The Mysteries of History (June 7 Edition)
Jamaican Earthquake; Gandhi's Civil Disobedience
1692 — Massive Earthquake in Jamaica
image generated using Google Gemini
Port Royal, Jamaica (known as “the wickedest city on earth” due to its being a base for smugglers and pirates) was destroyed by an earthquake and the after-effects of it on this date in 1692. Not just the building-toppling tremors, but a subsequent tsunami, and soil liquefaction (which is just what it sounds like: the ground beneath your first becomes watery) combined to wipe out the entirety of Port Royal, which was situated near present-day Kingston.
A ship, the HMS Swan, that had been in the harbor was lifted up by the tsunami and was deposited on top of a building; it became a temporary shelter from the storm for many of the survivors.
Nearby towns had victims, too, as the result of landslides and other quake-related occurrences. About 3,000 people died on that first day; but that wasn’t the end of the misery: that very night, looting began, and over the course of the next few weeks many died from their injuries and from sickness.
public domain image from wikimedia commons
Questions: What is Port Royal today? Did people of the time consider the wiping out of Port Royal to be a result of divine providence (a literal Act of God)? Have you ever been to Jamaica?
1893 — Gandhi’s Initial Act of Civil Disobedience
public domain image from wikimedia commons
Mild-mannered East Indian lawyer Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) refused to give up his seat on a “whites-only” train on this date in 1893 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. For this he was thrown off the train.
This humiliating treatment caused Gandhi to make it his life’s work to fight racism and injustice. First in South Africa and later in his native India, Gandhi practiced and promoted Civil Disobedience — nonviolent, Bartleby-like (“I prefer not to”) forms of protest against injustice.
Questions: What connection does this event in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, in 1893 have with events in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama? Do you think racism will ever be completely eradicated? Is there, at this time, any international, multiracial group of people who gladly associate with one another, regardless of ethnicity or nationality? Who was Bartleby? If you don’t know, search for the story by Herman Melville.
