Brief History
The earliest inhabitants of Westmoreland were the Arawak and Ciboney Indians. The Ciboney were first to arrive from the coast of South America around 500 B.C. They were also known as “cave dwellers” and lived along the cliffs of Negril. The labyrinth of caves and passageways beneath what is now the Xtabi Hotel in Negril are one of the first known settlements of Ciboney Indians in Jamaica.
Christopher Columbus stopped at Westmoreland on his second voyage when he landed in Jamaica. One of the first Spanish settlements was also built at what is now Bluefields in this parish.
The parish was named Westmoreland in 1703, because it was the most westerly point in the island. Savanna-la-Mar, a town by the coast, replaced Banbury as the capital in 1730.
In 1938, riots at the Frome sugar estate, changed the course of Jamaica's history. The changes that came in the wake of these riots led to universal adult suffrage in 1944, as well as a new constitution, which put Jamaica on the road to self government and eventually independence. The two national heroes, Sir Alexander Bustamante and Norman Washington Manley, emerged as political leaders during this time.
Read more about this topic: Westmoreland Parish
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)