belongs to a town and harbor in Roatan, the largest island of the Bay Islands in the Gulf of Honduras. Since the Spaniards hadn't populated the island, the English did in 1638. It soon became a great berthing place for pirates making a living out of attacking Spaniards ships. And their harbor was called, yes, you got it: Port Royal.1463Please respect copyright.PENANA9GFJAQ5UBH
In 1650, the Spaniards kicked them off Roatan, and the island remained deserted for decades, but it was always used as a good rendevouz point for pirates.
CHAPTERS III & IV
This is the Sovereign route.1463Please respect copyright.PENANARXIgaRS4R0
MORE COMING UP
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