Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica has attracted assistance from the Dutch Government through its Netherlands Funds-in-Trust to protect the integrity of Port Royal’s sunken city, which is at risk of further slipping into cultural obscurity.

Culture Minister Olivia Grange, in her contribution to the 2024-25 Sectoral Debate on Tuesday (June 25), advised that the government has already received funding to rehabilitate the 19th-century sea wall that protects Port Royal’s Historic Naval Hospital from storm surges and maritime traffic.

She highlights that the extent of the deterioration of the sea wall was revealed in a Heritage Impact Assessment conducted in 2022.

Out of concern that greater deterioration could affect the integrity of the sunken city, Minister Grange advises the parliament that Jamaica sought international assistance through UNESCO to address the deterioration with the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust positively responding to its call for help. 

“We are finalising the arrangement and hope to begin the project by September. We expect that this project will build our capacity to conserve and maintain the submerged city which is the subject of our nomination to the World Heritage List, titled ‘The Archaeological Landscape of 17th Century Port Royal’. Our nomination is now at the final stage of the evaluation process and we anticipate a favourable decision by March of next year,” Grange discloses.

She spoke about the significance of Port Royal to Jamaica’s early history being the port where Enslaved Africans were sold and shipped to plantations in other English colonies and the Spanish mainland. The trade off enslaved Africans became a significant source of Port Royal’s wealth. 

The town, once the enclave of pirates, grew to become the most important trading post and the most affluent town in the New World. It became known as both the richest and the wickedest city in the West, if not the whole world. At the height of its immense wealth in the 17th century disaster struck. 

However, on June 7, 1692, an earthquake caused two-thirds of Port Royal to sink into the sea. Remarkably, 332 years on, Grange declares that Port Royal considered the unofficial capital city of Jamaica then, is a well-preserved site that captures life as it was at the time. 

She contends that the inscription of the sunken city to the world heritage list would add to the development of the current cruise ship pier in Port Royal, which would seriously enhance Jamaica’s culture and heritage tourism product. The culture minister said that this would enhanced by development works to be undertaken over the next five years at the Rockfort Mineral Bath under a new license agreement with Carib Cement. 

The works will include the enhancement of the baths, the installation of accessories and the establishment of a robust security presence to ensure the health and safety of visitors. Carib Cement, Grange added, has assured the government that some renovations will be completed within the next six months, which will make the facility available to the public shortly. 

This, she adds would ultimately re-position Rockfort Mineral Bath among the list of culture, heritage, health and tourism attractions of Greater Kingston and Port Royal and further adding to the attraction of the redevelopment of downtown Kingston.