A Royal Cover-Up in Kingston

I bet you didn't know that the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre was once a "slave pen". We had a couple clues. It looks like a medieval fortress and underground tunnels lead directly to Kingston Harbour. That's about all the public knows about the building. And there is almost no mention of it or the people who ran it in our history books.

First, let's go back 300 years. Almost 900,000 Africans landed at Kingston Harbour. Smaller ships took some of the Africans to other colonies. The remaining Africans were mostly sold in Kingston, which was the epicenter of the slave trade. The city grew quickly because of it. At first, Africans were sold from the decks of ships. But then the trade became more "civilized" and moved to houses in Kingston.

One of the main slave traders was the Royal African Company (RAC). That illustrious company was founded by one of King Charles III's ancestors, King James II. He was the Duke of York at the time he led the company. His older brother, King Charles II, granted RAC a monopoly of all English trade with West Africa, including the slave trade. And the monopoly was enforced by the Royal Navy.

The RAC operated from military forts along the African coastline. They later lost the monopoly but remained the most important player in the slave trade. Historians state that in Jamaica the RAC transformed an old fortification into a slave pen and sold slaves from a building called the "African house".

At the slave pen, Africans were fed and prepared for sale. We can only imagine how they suffered at the hands of the savages... My sincerest apologies, I meant slavers. Innocent men, women, and children were shackled together and herded into the medieval dungeon. The stench of tremendous evil filled every inch of the building.

My research leads to one conclusion: the slave pen the RAC operated was eventually transformed into a workhouse (a prison for rebellious slaves). It was later called the Kingston District Prison and then the General Penitentiary (GP). And it is now known as the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre. By the way, I searched high and low for official documents regarding the prison, but they probably don't exist anymore because the British government destroyed documents regarding their rule. Yes, you read that correctly (see link in comments).

Almost two hundred years after the abolition of slavery, Africans are still being imprisoned in the same pen their forefathers' Jamaican horror story began. This building is our Elmina Castle. And it should be treated accordingly.

Not only has the history of GP been covered up, but the history of Kingston has been covered up too. It's an inconvenient truth that the Royal Family and most white people in Jamaica directly benefited from the evil slave trade. They would love us to forget. Will we?