Sligoville
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2019}}
{{Use Jamaican English|date=March 2019}}
{{Infobox settlement
| name = Sligoville
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| settlement_type = Village
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| coordinates = {{coord|18|06|N|76|57|W|type:city_source:GNS-enwiki|display=inline,title}}
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| subdivision_type = Country
| subdivision_name = Jamaica
| subdivision_type1 = Parish
| subdivision_name1 = St. Catherine
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| established_title = First settled
| established_date = 1835
| founder = Rev. James Mursell Phillippo
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Sligoville (formerly known as Highgate) is a small community approximately 10 miles from Spanish Town in the parish of St. Catherine on the island of Jamaica.
History
On 10 July 1835, Reverend James Phillippo, an English Baptist minister and anti-slavery activist stationed in Spanish Town, purchased {{convert|25|acre}} of land for £100 and established the first "free village" in the West Indies.{{cite web|title=Sligoville|url=http://www.jnht.com/site_sligoville.php|publisher=Jamaica National Heritage Trust|access-date=9 March 2014}} The land was subsequently divided into quarter-acre lots which the freed slaves could purchase for £3 each.{{cite web|url=https://jis.gov.jm/sligoville-jamaicas-first-free-village/|title=Sligoville – Jamaica's First Free Village|date=6 August 2018|access-date=9 May 2020|publisher=Jamaican Information Service}} The first former slave to purchase land in Sligoville was former Hampstead Estate headman Henry Lunan.{{cite news|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20140816/sligoville-jamaicas-first-free-village-established-prepare|title=Sligoville - Jamaica's First Free Village Established To Prepare For Emancipation|date=16 August 2014|newspaper=The Gleaner}} What became known as the "Free Village" system resulted from this first settlement, and similar villages were established throughout the island, most of them by ministers of religion, who supplied land to the ex-slaves who had never owned land before.{{cite book|title=Cultural Studies|year=1992|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-90345-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_hgYfQP5aRMC&q=%22sligoville%22&pg=PA264}}{{cite news|last=Serju|first=Christopher|title=Bairds Bare Sligoville's Rich Past|newspaper=The Gleaner|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110129/life/life3.html|date=29 January 2011}}
Originally named Highgate, the village was renamed as Sligoville (after Howe Browne, Marquess of Sligo and Governor of Jamaica in 1834, the year that freedom came to the enslaved people of Jamaica) on 12 June 1840. Phillippo later established a church and school in Sligoville. The ruins of the Highgate House, which was the residence of several British governors, can still be viewed in Sligoville today, along with the private chapel St. John's Anglican Church that John Augustus O'Sullivan founded in 1840 and the Sligoville Great House, also built by O'Sullivan. The Sligoville Heritage Foundation Benevolent Society, founded by direct descendants of Jamaican slaves, co-organises the annual Sligoville Emanci-Fest with the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.
Site of Pinnacle, the first Rastafarian village in Jamaica (founded 1940, demolished 1958), see Leonard Howell for details.
Notable people
- Shirley Anne Tate (born March 1956) Jamaican sociologist, scholar, researcher, educator, and author; raised in Sligoville.{{Cite web|date=2017-04-27|title=Interview with Shirley Tate|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/people/interview-shirley-tate-leeds-beckett-university|access-date=2021-06-12|website=Times Higher Education (THE)|language=en}}