1 November 2024 — 12:00 noon — GAR 4.100
Alyssa Peterson (UT)
“A Shaky Life: Jamaica and the 1692 Port Royal Earthquake”
In this second chapter from my dissertation, I explore the connection between new environments and old sources of knowledge in Jamaica, especially surrounding the discussions after the devastating 1692 earthquake that sank Port Royal and shook the entire island. I argue that the environment and descriptions coming from Jamaica did not resemble Europe or European experiences and were therefore difficult for the English to place into their contemporary scientific theories. As a result, the English used them to support emerging theories about warmer climates leading to moral and physical weakness, arguing that the earthquake was God’s punishment for these weaknesses. The English, both in Jamaica and in England, also applied contemporary paradigms to explain the reports, even if what they saw or read was not well known or previously experienced. However, Jamaican colonists began to separate themselves from English observers through their explanations and incorporation of local knowledge to come up with a uniquely Jamaican (and Caribbean) explanation for events that were not always applicable to the wider British Atlantic world.
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Alyssa Peterson is a graduate student in the UT History Department. She is now completing her dissertation on ideas about connections between earthquakes and health in the 18th century British Caribbean.