Rowe's Corner Monument

The Rowe’s Corner Monument, located in Manchester, commemorates the first elementary school for black children in Jamaica. The school, originally called Sommerset, was established in 1823, which was around the same time when the Amelioration Act was passed.  Amelioration was aimed at forestalling the process of full abolition of slavery by seeking to make piecemeal and false improvements to slavery such as religious instructions of the enslaved population and less punishment. This policy failed.

In 1826, the school was transferred to St. Elizabeth after a donation of 500 acres of land from a member of the Jamaican Assembly to continue and expand the work. By 1838, the Moravian missionaries also erected a church building at the site and named it Lititz. The school eventually took the name of the church and a thriving community, of the same name, also emerged.

Today, the school still stands, and a monument now marks the original site where the school was erected.  The monument is a tetrahedron (three-sided triangle). There are symbols engraved on all three sides of the monument. A torch, which represents enlightenment and hope, is on all three sides. Three other symbols, one on each side of the monument, are also engraved. There is the Moravian Church seal and motto. The seal portrays a Lamb with a banner of victory and proclaims “Vicit Agnus Noster, Eum Sequamur, which means, “Our Lamb Has Conquered, Let Us Follow Him.” There is the cross, which is the principal symbol of the Christian religion, and there is the infinity symbol, which signifies the concept of limitlessness and eternity. (Remember to cite.)