Savanna-la-Mar | |
|---|---|
Parish Capital | |
 Westmoreland Parish Court House | |
| Nickname: Sav-la-Mar | |
| Country | Jamaica |
| County | Cornwall |
| Parish | Westmoreland |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Bertel Moore |
| Population | |
| • Estimate (2011) | 22 600 |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
Savanna-la-Mar (commonly known as Sav-la-Mar, or simply Sav) is the chief town and capital of Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica. A coastal town, it contains an 18th-century fort constructed for colonial defence against pirates in the Caribbean.
Savanna-la-Mar was originally established as a settlement in Spanish Jamaica. [1]
In 1780, the town was completely destroyed by a powerful hurricane known as Savanna-la-Mar hurricane. [2] It was rebuilt, as the port was important to the Atlantic slave trade as well as the sugar trade.[ citation needed ]
After Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833 and before the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, officials of the Caribbean colonies would sometimes order the examination of enslaved people that were held captive on American ships that came to its Caribbean ports. They were to choose between staying in the colony and working to gain their freedom, or remain captive on the ship sailing to the United States. In the cases of the Enterprise at Bermuda in 1835 and the Creole at Nassau in 1841–1842, a total of more than 200 enslaved people gained freedom (by means unknown).[ citation needed ]
In at least one case, residents intervened and put themselves at risk to help others gain freedom. On 20 July 1855, Jamaicans boarded the United States brig Young America, which had put into Savann-la-Mar. They had learned that the cook, a man named Anderson (alias Nettles) had escaped slavery and therefore was considered to be a fugitive. They took him to shore, where he managed to gain freedom. (He boarded the ship with free papers in the name of Nettles.) The Jamaican magistrates did not interfere. The United States consul, R. Monroe Harrison (1768–1858), complained to the British colonial government about the incident. [3] He also published a letter in The New York Times a few days later warning shipmasters against having blacks as part of their crew on ships putting into Jamaica, at the risk of losing them. [4]
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Although the European slave trade with Africa began in the 15th century, trade with the Americas did not begin until the 16th century, and lasted till the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations.
A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of slaves have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedom and the dream of successful rebellion is often the greatest object of song, art, and culture amongst the enslaved population. These events, however, are often violently opposed and suppressed by slaveholders.
United States v. Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (1841), was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual freedom suit that involved international diplomacy as well as United States law. The historian Samuel Eliot Morison described it in 1969 as the most important court case involving slavery before being eclipsed by that of Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857.
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery that existed in the European colonies in North America which eventually became part of the United States of America. Slavery developed due to a combination of factors, primarily the labor demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies, which had resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were targets of enslavement by European colonists during the era.
The Creole mutiny, sometimes called the Creole case, was a slave revolt aboard the American slave ship Creole in November 1841, when the brig was seized by the 128 slaves who were aboard the ship when it reached Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas where slavery was abolished. The brig was transporting enslaved people as part of the coastwise slave trade in the American South. It has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in US history". Two died in the revolt, an enslaved person and a member of the crew.
Westmoreland is the westernmost parish in Jamaica, located on the south side of the island. It is situated south of Hanover, southwest of Saint James, and northwest of Saint Elizabeth, in the county of Cornwall. The chief town and capital is Savanna-la-Mar. Negril, a famous tourist destination, is also situated in the parish.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
Slavery in the Spanish American viceroyalties was an economic and social institution which existed throughout the Spanish Empire including Spain itself. Enslaved Africans were brought over to the continent for their labour, indigenous people were enslaved until the 1543 laws that prohibited it.
La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner owned by a Spaniard living in Cuba. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by Mende captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the Atlantic slave trade. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in Havana, Cuba, including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe. The revolt began after the schooner's cook jokingly told the slaves that they were to be "killed, salted, and cooked." Sengbe Pieh unshackled himself and the others on the third day and started the revolt. They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Two Africans were also killed in the melee.
Caleb B. Gardner of Newport, Rhode Island, was an American slave trader and slavery oligarch. He was the owner or part share owner of more than a dozen slave trade vessels. On many voyages, he was also the Captain of the vessel.
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.
Afro-Costa Ricans are Costa Ricans of African ancestry.
Slavery in New France was practiced by some of the indigenous populations, which enslaved outsiders as captives in warfare, until European colonization that made commercial chattel slavery become common in New France. By 1750, two-thirds of the enslaved peoples in New France were indigenous, and by 1834, most enslaved people were black.
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.
A scramble was a particular form of slave auction that took place during the Atlantic slave trade in the European colonies of the West Indies and the domestic slave trade of the United States. It was called a "scramble" because buyers would run around in an open space all at once to gather as many enslaved people as possible. Another name for a scramble auction is "Grab and go" slave auctions. Slave ship captains would go to great lengths to prepare their captives and set prices for these auctions to make sure they would receive the highest amount of profits possible because it usually did not involve earlier negotiations or bidding.
For a history of Afro-Caribbean people in the UK, see British African Caribbean community.
The Enterprise was a United States merchant vessel active in the coastwise slave trade in the early 19th century along the Atlantic Coast. Bad weather forced it into Hamilton, Bermuda waters on February 11, 1835 while it carried 78 slaves in addition to other cargo. It became the centre of a minor international incident when the British authorities freed nearly all the slaves. Britain had abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies effective 1834. At that time it advised "foreign nations that any slavers found in Bermuda [and the Bahamas] waters would be subject to arrest and seizure. Their cargoes were liable to forfeiture" without compensation.
Slavery in Cuba was a portion of the larger Atlantic Slave Trade that primarily supported Spanish plantation owners engaged in the sugarcane trade. It was practised on the island of Cuba from the 16th century until it was abolished by Spanish royal decree on October 7, 1886.
Imperial was launched in 1802 by Temple shipbuilders in South Shields. She made one voyage from Liverpool to West Africa to trade between Africa and Liverpool in African goods. While she was acquiring goods, a French privateer captured her in 1804 and took her into Cayenne. Her loss resulted in a court case in which her insurers refused to pay on the grounds that her owners had not fully disclosed their plans. The court agreed with the insurers, ruling that the failure to disclose vitiated the contract. She and an enslaving vessel that the same privateer captured proved to be notably profitable prizes for her captor.
"...It is only a few days since that the brigantine Young America, Capt. ROGERS of Baltimore, arrived at Savannah-la-Mar, when the black cook or steward, being desirous of getting rid of that vessel, and the master not wishing to let him go, a band of half-savage negroes went on board and took him out by force, and insulted the captain in the most shameful manner, while the magistrates looked on and countenanced the atrocious act....You would greatly oblige me if you would be pleased to caution masters of vessels against shipping negroes to come to any port in this island, as they are sure to have trouble."According to the Consul, the man in question had boarded the Young America with papers showing he was a free man named Nettles. Later he claimed his name was really Anderson, he'd been held as a slave and was escaping from a Mr Robinson. If this proved true, the Consul said, there was no hope of re-enslaving him, as he would have become free "on touching British soil."
Media related to Savanna-la-Mar at Wikimedia Commons18°13′N78°08′W / 18.217°N 78.133°W
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