💀 An account of the calamity by Ian Kodman, a 19-year-old assistant to Rabbi Josiah Pardo at the Synagogue of Port Royal, Jamaica on Jewes St. at the time of the Port Royal Earthquake, June 7th, 1692 💀
June 10, 1692
The orphan of myself has never seen such tragedy of all my nineteen years of living. All of the learning of heaven and hell cannot compare to the loss of life of the property in the heart of Port Royal. The pirate city of the new lands for Dutch, English, and French men and women to come and become alive. Instead, I saw death creep in like the waves that swallowed the capital of the Pirates and nearly took my life. It is only by the grace of G-D that I may be here on the buccaneer ship, the Talon that I may enter this into history among the remaining living. The sinking of the entirety of Port Royal has made me seen my own death. The fear it has given me to believe we only have so many days left can be a sobering realness. If G-D believed me to being nothing better than the orphans I once shared the Amsterdam Orphanage, or a slave in service to the masters of the new lands, then I must be worthy of sharing the story of the destruction of the City of Immorality.
When I first arrived in Jamaica last year, I was nothing but pale skin and bones, but the renovations being made to the slipping foundation of the Port Royal Temple was what gave me a rich color and physical stand. Rabbi Pardo said I grew an inch a day, up until the harbor swallowed the temple with the Rabbi inside. Upon my return from the Kingston Temple for prayer collections in transfer, after many minutes of rumbling from the earth, the harbor’s water and waves retreated. From my learned time in London before departing the homelands of immigrants and privateers, I was once shared the waves retreating only means they will return a hundredfold. That is when I turned the Rabbi’s mule and cart uphill. It was no chance as the last splash of waves upended the cart and swept both away from my privy.
Hours that appear in my memory as days later the launch of the Talon rescues me from my despair and demise still floating in the harbor. When I returned from my loss of reality on the top deck of the ship, my gaze fell upon the floating pieces that were once this now underwater city. I can still see a number of rooftops looking out from the waves near the new shore. New ripples in the earth return to our attention from now and then. Nothing of the destruction it was three days ago. Some buildings are still sinking into the remaining sand. Screams can be heard from the ship and loudest at night. Stories have arrived from the launches that have gone out to gather floating survivors and supplies reclaimed that the criminality continues among the Pirate City.
September 17th, 1692
A season removed and reclaiming lost civilization is still on the hands of the greedy and desperate. The British Navy has yet to arrive. The anticipation rises as the sun does. The killings at night when there is no light also rise like the moon. My tenure has traveled to the keeping of the Kingston Synagogue. The loss of both Rabbi Pardo and the Jewes St. temple has taken my spirit with them. There are many things I wish to go swim into the sunken street but I have fear as a fish in the chase by a shark. My personal effects have all been replaced except for my original journal. The finer tools of the temple remain buried in the Port Royal sands.
The remaining congregation of Jewes St. has been a very small number comparing to the original number of souls. Believing in G-D does not always end in a life fulfilled. An orphan knows the end is always too near. A hardworking servant of a house of G-D knows the end could be nearer. Whoever I may be at this day will only be told by a cutthroat destined to raid the only temple left in Kingston Bay, Jamaica.
Sleep has lost a lot of fair survivors. We turn until the room is windy with stress. Rum is not frequent of mine or anyone of the temple. We filter our water through the rhines of coconuts as to not stay drunk throughout our G-D given days. Food has regained vast stores for our numbers now. Since harvesting at the farmlands, our projected winter keep will last threefold. The Pirates of Port Royal really were an adult orphanage of sorts for the British. So it goes, none of us non-Iberians would be here if it were not for thees buccaneers. Maybe their great losses must be remembered forever as a sorrowful reclaiming of chaos rather than a natural disaster befell a city of sin.
December 12th, 1692
After many moons reveling with friends on these coasts, may I too become a Pirate? Is there a treasure awaiting my privy? The dreams of dame and honor after a great haul, as the boys down at the Oyster and Clam drinking hole put it in my ear. I can’t be a Rabbi’s assistant forever. There are adventures for my soul to remember after I die. Mates to embrace after conquering vast riches from the Spanish Main. A plundering I may go if this landlubber life does not take me to the rave such as Josiah Pardo, G-D rests his soul.
December 17th, 1692
Yo ho ho! It must be so! A Pirating I may go! I leave today for the decks of the Believe Her, a formidable buccaneering ship known for many plunders of Spanish galleons. The battles they told me last night before I stumbled back to the guest houses of the temple, were of starry eyes. I must prepare myself for a wonderful retirement. I may become a very wealthy man in a matter of days. The Believe Her awaits my duty and soldier of fortune!
Works cited:
Heath, E., R. (1692). A full account of the late dreadful earthquake at port-royal in jamaica, written in two letters from the minister of that place, from aboard the granada in port-royal harbour, june 22, 1692 Edinburgh, Re-printed by John Reid, to be sold at his house in Bells-Wynd. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uoregon.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.uoregon.edu/docview/2240855190?accountid=14698
Humanity, H. of. (n.d.). 1692 Port Royal Earthquake. Retrieved from https://www.goldenageofpiracy.org/locations/port-royal/port-royal-earthquake-1692.php.
The-Halfbreed-Hobbit. (2015, June 5). the-halfbreed-hobbit. Retrieved from https://the-halfbreed-hobbit.tumblr.com/post/120745087032/houghtonlib-a-true-and-perfect-relation-of-that.
The truest and largest account of the late earthquake in jamaica, june the 7th. 1692. written by a reverend divine there to his friend in london ; with some improvement thereof by anothe hand. (1693). London, Printed for Tho. Parkhurst, at the Bible and three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside, near Mercers-Chappel. Retrieved from http://libproxy.uoregon.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.uoregon.edu/docview/2248545129?accountid=14698
