Falmouth, Jamaica

Location :

Falmouth is the chief town and capital of the parish of Trelawny in Jamaica. It is situated on Jamaica's north coast 18 miles east of Montego Bay. It is noted for being one of the Caribbean's best-preserved Georgian towns.Founded by Thomas Reid in 1769, Falmouth flourished as a market centre and port for forty years at a time when Jamaica was the world's leading sugar producer. It was named after Falmouth, Cornwall in the United Kingdom, the birthplace of Sir William Trelawny, the Governor of Jamaica, who was instrumental in its establishment.The town was meticulously planned from the start, with wide streets in a regular grid, adequate water supply, and public buildings. It even had piped water before New York City.HistoryDuring the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Falmouth was one of the busiest ports in Jamaica. It was home to masons, carpenters, tavern-keepers, mariners, planters and others. It was a wealthy town in a wealthy parish with a rich racial mix. Within the parish, nearly one hundred plantations were actively manufacturing sugar and rum for export to Britain. Jamaica, during this period, had become the world's leading sugar producer.All the above made Falmouth a central hub of the slave trade and the now notorious cross-Atlantic triangular trade, with its economy largely based on slavery. In Falmouth Harbour as many as 30 tall-ships could be seen on any given day, many of them delivering slaves transported under inhumane conditions from Africa and loading their holds with rum and sugar manufactured by slave labour on nearby plantations.

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