Patricia Green | Conserving heritage akin to serving God

April 18 was the global recognition of the International Day for Monuments and Sites (IDMS). Its 2025 theme is “Heritage under Threat from Disasters and Conflicts.” The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) is promoting this, including “Preparedness and Learning from 60 years of ICOMOS Actions.” Significantly, 2025 marks 40 years of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) 1985 Act.

If Fort Rocky at Port Royal is to be used as a lesson, many may agree that since March, this heritage has been under threat from disaster and surrounded by conflicts. The JNHT Act defined ‘development’ requiring protection in two parts. First, it relates to alteration, removal, repair, restoration or demolition of or addition to, any national monument. Second, to carry out building, engineering or other operations in, on, over or under any national monument or the making of any material change in the structure, appearance or use of any such national monument. Additionally, the Act elaborated that a ’national monument’ is any building, structure, object or other work of man or of nature or any part or remains thereof whether above or below the surface of the land or the floor of the sea. Note critically as emphasised, this Act stated ‘nature’ and ‘land’ as heritage requiring protection. Both are akin to God’s domain, which we are required under God’s law to steward.

The Jamaica National Anthem asks the Eternal Father to bless our LAND. In Genesis, God told a sibling that He heard the blood of his brother crying out from the land. Closer to home, 333 years ago on June 7, 1692, two-thirds of the town of Port Royal sank into the sea because of a massive earthquake and tidal wave or tsunami. Many persons had been warning about the vulnerability of the Port Royal terrain. When the English came in 1655 and decided to build the town there, the Spanish who finally acquitted Jamaica through the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, had warned them that the Tainos had advised against inhabiting the spit because of frequent earth movements and regular flooding. This went unheeded.

KEPT EXPANDING

The town was founded 1661 and kept expanding although being advised to halt further construction developments. Port Royal had no available water. All access to Port Royal was from the sea hence water had to be shipped to the town from Rockfort. Water scarcity encouraged the residents to drink instead immediately available rum awaiting export. Within 31 years, this town had become infamous as the ‘richest and wickedest city in the world.’ The blood had been crying out to God from the land. Descriptions and letters of the time spoke to the judgement of God, and afterwards many went into repentance, including the city of London, England on account of our Jamaica Port Royal disaster. As an atonement to God, a law resulted that June 7 should become a perpetual day of fasting and prayer in Jamaica.

Emmanuel Heath, the Anglican rector for Port Royal, wrote that he formed a prayer circle during the 1692 earthquake. Miraculously, he and others who knelt with him were saved. Like 17th century Port Royal, blood cries from the land to God continuously across towns and communities in Jamaica. We read of the high crime statistics. Many are associated with overcrowded communities that frequently become explosive, exacerbated by the continuous presence of police and military operations. Such communities have a history of land injustices. Christopher Burgess wrote: ‘Land for the few: How history locked Jamaicans out of home-ownership.’ Land iniquity continues to intensify the suffering of the poor. The constant cry for land, land titling, affordable housing, Burgess outlined, includes housing affordability for young professionals. Where is the clergy that will make atonement to encircle the people for the Jamaica land, lest we all be judged?

REMOVE LABELS OF SQUATTING

My Gleaner commentaries have argued that the labels of squatting must be removed from generational family lands that formerly enslaved Africans bought with cash and left as inheritance. Historically, the Jamaica church has been pro-active against injustices. Elder Sam Sharpe in 1831 led his congregation to lobby for church attendance at Christmas instead of being forced to work. Baptist, Moravian, and Presbyterian clergy petitioned for the 1834 British Emancipation of slavery.

Clergyman Rev James Phillippo who evangelised George William Gordon, led the establishment of systems for freed Africa people to purchase land and build houses with their cash. The chains of slavery were buried in the grounds of Phillippo Baptist Church in Spanish Town as a symbol of Emancipation. By the 1860s, the church again became active. Elders Gordon and Paul Bogle facilitated petition submissions and marches from rural areas to the Governor in the capital of Spanish Town, to cry out against land injustices. Heritage Week in October each year was established to remember those marches and petitions. Is God still hearing historic blood crying from the land in Jamaica?

This year IDMS was on Good Friday when Christendom remembers the action of Jesus going to the cross for the sins of the world, may be a cry for the Jamaica clergy to arise again. Restoration extends beyond the JNHT. The Book of Isaiah calls for a fast. This exhorts those from among you to use the old rubble of past lives to build anew the old waste places, to raise up and rebuild the foundations of many generations from out of your past. You shall be known as those who can fix anything, be called the repairer of the breach, restorer of streets to dwell in, rebuild and renovate old ruins and cities, make communities liveable again.

Patricia Green, PhD, a registered architect and conservationist, is an independent scholar and advocate for the built and natural environment. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com