Skip to content
Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/populated-places-in-jamaica

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Sligoville


FieldValue
nameSligoville
native_name_lang
settlement_typeVillage
pushpin_mapJamaica
coordinates
subdivision_typeCountry
subdivision_nameJamaica
subdivision_type1Parish
subdivision_name1St. Catherine
established_titleFirst settled
established_date1835
founderRev. James Mursell Phillippo
unit_prefMetric
area_urban_footnotes
area_rural_footnotes
area_metro_footnotes
area_magnitude
population_density_km2auto
website

tags -- Sligoville (formerly known as Highgate) is a small community approximately 10 miles from Spanish Town in the parish of St. Catherine on the island of Jamaica.

History

On 10 July 1835, Reverend James Phillippo, an English Baptist minister and anti-slavery activist stationed in Spanish Town, purchased 25 acre of land for £100 and established the first "free village" in the West Indies. The land was subsequently divided into quarter-acre lots which the freed slaves could purchase for £3 each. The first former slave to purchase land in Sligoville was former Hampstead Estate headman Henry Lunan. What became known as the "Free Village" system resulted from this first settlement, and similar villages were established throughout the island, most of them by ministers of religion, who supplied land to the ex-slaves who had never owned land before.

Originally named Highgate, the village was renamed as Sligoville (after Howe Browne, Marquess of Sligo and Governor of Jamaica in 1834, the year that freedom came to the enslaved people of Jamaica) on 12 June 1840. Phillippo later established a church and school in Sligoville. The ruins of the Highgate House, which was the residence of several British governors, can still be viewed in Sligoville today, along with the private chapel St. John's Anglican Church that John Augustus O'Sullivan founded in 1840 and the Sligoville Great House, also built by O'Sullivan. The Sligoville Heritage Foundation Benevolent Society, founded by direct descendants of Jamaican slaves, co-organises the annual Sligoville Emanci-Fest with the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

Site of Pinnacle, the first Rastafarian village in Jamaica (founded 1940, demolished 1958), see Leonard Howell for details.

Notable people

  • Shirley Anne Tate (born March 1956) Jamaican sociologist, scholar, researcher, educator, and author; raised in Sligoville.

References

References

  1. "Sligoville". [[Jamaica National Heritage Trust]].
  2. (6 August 2018). "Sligoville – Jamaica's First Free Village". Jamaican Information Service.
  3. (16 August 2014). "Sligoville - Jamaica's First Free Village Established To Prepare For Emancipation". The Gleaner.
  4. (1992). "Cultural Studies". [[Routledge]].
  5. Serju, Christopher. (29 January 2011). "Bairds Bare Sligoville's Rich Past". [[Gleaner Company.
  6. (2017-04-27). "Interview with Shirley Tate".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Sligoville — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report