List of plantation great houses in Jamaica

Last updated

Rose Hall Rose Hall Jamaica Photo D Ramey Logan.jpg
Rose Hall

This is a list of plantation great houses in Jamaica.These houses were built in the 18th and 19th centuries when sugar cane made Jamaica the wealthiest colony in the West Indies. [1] Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were worked by enslaved African people [2] until the aboltion of slavery in 1833. European sugar beet made Caribbean sugar cane uneconomic by the early 20th century,and many of the plantations and their great houses had to find new purpose. Some are now run as historic house museums (e.g. Rose Hall) and others as conference or wedding venues (Temple Hall); many are ruins (e.g. Edinburgh Castle) and a few still are private residences (e.g. Halse Hall).

British architecture was adapted to the tropics with features such as wide wrap-around verandas, jalousies, and sash windows to accommodate the Caribbean climate.

See also

Related Research Articles

Barbados is an island country in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, situated about 100 miles (160 km) east of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Roughly triangular in shape, the island measures some 21 miles (34 km) from northwest to southeast and about 14 miles (23 km) from east to west at its widest point. The capital and largest town is Bridgetown, which is also the main seaport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plantation</span> Agricultural estate growing cash crops

Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sugar plantations in the Caribbean</span> Mainly in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries

Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the British and French Caribbean</span> Slavery in British and French possessions in the Caribbean

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint James Parish, Jamaica</span> Parish of Jamaica

St. James is a suburban parish, located on the north-west end of the island of Jamaica in the county of Cornwall. Its capital is Montego Bay. Montego Bay was officially named the second city of Jamaica, behind Kingston, in 1981, although Montego Bay became a city in 1980 through an act of the Jamaican Parliament. The parish is the birthplace of the Right Excellent Samuel Sharpe, one of Jamaica's seven National Heroes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falmouth, Jamaica</span> Historic Town in Trelawny, Jamaica

Falmouth is the chief town and capital of the parish of Trelawny in Jamaica. It is situated on Jamaica's north coast 29 km east of Montego Bay. It is noted for being one of the Caribbean's best-preserved Georgian towns.

Liguanea is an area of the island of Jamaica. Its name came from the language of the Arawak people who currently inhabit some of the island's rural areas in Cornwall County. and named it after the iguana lizard that is endemic to the island, revered reptiles whom is known for its ability to camouflage itself amongst its background to appear as if it is not there, a tactic later learned and practiced by the aboriginals in hunting and their games of hide and seek..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drax Hall Estate</span> 17th century plantation home and estate in Barbados

Drax Hall Estate is a sugarcane plantation situated in Saint George, Barbados, in the Caribbean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bristol slave trade</span> Bristols role in slavery

Bristol, a port city in the South West of England, on the banks of the River Avon, has been an important location for maritime trade for centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty's Hope</span> Former sugar plantation in Antigua

Betty's Hope was a sugarcane plantation in Antigua. It was established in 1650, shortly after the island had become an English colony, and flourished as a successful agricultural industrial enterprise during the centuries of slavery. It was the first large-scale sugar plantation to operate in Antigua and belonged to the Codrington family from 1674 until 1944. Christopher Codrington, later Captain General of the Leeward Islands, acquired the property in 1674 and named it Betty's Hope, after his daughter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Hall, Montego Bay</span> Georgian mansion in Montego Bay, Jamaica

Rose Hall is a Jamaican Georgian plantation house now run as a historic house museum. It is located in Montego Bay, Jamaica with a panoramic view of the coast. Thought to be one of the country's most impressive plantation great houses, it had fallen into ruins by the 1960s, but was then restored. The museum showcases the slave history of the estate and the legend of the White Witch of Rose Hall.

The first numbers of Chinese arrived in British Guiana in 1853, forming an important minority of the indentured workforce. After their indenture, many who stayed on in Guyana came to be known as successful retailers, with considerable integration with the local culture. The most notable person of Chinese ancestry was the Former Guyana President Arthur Chung, was independent Guyana's first President from 1970 to 1980, and the first Chinese head of state of a non-Asian country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony of Jamaica</span> English/British colony in The Caribbean from 1655 to 1962

The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro-Barbadians</span> Ethnic group

Black Barbadians or Afro-Barbadians are Barbadians of entirely or predominantly African descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albion plantation</span> Sugar plantation in Saint Thomas Parish, Jamaica

Albion was a sugar plantation in Saint David Parish, Jamaica. Created during or before the 18th century, it had at least 451 slaves when slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1833. By the end of the 19th-century it was the most productive plantation in Jamaica due to the advanced refining technology it used. By the early 20th century, however, its cane sugar could not compete with cheaper European beet sugar, and it produced its last sugar crop in 1928. It subsequently became a banana farm for the United Fruit Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Indian Incumbered Estates Acts</span> United Kingdom legislation

The West Indian Incumbered Estates Acts were Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of 1854, 1858, 1862, 1864, 1872, and 1886 that allowed creditors and other interested parties to apply for the sale of estates (plantations) in the British colonies in the West Indies despite legal encumbrances that would normally prevent such a sale. The legislation was modelled on the acts that created the Irish Encumbered Estates' Court after the Great Famine of the 1840s that allowed indebted and moribund estates to be sold.

William Atherton, was a merchant and wealthy landowner from Lancashire, England, who operated and co-owned sugar plantations in the former Colony of Jamaica. He was a slave owner, as well as an importer of slaves from Africa.

Green Park Estate was one of several sugar plantations owned by William Atherton and his heirs. It was located in Trelawny Parish, south of Falmouth, Jamaica. By the early nineteenth century, at least 533 people were enslaved there producing mainly sugar and rum.

References

  1. "Jamaica Great Houses". Great Houses of Jamaica.
  2. "Sugar Processing". International Slavery Museum.
  3. "Albion Great House · National Library of Jamaica Digital Collection".
  4. https://rosehall.com/