6d – St Mary and St Ann – Hidden Churches, Plantation Churches, Courthouses and Workhouses

We are please to offer this very unique tour, examining how and why the Ethiopian Baptist movement was persecuted out of existence, through the destruction of their worshipping communities.  We visit Emmanuel Baptist Church in Port Maria a prime example of how congregations were persecuted, their locations ‘given up’ by maroon bounty hunters and then handed over to the Baptist Missionary Society who took all the credit for the Baptist witness in Jamaica.  We will also visit the remains of Pembroke  Hall Plantation, home of free African American pastor George Gibb who not only established a church there, but lived there with his enslaved wife. This tour also travels south to the ruins on which once stood Rodney Hall Court and Workhouse, once known as ‘The Hell hole of Jamaica’ because of its notoriety in torturing the enslaved who were sent there for punishment which could last for a day, a week or a lifetime. Come and learn about the treadwheels which operated there and which during Apprenticeship was responsible for causing the deaths of hundreds of men and women.  Our day will conclude with a visit to Dolphin Cove, where you will be able to feed the dolphins.