THE CAGE

You can't miss the main square of Montego Bay's Downtown: Sam Sharpe Square, where two giant lighted screens have been installed and are easily recognizable behind a small fountain in a rotunda-shaped paved square. Here you will find the interesting Montego Bay Cultural Center, housed in a beautiful 19th century building, a permanent night and day entertainment, and one of the most famous relics of the island's slave era, The Cage. Originally built in 1806, its bell tower put in place in 1811, the first building was replaced in 1822 by the current building, a modest square red brick and mortar structure topped by a tiny brick-tiled belfry. Its size, small for a prison, indicates how symbolic its role was. Vagrants, unruly sailors, runaway slaves or those who had not left the city by 3pm to join their plantation as the ringing of a bell told them to, in short all undesirables spent the night in this miniature prison. There they waited for their fate to be determined, either to be sent back to the plantation for severe correction or to be transferred to a real prison. A striking and even terrifying place that says a lot about the treatment inflicted on slaves. Its colonial architecture with its small old bricks contrasts with the modernity of the colored concrete houses around. The former night prison now houses a very classic souvenir store.