Inside
Jamaica
’s Museums
Our Museums provide an interesting
journey into our past to discover and experience the fascinating stories of our
people.
The Taino Museum of the First
Jamaicans at White
Marl, St. Catherine gives a unique look into the pre-Columbian world of the Tainos
- their origin, food, religion customs, economy, technology and craft and the horrific
genocide that destroyed them. This
museum is a memorial to those first Jamaicans who met Christopher Columbus and his
crew on
Jamaica
’s shores.
The Fort Charles Museum traces the sometimes-infamous history
of Port Royal; from the Tainos, to the heady days of piracy with its fabulous wealth,
terrible vice and reputation as the ‘...richest and wickedest city on earth' and
the devastating 1692 earthquake that sent a section of the city to the ocean’s floor,
the story of Port Royal’s transformation into an important British naval installation
under the command of the brilliant, young Admiral Nelson, as site of the premier
naval hospital during the Crimean War and so much more.
The Peoples Museum of Craft
& Technology celebrates
the creativity and industry of the newly emancipated people as they fashioned a
new life for themselves in the towns and rural villages across
Jamaica
. This exhibition offers a truly nostalgic
trip down memory lane back to ‘Ol’ Time Jamaica’ to reminisce, enjoy and to truly
appreciate our foreparents’ triumph over enormous odds to secure our future in modern
Jamaica
.
The Museum of St. James and
the Hanover Museum
both chronicles the history of their respective parishes. These fascinating parishes
share and differ on many aspects of their past.
Both were home to the Tainos and later the Spanish who exported lard
from Bahia de Manteca (Montego Bay). Both museums tell how these parishes
formed a significant part of
Jamaica
’s sugar belt and slavery stronghold and are proud home to the brave who sacrificed
their lives in the massive Sam Sharpe Rebellion that virtually ended slavery. The
Hanover
Museum
then records the arrival of the indentured African indentured immigrants from
Itaji
,
Nigeria
who gave the Ettu dance to
Jamaica
. The
Montego Bay Museum
recalls when peasant agriculture flourished; Banana became King, the beginning of
the ‘Banana boats’ and the coming of tourists to the island.
They both tell how
Hanover
became a picturesque getaway for the wealthy and Montego Bay rose to become the
‘playground of the stars’ and Tourism capital of
Jamaica
.
Military Museum
The
Military Museum
at Up Park Camp honours the proud history of Jamaicans in the military.
Through a fine display of Taino, Spanish, British and Contemporary
martial objects, the exhibition traces Jamaica’s military heritage from 700 A.D.,
t