By BASIL WALTERS

Observer staff reporter

THE writing of Jamaica’s political history over the last 50 years and before would be incomplete without a deep analysis of the contribution made by the parish of St Catherine.

Once Jamaica’s largest parish, St Catherine has held strong ties with present prime minister Portia Simpson Miller, former prime minister Andrew Holness, both of whom were born there; as well as retired heads of government Edward Seaga, PJ Patterson, Bruce Golding, and former premier Norman Manley.

The historical stock was boosted in 2006 when Simpson Miller was elevated to sit in the prime minister’s chair, becoming the first St Catherine-born Jamaican to do so. There was a further plug when Andrew Holness, Jamaica’s youngest prime minister, sat at Jamaica House after Golding retired last October.

When Simpson Miller defeated Holness in the December 29, 2011 general elections, the parish’s fortunes soared to unprecedented levels.

Simpson Miller, who also has the distinction of being Jamaica’s first, and to date, only woman prime minister, having been sworn into office twice, was born on December 12, 1945 in Wood Hall, rural St Catherine, and was the country’s seventh prime minister from March 30, 2006 to September 11, 2007. She is now in her second stint, following on the heels of Sir Alexander Bustamante, Michael Manley, Seaga and Patterson as leaders who were elected more than once to head the Government. Of note, though, is that her first tenure in office came as a result of an internal PNP election.

Simpson Miller attended Marlie Hill Primary School in the parish before moving on to St Martin’s High School and Union Institute, Miami, Florida, where she read for a bachelor’s degree in public administration. She was later granted an honorary doctorate from the same institution.

Holness, who was born in Spanish Town of working class parents, attended St Catherine High School and the University of the West Indies.

There are three other former prime ministers and one premier who were not born in St Catherine, but have had ties to the parish at one phase or the other of their lives.

Patterson, Jamaica’s longest-serving prime minister, was the island’s political leader from 1992 to 2006. He was born in St Andrew on April 10, 1935. Patterson at age 57 became the country’s sixth prime minister and leader of the People’s National Party (PNP). He spent time in Spanish Town with his uncle, the late Reverend Carter Henry, who for many years, from the 1950s into the 1960s, was rector of Phillippo Baptist Church in Spanish Town.

In fact, Patterson passed his high school entry examination to attend Calabar High at the Spanish Town Elementary Government School, which historically was an old army barracks that became the first police training school before it was moved to Port Royal. The school that is now Spanish Town Secondary was commonly known as “Barracks School”.

Orette Bruce Golding, who took over the leadership of the country after being successful over Portia Simpson Miller’s PNP in the 2007 general elections, was born December 5, 1947. He served as prime minister from September 11, 2007 to October 23, 2011.

Golding is five days older than Simpson Miller. The son of Tacius Golding and Enid Golding (nee Bent), both teachers, he was the third of four children, the second (the only girl) died shortly after birth. He was actually born in Clarendon at the home of his godmother, Winnifred Stewart (who was the mother of Percival Broderick), where his mother was staying in order to be close to her doctor.

However, a few days after he was born he was taken to the family home at Ginger Ridge, St Catherine where his birth was officially registered.

Edward Phillip George Seaga, born May 28, 1930, was Jamaica’s fifth prime minister, serving from October 1980 to September 1989 and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party from 1974 to 2005. He served as leader of the opposition from 1974 to 1980 and again from 1989 until January 2005. His retirement from political life marked the end of Jamaica’s founding generation in active politics. He was the last serving politician to have entered public life before Independence.

Seaga was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Jamaican parents of Lebanese and Scottish descent. His parents — Erna and Phillip George — later returned to Jamaica when Edward was only three months old, and baptised their son at Kingston Parish Church on December 5, 1930. But it was to the parish of St Catherine that his passion for social anthropology led him to do the research for his thesis while studying at Harvard University.

For three years, Seaga took up residence in the village of Buxton Town where he explored the folk ways of the Jamaican people. It was from this experience, learning the religious traditions of Kumina and Pocomania, that he gained the knowledge that informed his advice to rebel members of the JLP in the early 1990s to “light a candle, sing a sanky, and find your way back home”.

“I took up residence in the village, in a cute little house that had just been built. Being a resident meant I could participate in all community affairs: school, religion, entertainment. I could also make after-dinner casual visits to various homes, or pass some time at the village shop to talk informally, mostly about events of the past, current affairs, village gossip and folklore. I found these sessions very informative in a way not likely to have been achieved by the usual format of visiting and interviewing during the day,” Seaga wrote in his autobiography.

Norman Washington Manley, national hero, one of the founders of the PNP in 1938 and former chief minister and premier of Jamaica from 1955 -1962, was born at Roxborough in Manchester in 1893. He was educated at Beckford & Smith High School (now St Jago) in Spanish Town, Wolmer’s Boys’ School, and Jamaica College. While attending Beckford & Smith High School, he was living at Guanaboa Vale from where he used to ride a horse to school.

He described himself thus in his autobiography: “I grew up as a bush man. I earned my pocket money cleaning pastures and chipping logwood. When I was not out in the bush, I was reading.”

“Situated nine miles from Spanish Town, Guanaboa Vale was a place of some importance in the early period of English colonisation. The name is of Arawak origin and is said to mean ‘house of gold’.”

But according to one Internet website, “Guanaboa Vale is located about eight miles south-west of Bog Walk, St Catherine. The area was once occupied by the Tainos, and it is believed that the word ‘guanaboa’ was derived from the Arawakan word for soursop, ‘guanaba’. Under Spanish occupation, Guanaboa was used as a cattle ranch, and by the time of British rule, the surrounding area was known as ‘Cowhides’.”

What is certain, is that a new chapter of St Catherine’s rich history has been written.

Ironically though, even sadly, that new chapter is going to be tainted with a picture of neglect. The people of the parish, while regarding it as a cultural treasure, describe it as the most disregarded, despite its strong contribution to the leadership pantheon of Jamaica.

The streets of Spanish Town (the capital of St Catherine) which for 338 years enjoyed the status as the longest serving capital city of Jamaica (from 1534 to 1872), are at the time of the island’s Independence, the worst that can be seen anywhere, the people often complain.

A raft of historical buildings and monuments, including the old iron bridge over the Rio Cobre at the eastern entrance to Spanish Town built in 1801 at a cost of £4,000, are still reminders of the parish’s priceless history.

St Catherine boasts the first free village at Sligoville, 10 miles from Spanish Town where the chains and shackles used on black people for more than 400 years are buried. Overlooking the old capital and a significant area of the parish and part of the eastern section of the island, is Pinnacle, the birthplace of Rastafari (the faith of Bob Marley) and a part of Brand Jamaica.

“Spanish Town is in ruins,” declared governor Sir Lionel Smith in December 1836.

Hundreds of years later, Terrence Williams, commissioner of the Independent Commission of Investigations, hummed the same tune.

“I am from Spanish Town. In fact, it is my home. And it is somewhat sad that the Rotary Club of Spanish Town cannot find a good venue in Spanish Town to meet. I am always saddened by the fact that Spanish Town has been slowly decaying. And how our once beautiful town is now looking uglier and uglier. But perhaps a few years from now we might see a re-blossoming of Spanish Town,” Williams said while addressing a recent meeting of the Rotary Club of Spanish Town in St Andrew.

This year, “St Catherineites” will look forward to a highly anticipated grand celebration of 50 years of nationhood which also coincides with the 174th anniversary of Emancipation.

Already the citizens of St Catherine are asking the prime minister and leader of the opposition for a commitment to help return Spanish Town to its metropolitan splendour and, by extension, the entire parish to its glamorous history.

As Clinton Black writes about St Catherine: “It’s a loveable ghost, with a past both lurid and glamorous.”

One of St Catherine’s historic buildings in Spanish Town.

Another of the historic buildings in Spanish Town, St Catherine that stands in ruin.