Trelawny (

Jamaican Patois Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...

: ''Trilaani'' or ''Chrilaani'') is a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

in the county of

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

in northwest

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

. Its capital is Falmouth. It is bordered by the parishes of

Saint Ann According to apocrypha, as well as Christianity, Christian and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, the wife of Joachim and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Bible's Gosp ...

in the east, Saint James in the west, and Saint Elizabeth and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

in the south. Trelawny is known for producing several Olympic sprinters.

History

In 1770, the wealthy planters in

St James Saint James or St. James may refer to: People Saints *James, brother of Jesus (died 62 or 69), also known as James the Just *James the Great (died 44), Apostle, also known as James, son of Zebedee, or Saint James the Greater *James, son of Alphaeu ...

and St Ann succeeded in having sections of those parishes become the parish of Trelawny as they were too far from administrative centres. Trelawny was named after

Sir William Trelawny, 6th Baronet Sir William Trelawny, 6th Baronet (c. 1722 – 11 December 1772), of Trelawne, Cornwall was a British politician and colonial administrator. He was the son of Captain William Trelawny, R.N. and educated at Westminster School. He succeeded his ...

, the then

Governor of Jamaica This is a list of viceroys in Jamaica from its initial occupation by Spain in 1509, to its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962. For a list of viceroys after independence, see Governor-General of Jamaica. For context, see History of Jama ...

, whose prominent family had originated at the manor of Trelawny in the parish of

Pelynt Pelynt ( or ) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth and four miles (6.5 km) west-northwest of Looe. Pelynt had a population of around 1,124 at the 2001 census wh ...

in Cornwall, England. The first

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

was Martha Brae, located inland from Rock Bay. Trelawny is best known for its

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

estates and

sugar cane mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw sugar or plantation white sugar. Some sugar mills are situated next to a back-end refinery, that turns raw sugar into (refined) white sugar. The term is also used to refer ...

s. It had more sugar estates than any other parish, so there was need for a sea coast

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is a ...

it. Falmouth became a thriving

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manc ...

and social centre. The town had two of its own

newspapers A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

; ''The Falmouth Post'' and ''The Falmouth Gazette''. Trelawny was also home to the largest group of

Jamaican Maroons Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery in the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of Free black people in Jamaica, free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern Pari ...

. A 1739

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

between the Maroons and the English gave the Maroons

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

and

land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land sur ...

, which effectively put a stop to their

raid RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

s on the plantations. However, a second Maroon uprising in 1795 led to about 600 Maroons being exiled to

Nova Scotia, Canada Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, and later to

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

in Africa, in 1800. In 2007, the opening ceremony for the ICC

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

was held in Trelawny Parish.

Geography

Trelawny is located at

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...

18°15'N,

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...

77°46'W. It has an area of 874 km², making it the fifth largest parish on the island. It has a

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 75,558 as of 2012. Most of the parish is flat, with wide

plain In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and ...

s such as Queen of Spain's Valley, above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

, and Windsor, above sea level. Most of southern Trelawny is around above sea level. The highest point in the parish is Mount Ayr which is above sea level. The southern section of Trelawny is part of the

Cockpit Country Cockpit Country is an area in Trelawny and Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Saint Ann, Manchester and the northern tip of Clarendon parishes, mostly within the west-central side, of Jamaica. The land is marked by lush, montane forests and ste ...

, and is uninhabitable. It is therefore a natural reserve for

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

; most of Jamaica's 27 endemic

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

can be found there, along with yellow

snakes Snakes are elongated Limbless vertebrate, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales much like other members of ...

, and the giant

swallowtail butterfly Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includes the larg ...

, the largest butterfly in the

western hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

. Most of the parish has the typical limestone features of

sinkholes A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

s, and underground passages. There are about 48 caves, most with phosphate gatherings. These include the Windsor Cave and Carambi Cave (known for its beauty and

phosphate Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus. In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthop ...

deposits). There are several other caves which have Taino

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and y ...

s on the walls. There are also several underground conduits, with the longest running for . The main

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

s are the Martha Brae, Rio Bueno, Cane and Quashie Rivers.

Commerce

Trelawny's sources of employment are based on

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

, and

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

Rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is produced i ...

and

are Trelawny's principal products. Other crops include

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s, yams,

strawberries The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus ''Fragaria'', the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit is appreciated f ...

vegetables Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...

pimento A pimiento or pimento or cherry pepper is a variety of large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper (''Capsicum annuum'') that measures long and wide (medium, elongate). Description and habitat Pimientos can have various colors including yellow ...

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

, papaya and

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

. Though the fishing industry is declining, Trelawny still produces a large amount of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

. There are ten beaches along the coast, with more than 30 boats each, as well as 27 fish ponds. There are 25 factories in the parish. These produce

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is produced i ...

, and apparel, among other things. Two of the eight remaining sugar factories in Jamaica are in Trelawny —Hampden Sugar Factory, and Trelawny Sugar, formerly Long Pond Sugar Factory.

Politics

Trelawny Parish has two MPs and two

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

; Trelawny Northern and

Trelawny Southern Trelawny Southern is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Representatives of the Jamaican Parliament. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. It was one of the 32 constituen ...

Notable citizens

Trelawny Parish is the birthplace of several

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

athletes:

Usain Bolt Usain St. Leo Bolt (; born 21 August 1986) is a Jamaican retired sprinter who is widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time. He is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist and the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, ...

Veronica Campbell-Brown Veronica Campbell Brown (born 15 May 1982) is a retired Jamaican track and field sprinter, who specialized in the 100 and 200 meters. An eight-time Olympic medalist, she is the second of three women in history to win two consecutive Olym ...

Marvin Anderson Marvin Anderson (born 12 May 1982) is a Jamaican sprint athlete. He finished sixth in the 200m final at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka where he also won a silver medal in the 4 × 100 m relay team for Jamaica. He is a former student of ...

Ricardo Chambers Ricardo Chambers (born 7 October 1984) is a Jamaican track and field athlete who specialises in the 400 metres. Hailing from Trelawny Parish in Jamaica, he moved to the United States to study on a sports scholarship at Florida State University ...

, Omar Brown,

Michael Frater Michael Frater O.D (born 6 October 1982) is a Jamaican retired sprinter who specialised in the 100 metres event. He won a silver medal at the 2005 World Championships and a gold medal at the 2003 Pan American Games for the event. He has als ...

Lerone Clarke Lerone Ephraime Clarke (born 7 July 1981) is a Jamaican track and field sprinter who specialises in the 100 metres and the 60 metres. He is the former Commonwealth Games champion in the 100 m. His personal best for that distance is 9.99&n ...

Dane Hyatt Dane Hyatt (born 22 January 1984) is a Jamaican sprinter, competing in the 200 metres and 400 metres. In June 2012 Hyatt won the Jamaica Olympic trials 400m in a new personal best of 44.83 to qualify for the Jamaican team for the 2012 Summer ...

Rosemarie Whyte Rosemarie Whyte (born 8 September 1986) is the 2008 Jamaican national 400m champion. She represented Jamaica at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, and at the 2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games ...

Michael Greene Michael Harris Greene (November 4, 1933 – January 10, 2020) was an American actor who was active from the 1960s through the 1990s. Career Greene was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gladys () and Harry Greene. Early in his caree ...

, Inez Turner,

Debbie-Ann Parris Debbie-Ann Parris-Thymes (born 24 March 1973 in Trelawny Parish) is a Jamaican athlete who mainly competes in the 400 metres hurdles event. She finished 4th in the 1996 Summer Olympics. She has also won medals in relay. Parris-Thymes ran trac ...

Sanya Richards Sanya Richards-Ross (née Richards; born February 26, 1985) is a retired American track and field athlete who competed internationally for the United States in the 400-meter sprint. Her notable accolades in this event include being the 2012 Oly ...

, Ben Johnson and

Warren Weir Warren Weir (born 31 October 1989) is a retired Jamaican sprinter who specialized in the 200 metres. He was the bronze medallist in the event at the 2012 London Olympics, helping Jamaica sweep the event. In 2013, at the Moscow World Championsh ...

. The

supercentenarian A supercentenarian, sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian, is a person who is 110 or older. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of significant age-related diseases until short ...

Violet Brown Violet Brown (née Mosse; 10 March 1900 – 15 September 2017) was a Jamaican supercentenarian who was the oldest verified living person in the world for five months, following the death of Emma Morano on 15 April 2017 until her own death at the ...

(1900–2017), who was at a time the oldest verified living person in the world, was born and resided in Trelawny.

Shirley Nathan-Pulliam Shirley Nathan-Pulliam (born May 20, 1939) is a former American politician from Maryland and a member of the Democratic Party. She was the first African-Caribbean woman to be elected to the Maryland General Assembly. Pulliam resigned in 2019 du ...

, a

Jamaican-American Jamaican Americans are an ethnic group of Caribbean Americans who have full or partial Jamaican ancestry. The largest proportions of Jamaican Americans live in South Florida and New York City, both of which have been home to large Jamaican comm ...

politician who served in the

Maryland State Senate The Maryland Senate, sometimes referred to as the Maryland State Senate, is the upper house of the General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. Composed of 47 senators elected from an equal number of constituent single ...

, was born in Trelawny. It is also the birthplace basketball players

Samardo Samuels Samardo Samuels (born January 9, 1989) is a Jamaican professional basketball player who last played for Trotamundos de Carabobo. He is an NBA Veteran, Italian League Champion and Greek League All-Star. With a global career spanning over 15 years ...

and Kentan Facey. Other notable citizens include DJ Kamau Preston,

dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots reggae, roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2 ...

artists

Anthony B Keith Blair (born 31 March 1976), better known by the stage name Anthony B, is a Jamaican DJ and member of the Rastafari movement.Moskowitz, David V (2006) ''Caribbean Popular Music: an Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, and Dance ...

and

Charly Black Desmond Méndez (born 6 April 1980), better known as Charly Black, alternatively known as Charly Blacks, and originally known as Tony Mentol, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall singer, selector and singjay. He is best known for his track "Gy ...

, scholar

Rex Nettleford Ralston Milton "Rex" Nettleford OM FIJ OCC (3 February 1933 – 2 February 2010) was a Jamaican scholar, social critic, choreographer, and Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the leading research university in ...

, and American footballer

Atari Bigby Atari David Bigby (born September 19, 1981) is a former American football safety. He was signed by the Miami Dolphins as an undrafted free agent in 2005. He played college football at the University of Central Florida. Bigby was also a member o ...

References

External links

The Political Geography of JamaicaFalmouth News – Trelawny, Jamaica
{{coord, 18, 23, N, 77, 38, W, display=title, region:JM_type:adm1st_source:GNS-enwiki Parishes of Jamaica 1770 establishments in the British Empire