free vilages
FREE VILLAGES
Jóvan McNish
History
111
A free village is a settlement for ex-slaves who have left the estate to fend for their selves.
With full freedom from slavery and apprenticeship in 1838, there was the desire among some blacks for personal liberty and land of their own. This desire was heightened by the harsh treatment meted out to the ex-slaves by the planters. In many cases, the planters paid the slaves low wages and charged them high rental fees, which sometimes led to eviction from plantation dwellings. It was soon realised that freedom would have little meaning as long as planters controlled both the housing and labour of the ex-slaves. Free villages emerged as a solution to this problem.
In 1835, using land agents and Baptist financiers in England, the African Caribbean congregation of the Rev. James Phillippo (a British Baptist pastor and abolitionist in Jamaica) were able to discreetly purchase land, unbeknown to the plantation owners, in the hills of Saint Catherine parish. Under the scheme, the land became available to the freed slaves upon emancipation, by division into lots at not for profit rents, or for full ownership and title, where they could live free from their former masters' control. Phillippo’s success in St. Catherine further emboldened him and led to the establishment of a “Free Village” in Oracabessa later that same year.
Henry Lunan, formerly an enslaved headman at Hampstead Estate, purchased the first plot in the very first Free Village or Baptist Free Village scheme to come to fruition at Sligoville in the parish of Saint Catherine and named after the Marquess of Sligo, the Jamaican Governor at the time of abolition, ten miles north of Spanish Town. In 2007, a plaque was erected at Witter Park, Sligoville on May 23, as a Labour Day event to commemorate Jamaica's first “Free Village”.
Although the concept of “Free Villages” proved an immediate success, and many were set up, their establishment depended partly upon
Jóvan McNish
History
111
A free village is a settlement for ex-slaves who have left the estate to fend for their selves.
With full freedom from slavery and apprenticeship in 1838, there was the desire among some blacks for personal liberty and land of their own. This desire was heightened by the harsh treatment meted out to the ex-slaves by the planters. In many cases, the planters paid the slaves low wages and charged them high rental fees, which sometimes led to eviction from plantation dwellings. It was soon realised that freedom would have little meaning as long as planters controlled both the housing and labour of the ex-slaves. Free villages emerged as a solution to this problem.
In 1835, using land agents and Baptist financiers in England, the African Caribbean congregation of the Rev. James Phillippo (a British Baptist pastor and abolitionist in Jamaica) were able to discreetly purchase land, unbeknown to the plantation owners, in the hills of Saint Catherine parish. Under the scheme, the land became available to the freed slaves upon emancipation, by division into lots at not for profit rents, or for full ownership and title, where they could live free from their former masters' control. Phillippo’s success in St. Catherine further emboldened him and led to the establishment of a “Free Village” in Oracabessa later that same year.
Henry Lunan, formerly an enslaved headman at Hampstead Estate, purchased the first plot in the very first Free Village or Baptist Free Village scheme to come to fruition at Sligoville in the parish of Saint Catherine and named after the Marquess of Sligo, the Jamaican Governor at the time of abolition, ten miles north of Spanish Town. In 2007, a plaque was erected at Witter Park, Sligoville on May 23, as a Labour Day event to commemorate Jamaica's first “Free Village”.
Although the concept of “Free Villages” proved an immediate success, and many were set up, their establishment depended partly upon