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
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
.
History
On 10 July 1835, Reverend
James Phillippo
James Phillippo (1798 in Norfolk, England – 11 May 1879, in Spanish Town, Jamaica) was an English Baptist missionary in Jamaica who campaigned for the abolition of slavery. He served in Jamaica from 1823 to his death, with some periods lobbyi ...
, an English Baptist minister and anti-slavery activist stationed in Spanish Town, purchased 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
Marquess of Sligo is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for John Browne, 3rd Earl of Altamont. The Marquess holds the subsidiary titles of Baron Mount Eagle, of Westport in the County of Mayo (created 10 September 1760), ...
and
Governor of Jamaica in 1834, the year that freedom came to the enslaved people of Jamaica) on 12 June 1840.
[ Phillipo 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 Agustus 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
Leonard Percival Howell (16 June 1898 – 23 January 1981), also known as The Gong or G.G. Maragh (for ''Gangun Guru''), was a Jamaican religious figure. According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born into an Anglican family. He was one ...
for details.
Notable people
* Shirley Anne Tate (born March 1956) Jamaican sociologist, scholar, researcher, educator, and author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
; raised in Sligoville.
References
{{Settlements in Jamaica
Populated places in Jamaica
Populated places established in 1835