About Morant Bay
Information about the Church of Christ in Morant Bay will be online soon.
Brief Facts About Jamaica
Jamaica is an incredibly beautiful island, with a tremendous amount of history and was discovered by the same person that discovered America, Christopher Columbus. He first visited the island on his second voyage in 1494; on another voyage in 1503 he was stranded on the north coast due to a shipwreck. After almost 150 years as a Spanish held island, the English ousted the Spanish and began their own colonization. Jamaica became a permanent possession of England after a many bloody battles in 1670.
The English quickly turned Jamiaca into a fortified and thriving port. On June 7, 1692, just before noon, a devastating earthquake struck the capital and in less than twenty minutes most of the city was completely destroyed leaving only a handful of survivors.
Despite the destruction of the capital city, the rest of the island prospered as a major agricultural center of the Caribbean. Due to its large size, fertile soil and abundant rainfall, Jamaica grew many crops, the most lucrative being sugar cane. An explosion in world demand for sugar allowed Jamaica to grow rich and powerful as more and more slaves were imported to the island to expand the plantations.
Over the years the ratio of slaves began to outnumber the owners. This resulted in many uprisings for many years until Jamaica became an official nation and entered the British Commonwealth on August 6, 1962.
Jamaican Motto: "Out of Many, One People"
Language: English and Patois... an English dialect
Flag description: diagonal yellow cross divides the flag into four triangles - green (top and bottom) and black (hoist side and outer side)
Area total:10,990 sq km (slightly smaller than Connecticut)
Climate: tropical... hot, humid
Terrain: mostly mountains, with narrow, discontinuous coastal plain
Elevation extremes: Caribbean Sea 0 m to Blue Mountain Peak 2,256 m
Government Type: Constitutional Parliamentary Democracy
Capital: Kingston
Administrative Divisions: 14 parishes... Clarendon, Hanover, Kingston, Manchester, Portland, St. Andrew, St. Ann, St. Catherine, St. Elizabeth, St. James, St. Mary, St. Thomas, Trelawny, Westmoreland
Religions:
Protestant 61.3% (Church of God 21.2%, Baptist 8.8%, Anglican 5.5%, Seventh-Day Adventist 9%, Pentecostal 7.6%, Methodist 2.7%, United Church 2.7%, Brethren 1.1%, Jehovah's Witness 1.6%, Moravian 1.1%)
Roman Catholic 4%
Other, including some spiritual cults 34.7%
Sources: http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/jm/index.html
http://www.jamaicatravel.com/