Pirate Shipwrecks of Port Royal

Author(s): Chad M. Gulseth

Year: 2013

Summary

History’s most successful pirate, Captain Bartholomew Roberts, was killed by the British Royal Navy in 1722. The three vessels Roberts commanded were taken as prizes and sailed to Port Royal, Jamaica to be sold. However, after being in port for only two weeks, a hurricane struck Jamaica and destroyed more than 50 vessels in the harbor. Roberts’ 40-gun flagship, Royal Fortune, and the 24-gun consort, Little Ranger, were lost. The third pirate vessel, Great Ranger, was heavily damaged and sank after a lack of repair.

This past summer, four graduate students from the Texas A & M University Nautical Archaeology Program traveled to Port Royal, Jamaica to record the remains of the Great Ranger, and locate the wreckage of the Royal Fortune and Little Ranger.   

Cite this Record

Pirate Shipwrecks of Port Royal. Chad M. Gulseth. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, U.K. 2013 ( tDAR id: 428632)

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Keywords

Temporal Keywords
1722

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 361