“In 1855 the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, in a despatch to the Colonial
Secretary, said: ‘By far the most creditable institution in the island
is the Presbyterian Academy, principally intended for training young men
of the ministry or the scholastic profession. It still held a foremost
place and was accomplishing excellent work; there were twenty-four
missionary students and fifty-six public scholars in attendance. But the
expense to the Home Church, amounting to nearly £500 a year, appeared to
call for some more economical scheme.’”
In a chapter in his “History” devoted to “Religion, Education, and
Social Progress, from 1839 to 1865,” Gardner makes no reference to
Secondary Education, unless the foundation of Calabar College in 1843
for the training of a native Baptist Ministry can be so considered.
In 1865 an Act (28 Vic., c. 23) was passed by which the Government
appropriated the sums of money deposited from time to time in the Public
Treasury by various charities and institutions at varying rates of
interest, and became responsible for the payment of perpetual annuities
in lieu thereof, thereby preventing for the future so far as those funds
were concerned any of that misapplication alluded to in the reports of
the Committee of 1791.
Under that able organizer, Sir John Peter Grant (1866–1874), elementary
education was put on a sound basis of encouragement and support; by him
was also founded the too ambitious and short-lived College at Spanish
Town which aimed at providing a university education for a community
that was not yet ready for it.
During the governorship of Sir Anthony Musgrave the needs of Secondary
Education—which was defined as being the encouragement of education of a
higher grade “among those classes of the community who would value it,
if placed within their reach, but whose means do not enable them to send
their children to Europe for the purpose of obtaining it”—received full
consideration.
By the creation in 1879 of the Jamaica Schools Commission, which
exercises over endowed schools in Jamaica the same sort of supervision
formerly exercised by the Charity Commissioners in England over English
schools, means were afforded for placing the old endowed schools of the
island under suitable management. The Jamaica High School was
established, the Jamaica Scholarship was started, and the Cambridge
Local Examinations were held for the first time in 1882; and later in
1891 the University of London was induced to hold its examinations in
the colony.
The Wesleyan Church started their High School at York Castle, in St.
Ann, in 1876; and the Institute of Jamaica for the encouragement of
Literature, Science and Art was founded by the Government in 1879.
In 1892 a Secondary Education Law (32 of 1892) was passed, empowering
the Governor in Privy Council on the recommendation of the Board of
Education—a Board formed with the main object of advising on elementary
education—to declare any important centre of population to be without
adequate provision for secondary education and to establish a school
there, to be managed by a local committee of management under the
supervision of the Board. A subsequent act of the Legislature
transferred the duty of supervision of all such schools from the Board
of Education to the Jamaica Schools Commission. In 1911 the secondary
schools of the island were first inspected and reported on by an English
school inspector.
Taverns must have existed in Jamaica from early times. They are
mentioned in the Deficiency law, by which one white hired or indentured
servant had to be kept for every tavern or retail shop; and White’s
Tavern in Kingston is referred to in the Journals of the Assembly in
1730. That there was a tavern at Dry Harbour in 1769 is evident from a
rare view published in that year entitled “Dry Harbour in the Parish of
St. Ann’s, Jamaica, taken from the West end of the Tavern, with the Fort
and Barracks, now in Ruins.”
But when one considers the large amount of travelling by road that was
done in Jamaica in the past, there were, comparatively speaking, few
taverns or posting houses, the truth being that planters and even
strangers relied in the main on the proverbial hospitality of the
inhabitants. Of “the Permanent natives, or Creole men,” Long tells us in
his history (written in 1774), “their hospitality is unlimited; they
having lodging and entertainment always at the service of transient
strangers and travellers; and receive in the most friendly manner those,
with whose character and circumstances they are often utterly
unacquainted.” And he adds as a footnote: “One obvious proof of this is,
that there is scarcely one tolerable inn throughout the whole Island,
except at a great distance from any settlement.” He refers to
Knockpatrick, now in Manchester, and “two good taverns” at Lacovia in
St. Elizabeth. He says: “The Tavern at Knockpatrick (belonging also to
Mr. W—stn—y), the next settlement we come to, stands very commodiously,
and enjoys a most excellent climate. The English beans, pease, and other
culinary vegetables of Europe grow here in most seasons of the year, to
the utmost perfection. A gentleman who supped here could not help
remarking, that the victuals were literally brought smoaking-hot to
table, a phenomenon seldom observed in the low lands, where the air is
so much more rarefied.” Elsewhere he states that “Mr. W—stn—y” is said
to be a natural son of the late “Duke of L—ds.”
Bryan Edwards in 1806 says: “As Mr. Long has remarked, there is not one
tolerable inn throughout all the West Indies.” He then goes on to
contrast the general plenty and magnificence of the Jamaica planter’s
table and the meanness of their houses and apartments: “it being no
uncommon thing to find, at the country habitations of the planters, a
splendid sideboard loaded with plate and the choicest wines, a table
covered with the finest damask, and a dinner of perhaps sixteen or
twenty covers; and all this in a hovel not superior to an English barn.”
Monk Lewis, writing on his visits to the Island in 1816 and 1818, in his
“Journal of a West India Proprietor,” alluded to a “solitary tavern
called Blackheath” near Claremont, and to a lodging-house in St. Ann’s
Bay where he found “an excellent breakfast at an inn quite in the
English fashion;” to the “Wellington Hotel” at Rio Bueno in Trelawny; to
“Judy James’s” in Montego Bay, in St. James; to “Miss Hetley’s” inn at
Yallahs in St.-Thomas-in-the-East; to a “solitary tavern” at Bluefields
in Westmoreland, where he met “the handsomest creole that I have ever
seen,” Antonietta by name, of Spanish-African parentage; and to “West
Tavern,” which must have been somewhere near Ewarton, as it was nineteen
miles from Spanish Town on the north road. He also alludes to “The
Gutturs” in St. Elizabeth, where they found “everything that travellers
could wish.”
Lewis says: “All the inns upon this road [the western half of the north
side] are excellent, with the solitary exception of the Blackheath
Tavern, which I stopped at by mistake instead of that at Montague [an
obvious misprint for Moneague].” While elsewhere he says: “Inns would be
bowers of Paradise if they were all rented by mulatto ladies like Judy
James.”
A strangely long time was allowed to elapse after the settling of the
various islands in the West Indies before printing presses were
established. Perhaps some of the governors thought like Berkeley of
Virginia, who, in his report to the Lords of Trade in 1671, wrote: “But
I thank God, _there are no free schools_, nor _printing_, and I hope we
shall not have, these hundred years; for _learning_ has brought
disobedience, and heresy and sects into the world, and _printing_ has
divulged them, and libels against the best of government. God keep us
from both.”
The earliest printing press in America was set up in Mexico before the
middle of the sixteenth century.
The first printing press in English Colonies was set up in Massachusetts
in 1638. In Jamaica it was established in 1721, sixty-six years after
the acquisition of the colony by the British. The first almanac printed
in the colonies was produced at Cambridge in 1639. Unfortunately no copy
is known to exist: the earliest existing being one issued at Cambridge
in 1646 in private possession. Printing was practised at Havanna, in
Cuba, as early as 1729, and in Martinique as early as 1727; a Royal
printing house was established in St. Domingo in 1750. The “Barbados
Gazette,” published weekly, has been called the earliest British West
Indian newspaper. Its first issue appeared on May 18, 1731, but Isaiah
Thomas, in his “History of Printing,” says that the “Weekly Jamaica
Courant” was published at Kingston as early as 1722.
The first Jamaica wall almanac and the earliest piece of Jamaica
printing known to be extant dates from 1734, a copy of which is in the
Library of the Institute of Jamaica. The earliest Jamaica-printed book
known is the “Merchant’s Pocket Companion,” printed in Kingston—be it
observed, not in Spanish Town, the then capital of the island—in 1751.
The next oldest Jamaica-printed book known is a volume of Love Elegies
by Peter Pindar of the year 1773. A copy of each is in the Institute
Library. The best known of the early Jamaica newspapers was the “St.
Jago de la Vega Gazette.” There may be early volumes of the “St. Jago de
la Vega Gazette” (founded in 1756) in existence, but the earliest in the
Institute Library bears date 1791, and the earliest of the “Royal
Gazette” (founded in 1779) there bears date 1780. The earliest example
of a Jamaica newspaper in the Library is an issue of “The St. Jago
Intelligencer” of Kingston of the year 1757, possibly the earliest copy
of a Jamaica newspaper extant.
In Hickeringill’s “Jamaica View’d,” published in the year 1661, appears
what is probably the oldest English map of the island. With the
exception of Guanaboa, The Seven Plantations, The Angels, and St. Jago
de la Vega, only towns on the sea-board are mentioned in it, and there
is no attempt to divide the island into parishes.
In a census taken in 1662 the Island was divided into ten districts, as
follows: the Precincts of Port Moranto; Morant; Yealoth; and Legene; the
town of Saint Angelo Delvega [St. Jago de la Vega]; Between Black River,
Bower Savanna and thereabouts; In the Angles Quarter; In the Seven
Plantations, Macaria, Quathebeca; In the Quarters Quanaboa and
Quardelena; and Point Caugway.
Sir Thomas Modyford, in his “View of the Condition of Jamaica, the 1st
of October, 1664,” reprinted in the appendix to the first volume of the
“Journals of the House of Assembly” ([Spanish Town] 1811), says “there
is in the said island but seven established parishes: _videlicet_, the
town and parish of St. Katherine’s, St. John’s, the town and parish of
Port Royal, Clarendon, St. David’s, St. Andrew’s, and St. Thomas, which
are very large, and in them all but one church, that at St.
Katherine’s.”
The parish of St. David was part of the precinct of St.
Thomas-in-the-East, and St. George was part of the precinct of St. Mary.
As a result of the survey ordered by Sir Thomas Modyford, and made by
“Serjeant-Major John Man, Surveyor-General for His Majesty,” who
calculated that the island comprised seven millions of acres, a map was
prepared by Man and copied by “Mr. Innians, the surveyor,” and published
in Blome’s “Description of the Island of Jamaica” in 1671. There are
included on this map, in addition to two unnamed precincts occupying
approximately the positions of the present Hanover and Manchester, the
precincts of St. Catherine, St. Andrew, Port Royal, St. David, St.
Thomas, St. George, St. Mary, St. John, St. Ann, St. James, St.
Elizabeth and Clarendon.
In the year 1673, Vere was formed by cutting off a portion of Clarendon,
but it still remained part of the precinct of Clarendon; and in 1675
when an Act was passed for dividing His Majesty’s Island of Jamaica into
several parishes and precincts, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale was taken from
St. Catherine; and Clarendon lost another piece out of which was formed
St. Dorothy, which parish became part of the precinct of St. Catherine.
In “The State of Jamaica under Sir Thomas Lynch, His Majesty’s present
Captain-General and Chief Governour, September 20th, 1683,” prefixed to
the “Laws of Jamaica” (London 1684), it states “since that time (1661)
it has been divided into Fifteen Parishes and they into eight Provinces
or Precincts.”
[Illustration:
JAMAICA
]
The first act on record having reference to the parishes of the island
was read on the 11th of May, 1675, by the Council, and sent to the
Assembly with this amendment, that the Magotty be annexed to the
sixteen-mile-walk, but continue still to pay all parochial duties to St.
John’s except to the repairing of the highways, until a church be built
and a parish settled in the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. A law was
passed in 1677. The law itself had not been preserved, but it is recited
in a law passed in 1681 (33 Car. 2), “An Act for the maintenance of
Ministers and the Poor, and erecting and Repairing of churches.” (“The
Laws of Jamaica,” London 1684): “and whereas this Island, in the
twenty-ninth year of His Majesty’s reign, by an Act of this Country, was
divided into fifteen parishes, which were called, distinguished and
known, by the several names hereafter mentioned, that is to say, _St.
Thomas_, _St. Davids_, _Port Royal_, _St. Andrews_, _St. Katherines_,
_St. Dorothys_, _St. Thomas in the Valley_, _Clarendon_, _Vere_, _St.
Johns_, _St. Georges_, _St. Maries_, _St. Anns_, _St. James_, and _St.
Elizabeths_; Be it therefore enacted and ordained by the Authority
aforesaid, That all and every of the said Parishes, rest, remain, and
for ever hereafter be distinguished and known by the aforesaid
respective Names, and by no other whatsoever, anything in this or any
other Law to the contrary notwithstanding.”
In 1692, on the destruction of the greater part of Port Royal by
earthquake, most of the inhabitants that survived settled in hastily
erected buildings in St. Andrew, on the harbour, and in the following
year the parish of Kingston was formed.
In 1703 Westmoreland was formed out of a portion of St. Elizabeth. In
1723 Portland was formed, the land being taken partly from St.
Thomas-in-the-East, and partly from St. George (by 10 Geo. 1); and
Hanover was formed out of part of Westmoreland. In 1739 (12 Geo. 2, ch.
6) parts of the Carpenters Mountains, heretofore esteemed part of St.
Elizabeth and Clarendon, were transferred to Vere.
In 1758 the three counties of Surrey, Middlesex and Cornwall were
created (by 31 Geo. 2, ch. 15) with a view to the more convenient
holding of courts of justice. The middle county was appropriately called
Middlesex; the westernmost was named after the most western county in
England, Cornwall; and the eastern division was called Surrey, probably
because, like Surrey in England, its principal town was Kingston.
Kingston was declared the county town of Surrey; St. Jago de la Vega,
that of Middlesex; and Savanna-la-Mar, that of Cornwall. In the
first-named were the seven parishes of Port Royal, Kingston, St. Andrew,
St. David, Portland, St. George and St. Thomas-in-the-East; Middlesex
comprised St. Catherine, St. John, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, St. Dorothy,
Clarendon, Vere, St. Ann, and St. Mary; while Cornwall had but four
parishes, St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover and St. James. The next
change was in 1770, when Trelawny was formed out of a portion of St.
James. In 1814 Manchester was created by taking parts from Clarendon,
Vere and St. Elizabeth, thus transferring a portion of Cornwall to
Middlesex.
In many old maps of the island, notably James Robertson’s (published in
1804) the names of the owners are given rather than the names of
properties, and in many instances these proper names exist to this day;
and to-day the negro peasantry are often able to tell one the name of
the owner when they are ignorant of the name of the estate or house.
In 1809 a law was passed (50 Geo. 3) for fixing the boundaries of the
several counties and parishes of this island, by which the extent and
boundaries of the counties and parishes as laid down and delineated in
the three maps of the counties and the general map of the island, made
and published by Robertson, were taken as the bounds of the counties and
parishes, and printed copies of the maps were recognized as evidence in
all courts of justice in the island.
In 1831 McGeachy and Smith, surveyors, proposed to publish by
subscription maps of the three counties at £20 apiece. They received the
names of eighty-six subscribers, but the maps were never published, as
we learn by “St. Jago de la Vega Gazette” for February 12, 1831.
In 1841 the last parish to be created in the history of Jamaica,
Metcalfe, was formed out of the parishes of St. Mary and St. George,
whereby Middlesex again gained land, this time at the expense of Surrey.
The parishes then numbered twenty-two. In 1844 an Act (8 Vic. c. 39) was
passed defining the boundaries of Kingston Harbour.
In 1867, as part of the reformation scheme of Sir John Peter Grant, was
passed the law for the reduction of the number of parishes. In Surrey,
Kingston, was increased by taking part of St. Andrew, a part of the
parish and the whole town of Port Royal. St. Andrew took the remaining
part of Port Royal parish; and St. David was merged into St.
Thomas-in-the-East, and St. George into Portland, which also took the
Manchioneal district of St. Thomas-in-the-East.
In Middlesex the recently created parish of Metcalfe was merged into the
parish of St. Mary. St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, St. John, and St. Dorothy
were all merged into St. Catherine, and Vere again became part of
Clarendon; St. Ann and Manchester remaining as they were. In Cornwall
there was no alteration, the five parishes remaining as they were.
In 1900 Port Royal was made a separate parish for municipal purposes,
remaining still part of the electoral district of Kingston.
Of names given owing to natural features, there are numbers in
Jamaica—the Blue Mountains; the Red Hills; the Great, White, Swift, Dry,
and Milk Rivers; Green Island; Dry Harbour; Dry Mountains; the Round
Hill (in Vere), and so on.
The Y. S. River (pronounced Wyers) is, Long tells us, so called from the
Gallic word Y. S., which signifies crooked or winding. Another authority
says the name of the property was Wyess, and its commercial mark for
shipping purposes was Y. S.
Labour-in-vain Savannah in St. Elizabeth is a name perfectly descriptive
of its nature. So, too, is Burnt Savannah.
The struggle for and the success of emancipation have left their names
on many a free negro settlement; some of which, it is to be feared, have
not realized their early promise: Clarkson Ville, Sturge Town,
Wilberforce, Buxton, Liberty Hill and others.
Some names are typical of the simple faith and language of the negro,
such as Wait-a-bit and Come-see. Me-no-sen-you-no-come, in Trelawny,
must have been named by folk of recluse habits. Others are not
euphonious—Fat Hog Quarter, Running Gut (which Lawrence Archer, in his
“Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies,” thinks may
probably be a corruption by some seafaring man of _Harangutta_, a branch
of the Ganges), Starve Gut Bay; and one rather wonders whether they are
not vulgar corruptions of different designations. We find, however,
similar names in the other islands: _Dos d’Ane_ in Dominica, and _Mal
d’Estomac_ in Trinidad. On the other hand _Kick-em-Jenny_, the rock
between St. Vincent and Grenada, is said to have been originally called
_Cay qu’on gêne_—the islet that bothers one, from the roughness of the
neighbouring sea.
Many names of townships and properties have been translated from the old
country—Oxford, Ipswich, Cambridge, Newmarket and the like—and the
number of Bellevues, Belvideres, Contents, speak little for the
inventive faculties of those who named them.
Of its trade with the outside world Jamaica has evidences in Jamaica
Bay, in Acklin’s Island, Bahamas; in Jamaica (as old at least as 1699),
Long Island; in Jamaica Plain near Boston; in Jamaica Street in Glasgow;
in Jamaica Street in Greenock; and formerly in the Jamaica coffee house
in London.
The Jamaica coffee house was in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, which
runs out of Cornhill to the west of St. Michael’s church. This alley is
famous as having contained the first coffee house established in London.
The Jamaica coffee house is kept in memory there by the Jamaica wine
house which adjoins the office of a wine merchant (E. J. Rose & Co.) and
by Jamaica buildings. Like all city alleys, the place has been entirely
rebuilt.
Jamaica Street, one of the busiest streets in Glasgow, leading to
Jamaica Bridge over the Clyde, was named in 1763, and its name was
doubtless suggested by the business connexion. There are other evidences
in Glasgow of West Indian trade in St. Vincent Street, Tobago Street,
and the “Havannah” (Street); but the name of Kingston Dock has no
connection with Kingston, Jamaica.
There is a Jamaica Road in Bermondsey and a Jamaica Street in Shadwell.
I
PORT ROYAL
The chief interest of Port Royal lies rather in the silent witness which
through two and a half centuries she has borne to the naval activities
of the island of Jamaica, and in a measure to those of the British
fleets which have from time to time visited these waters, than in any
part which she has played in the internal domestic development of the
colony, although she has now and again sent to the Assembly such notable
members as William Beeston, Samuel Long, Marmaduke Freeman, Peter
Beckford, Matthew Concanen, Roger Hope Elletson and Samuel Jackson
Dallas. The three last, however, were connected, not with “the Point,”
but with that portion of the old parish of Port Royal which now forms
part of St. Andrew and is known to-day as the Port Royal Mountains.
In these days of pageants, Port Royal would fittingly make either
background or proscenium to many a stirring episode illustrative of the
island’s history.
Though Jamaica since its occupation by the English has escaped the
capture and recapture which was the fate of many of the smaller West
Indian islands which are now British, and its forts have never had to
face besieging ships, the vessels sent out from its harbour from that
date till the early years of the last century played no insignificant
part in the sum total of Britannia’s naval history; and Port Royal was a
toll-gate on Britain’s path of Admiralty at which many heavy tolls were
paid.
From the _Swiftsure_, Admiral Penn’s flagship in the expedition which
gained the island for England, to the _Suffolk_ and _Sydney_, many of
the finest ships in the British Navy have sailed or steamed past Port
Royal’s shores; and the flags of not a few of England’s most celebrated
seamen have waved near its walls—Myngs, Morgan (who was buried there),
Nevell, Benbow (who died there), Vernon, Hosier, Ogle, Keppel, Rodney,
Peter Parker, Nelson, Joshua Rowley, McClintock, and lastly Admiral
Lloyd.
Columbus, who was intimately acquainted with the north side of Jamaica,
probably only saw Port Royal from the _Niña’s_ deck as he, after
discovering the island on his second voyage, in 1494, beat slowly
homeward along the south side, after having exchanged courtesies with
the caciques in Old Harbour bay, putting in here and there for shelter
from the contrary wind.
During the Spanish occupation the Point remained unoccupied and the
harbour of Kingston was disregarded till 1520, when the Spaniards
removed their northside capital to St. Jago de la Vega.