Montego Bay

Montego Bay opens on the northwestern coast of Jamaica, where a harbour serves the surrounding parish of Saint James. During the eighteenth century it grew into a major port for the export of sugar and the trade in enslaved Africans. Ships arrived from Africa, Britain and North America, linking the plantations of western Jamaica with Atlantic markets and making the town a centre of commerce.

In 1831 Samuel Sharpe, an enslaved Baptist leader in Montego Bay, organised a strike to demand freedom. The action spread through western Jamaica and developed into a major rebellion. Colonial forces suppressed it, and Sharpe was tried and hanged in Montego Bay in 1832. The uprising added to the pressures surrounding the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.