JAMAICA, DAY 2, PART 2: SPANISH TOWN AND THE WORTHY PARK RUM PLANTATION

 February 16, 2023

Our next stop was a brief one in Spanish Town, the Spanish and then British capital of Jamaica from 1534 until 1872, a period of 338 years. 

On our way there we passed this interesting street sign. I have no idea why a hamburger would adorn a street sign, but it made me hungry. Maybe that is the point?

When we were researching where to go in Jamaica, I checked what the U.S. State Department had to say about safety. They gave Spanish Town a 4, which essentially means "Don't go there." When Bob asked his contact in Jamaica about that, she just laughed and said not to worry, just don't go at night. That was somewhat comforting. 

Originally called Villa de la Vega, the city was the second capital of the royal Spanish realm of Jamaica. It was seized in 1655 when English troops conquered the island, and the English renamed the area "Spanish Town." Jamaica's wealth was on full display here for the next 217 years. The most notable events that occurred around its main square include the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1834 and the Full Freedom proclamation in 1838. In 1872 the seat of government was moved to Kingston.

We focused on the four large buildings that border Emancipation Square.

This is the "Old King's House," erected in 1762. For almost 100 years, it was the residence of the governor of Jamaica. The aforementioned Emancipation Proclamation of 1834 was read from its steps. From a distance, it still looks pretty grand.

However, as we approached and got a closer look, we realized there was nothing behind the curtain; the front was a façade. A massive fire destroyed most of the building in 1925, and just the façade was renovated as part of a restoration project--a little odd. A museum is located in the rear in the building's stables, but it was closed when we visited.

Turning 90° to the right, we walked past the Jamaican Archives. Standing in front of them is this statue of Admiral Lord Rodney, who saved Jamaica from a French invasion in the Battle of the Saints in 1782.

Check out his interesting footwear. Those heads look a little like the Great Sphinx.

Turning another 90°, we walked past the  the House of Assembly, built in 1762 and the meeting place for the local legislature for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today it houses the offices of the parish council.

The final side of the square is the Old Court House, erected in 1819 but destroyed by fire in 1986. As Chad pointed out, it is a perfect setting for a post-apocalypse movie.

This aerial photo (borrowed from here) shows the layout.

Well, it was lunch time and we were hungry. We did something we rarely do--stopped at an American fast-food franchise, Pizza Hut. Bob and I both ordered a bottle of "Ting," a grapefruit soda in a green bottle that we had read about before the trip and wanted to try. After I opened mine and took a sip, I realized it was ginger ale. When I asked the girl behind the counter about it, she looked in the fridge and then announced that they were out of Ting, only having some that was "hot," which I took to mean not refrigerated. It seemed a bit odd that she wouldn't just tell me that before randomly choosing another soda in a green bottle for me. It was a kind of strange passivity that we encountered several times on the trip, as if the person serving us was afraid to disappoint us.

In any case, once our stomachs were full, we moved on to our last destination of the day, the Worthy Park Estate, one of Jamaica's oldest and largest sugar and rum producers. Our interest in the plantation was tied to Bob's research on the slave trade in Jamaica, because it was plantations like these that provided a market for slave labor. I think most of the enslaved brought to Jamaica ended up on sugar cane plantations.  

A  l-o-n-g, narrow, winding road finally crested with a view of a lush, flat valley surrounded by mountains--the Lluidas Valley, where British settlers (invaders?) used slaves to create a huge sugar and rum industry fed by the sugar cane they grew in this valley. 

You can see how extensive and rich this valley is. There was some kind of controlled burn going on--maybe clearing fields of the stumps of harvested cane?  

We passed truckload after truckload of harvested sugar cane on our way to the distillery, where we had signed up for a tour.

There was just so much of it!

The tour started with a video, and then we hopped aboard this trailer pulled by a tractor that ferried us around the factory property.  

This monstrous stainless steel tower holds 55,000 KG of sugarcane molasses, which is first fermented . . . 

. . . and then distilled.

Then it is typically aged in stainless steel tanks and oak barrels.

There were LOTS of oak barrels.

My favorite part of the tour was the bottling room. During the summers when I was 16 and 17, I worked at a conveyor belt at a cherry processing plant, so I could relate in some measure to the tedium of this job. However, see the woman sitting in front of what looks like a computer screen? The filled bottles pass in front of the brightly lit screen so that she can examine each bottle for impurities. That is worse than anything I've ever had to do. If I ever whine about doing something boring, I am going to remember her.

First the bottles are sterilized and filled.

Then the lids are screwed on the bottles.

Finally, the front and back labels go on the bottles, which are then packaged in cardboard boxes.

We learned that the longer the rum ages, the deeper its color gets.

Note that every worker is black. Jamaica's population is 97% black. However, guess who OWNS this factory? Generation after generation of white men, beginning in 1741. Before the tour we watched a short video that showed the current owners, a white man and his three sons. Even in the film, they were the only white people. No mention was made in the video or on the tour of slaves/slavery, and Chad said when he asked our guide a question about that, she shut him down immediately. Strange. So far on this trip we had heard nothing about slavery although practically everyone on the island is a descendant of enslaved people.

There were plenty of samples being offered, including rum punch at the beginning and some rum tasting at the end. They did have fruit punch for those (like us) who don't drink. They also gave us samples of sugar cane, which was totally different than what I have tried before in Hawaii. The canes were literally dripping with cane juice. Everyone was also given a small spoonful of sugarcane molasses used to make rum and a bit of crystallized cane sugar. 

On our way out they gave us two small bottles of  "overproof rum," or rum that is more than 50% alcohol by volume. We ended up leaving these as a "tip" at our next hotel room. 

We drove out through cane fields in various stages of growth. 

Over two hours later we finally arrived in Montego Bay and checked into our hotel. We met for dinner in the hotel restaurant where I had excellent "Currie Goat," Chad had jerk chicken, and Bob had stuffed red snapper. One random observation: Jamaica does not have diet soda. We did see a sign for Coke Zero later in the trip, and I think Bob might have had one Diet Coke, but that was it. Plenty of soda--just nothing sugar free. When you live on an island known for its sugar, maybe sugar-free soda is anathema.

TV MINI SERIES

Bob and I watched a three-part BBC television mini series called The Long Song set in early 19th-century Jamaica. It follows the life of an enslaved woman named July, who as a young child is taken from her mother on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica to serve as the personal maid for the plantation owner's very spoiled wife. July tells the story of her life from the vantage point of being a free woman many years later. Her story includes the brutal treatment of slaves, her loss of her own children, the slave revolt of 1831-32, the ultimate emancipation of slaves in 1838, and July's final years.

I enjoyed the TV series so much that when I learned it was based on an award-winning book of the same name by Andrea Levy, I had to get the book and read it. If anything, the book exposes even more brutality. It is a beautifully written, heart-breaking, and compelling story. I strongly recommend both the TV series and the novel.