Portland Jamaica: History and Overview

The very mention of the name of the parish Portland immediately evokes images of a part of Jamaica that many Jamaicans wish to visit if they have never been,  and to return at every opportunity once they have had the  ‘portie’ experience

The secret of Portland’s pull is its sleepy charm, dramatic coastline, sparkling waterfalls and romantic caves. Extending from the island’s north-east coast to the highest reaches of the Blue Mountains, high rainfall throughout the year gives the parish its lush green appearance and the tranquility of a mod

The parish has had a chequered history. It could be described as a ‘riches to rags’ story, attaining the  heights of fame and fortune to the comparative  lows of  today’s stunted growth and development. The area that makes up today’s Portland was originally settled by the Spaniards but there was little attempt at development until after the English conquest, and the formation of the parish in 1723. It was given the name Portland after the Duke of Portland, the English governor at the time and it was they who laid out the town of the capital Port Antonio, built a fort which they  named Fort George on the peninsula, and a naval station on what is today’s Navy Island.

The town of Port Antonio is tucked between two landlocked harbours and is probably Jamaica’s most beautiful port. It got its name originally from the Spaniards who named it Port Anton which the English changed to ‘Titchfield’ only for it to be changed back to Port Antonio a few years later. Settlement was slow at first because of constant harassment by the Windward Maroons operating from settlements in the hills above the town , including Nanny Town named after the legendary leader Queen Nanny who was later to be named Jamaica’s only female National Hero. The Maroons were eventually dislodged  in 1734 and by a peace treaty with the British were given land to establish Moore Town in the Rio Grande Valley. Thereafter, Portland ,like most other parts of Jamaica, became a sugar-producing parish manned by African enslaved labour until sugar was dislodged as ‘king’ by the banana. 

Portland’s love affair with the banana began in 1871 when an American Dow Baker exported the first shipment of 1,450 stems of bananas from Port Antonio to Boston in the USA where they sold ‘like hot bread’ and from which he made a handsome profit. What began as an experimental shipment was to grow into Jamaica’s largest export crop in the short space of 20 years and to make Port Antonio one of the richest towns in Jamaica. The banana trade was once so large that at one time it was claimed that weekly sailings from Port Antonio was greater than the weekly sailings from the great English port of Liverpool. At the height of the trade, seventeen lines of steamers were operating from the port

Dow Baker dominated the Jamaica banana trade  and through a series of mergers created the United Fruit Company,  perhaps the first and only multi-national corporation  ever to establish itself in Portland. The parish became the cradle of the ‘fruit trade’ , so dominant was the banana that ‘the fruit’ became a synonym for the banana.  The total domination of the Portland economy and society at the end of the 19^th and early decades of the 20^th century  was not just a ‘big man thing’; the entire parish became involved and made a comfortable living as small and medium-sized banana growers or working as ordinary labourers in the town as stevedores loading the numerous banana boats day and night on end. The spirit of the period and the life of the ‘banana man’ is captured in this poem by Evan Jones, himself the son of a banana farmer:

Touris, white man,wipin his face

Met me in Golden Grove market place

He looked at m’ol’ clothes brown with stain

An soaked right through with Portian rain

He cast his eye, tun up his nose

He say’ you’re a beggar man I suppose?’

He says ‘Boy get some occupation

Be of value to your nation.’

I said ‘By God an dis big right han

You must recognize a banana man.’

Countless numbers of Jamaican schoolchildren have recited this Evan Jones poem Song of the Banana Man without ever being taught its significance in the history and development of the parish of Portland. The second stanza of the poem is even more evocative of what pastoral  parish life was like:

‘Up in the hills where de streams are cool

An mullet an janga swim in de pool

I have ten acres of mountain side

An a dainty-foot donkey that I ride

Four Gros Michel and four Lacatan

Some coconut trees an some hills of yam

An I pasture on that same lan

Five she goats an a big black ram

Dat by God an dis right han

Is the property of a banana man

The Portland small banana farmer and the labourers who loaded the ships were also immortalized into song popularized by Harry Belafonte in the Banana Boat Song or what is popularly known as Day-oh. The Jamaica folk song version goes something like this: 

Day-oh ,day-oh

Day da light and mi waan go home

Come missa tallyman, come tally mi banana

Day da light an mi waan go home

Six han, seven han eight han bunch!

Day da light an mi waan go home

The parish of Portland was not only the cradle of the banana trade but was also the origin of Jamaican tourism. The two activities were inextricably linked as over time, the banana ships also brought passengers from the US encouraged by Dow Baker. Long before Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril became centres of attraction for tourists, Portland and Port Antonio in particular was playing host to visitors from the US and Europe. The tourists not only came in on the banana boats but later in their own yachts.  In addition to modest hotels and rooming houses in the town, one of the earliest hotels built to accommodate them  was the once-famous Titchfield Hotel opened in 1897 by the Boston Fruit  Company. Well-known personalities like Rudyard Kipling, Randolph Hearst and Bette Davis were among its regular guests. J.P Morgan Jnr. reputedly the world’s wealthiest man at the time would winter every season in his yacht in the Port Antonio harbour. But the ultimate in luxury , unrivaled even today by the most modern and exclusive hotels was Frenchman’s Cove opened in 1962. Arguably the world’s and certainly the Caribbean’s first truly all-inclusive resort, Frenchman’s Cove has played host to royalty including Queen Elizabeth II, actress Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Richard Burton, Marlon Brando of ‘The Godfather” fame, The Beatles , Ian Fleming and Errol Flynn the international playboy. Vanity Fair magazine once described it as a resort for the ‘very,very rich’.

In his famous book The Middle Passage, Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul had this to say about Frenchman’s Cove:

I had heard about Frenchman’s Cove almost as soon as I got to Jamaica. In a land of expensive hotels……..Frenchman’s Cove was said to be the most expensive. No one was sure how expensive. Some said US$2,000 for a couple for a fortnight, some said US$2,500……. And even so one Jamaican told me with almost proprietorial pride, you were turned away if it was found that you weren’t in the New York social register. It seemed though that once you were accepted you could order exactly what you wanted to eat; you could drink as much as you wanted; you could take boat trips and air trips around the island; motor cars were at your disposal , horses, rafts; you could telephone anywhere in the world. You could even leave Frenchman’s Cove if you didn’t like it and stay at a hotel of your choice . Frenchman’s paid.

The banana industry  peaked around the mid-1930s  with exports of 335 tonnes but  as banana exports went into decline  so did the rest of the  economy of the parish. In time the international jet set also found new playgrounds and the parish’s fragile and underdeveloped tourist industry also declined.

On balance  Portland has little to show from these years of plenty. Its one major high school Titchfield was founded in 1729 funded by a Trust set up for the provision of free education and located on the same peninsula as Fort George whose old barracks still house part of the school. With the exception of the College of Agriculture no major educational institution of national stature has been established in the parish, no new industries introduced and it is as if the parish has become frozen in time. Some people say Portlanders like it that way; it keeps away the undesirables and the exploiters and the parish has a record of one of the lowest crime rates in the country. However, recent years have seen a revival of the tourism product with new investments in upscale hotels and the improvement of existing facilities led by locally-born billionaire Michael Lee Chin. In recent years too the younger upwardly mobile millennials have begun to ‘discover’ Portland and in some ways have attempted to mimic the lifestyles of days gone by.

In all these ups and downs and changes of fortunes, what has never changed is the innate and natural beauty of the parish and that laid-back nonchalance, fierce pride and haughtiness of the native Portlander of  Evan Jones’s Banana Man. Neither has Portland lost any of its appeal as one of the most beautiful parishes in Jamaica with its white sand beaches at San San, Frenchmans’ Cove, Boston  Bay, Long Bay and Fairy Hill ; its waterfalls at Somerset and Reach Falls; its mysterious Blue Hole and the ‘folly’ of Folly Estate.

Rafting on the Rio Grande remains a one-of-a-kind experience and was for many years the most familiar symbol of Jamaican tourism and a first for Portland now copied by other parishes.  The maroon settlement at Moore Town is the most accessible in the island, located in the Rio Grande valley.

For many visitors, the ultimate Portland experience is a gastronomic one – authentic jerk pork prepared in traditional Maroon style in open pits in the ground at Boston Bay. These days pork is only one of the many ‘jerked’ fares on offer including sausages, chicken, fish and lobster. Jamaican jerk can be found on menus of the most sophisticated restaurants of New York, London and Toronto; in eateries around the Caribbean; in the all-inclusive enclave hotels of the north coast and at every rest stop and roadside shack in Jamaica . But while it can be imitated, its not Portland jerk because there is only one place in the world  you can have the genuine article and that’s in Portland parish.

St. Mary

DID YOU KNOW?

[bs-quote quote=”Ian Fleming wrote his first James Bond novel in Portland
More international movies have been filmed in Portland than in any other parish in Jamaica with such films as Lord of the Flies; Cocktail; Club Paradise and Treasure Island to name a few
Navy Island was first known as Lynch Island after a British governor of that name
Portland has the only modern-day castle in Jamaica built in the 1970s and now operated as part of the upscale Trident Hotel owned by native –born billionaire Michael Lee-Chin. It has played host to personalities like Jhonny Depp, Robin Williams, Kate Moss and Tom Cruise” style=”style-7″ align=”center” color=”#dd3333″][/bs-quote]

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