Caribbean - Jamaica
Spanish Town
Settled by Castile in 1543 as St. Jago de la Vega, Spanish Town soon became the capital of Jamaica. Located about a dozen miles up Rio Cobre that flows into Kingston Harbor, it's a short distance to Kingston and Port Royal. When the English captured Jamaica in 1655, the Castilians laid waste to their capital as they fled to Cuba. Therefore, the historic sites date only back to the English, and the historical architecture and street names mark the colonial period of Spanish Town.
Old Iron Bridge (an early cast-iron bridge)
Rodney’s Memorial
(a museum dedicated to Admiral George Brydges Rodney,
British naval officer, 1719-1792)
The St. Jago de la Vega Cathedral
The People’s Museum of Craft and Technology
Port Royal
Port Royal began as the tip of a series of rock formations that almost enclosed the southern shore of Kingston Harbor. Wind and waves deposited sand and gravel between the rocks so a spit was formed east to the coast. The English built Fort Cromwell, and soon settlers built homes surrounding the fort. When the Stuarts returned to the English and Irish thrones, the fort was renamed Fort Charles. As more space was needed, palisades were driven into the harbor and sand and gravel provided infill so additional structures could be added. Port Royal, along with Boston, became the financial centers of the New World.
Underwater City of Port Royal, Jamaica
Kingston
The survivors of the Earthquake of 1692 fled from Port Royal across the harbor and Kingston, a small fishing village at the time, ultimately became the capital of Jamaica and a city with a metropolitan population of 1,190,000.