The Freedom Monument which stands 10 feet tall in the courtyard of the Montego Bay Cultural Centre, was established by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) and the St. James Parish Council (now Municipal Corporation), as a tribute to the many ancestors who fought bravely to end slavery in the Emancipation wars of 1831 -32 which started on the night of Tuesday, December 27, 1831. On that night, one of the enslaved set fire to John Henry Morris’ property of Kensington in St. James. The torching of this property signalled the enslaved on other properties to join the war.
The war lasted from December 27, 1831 to January 31, 1832. It involved anti-slavery activists from about 300 plantations, pens, rural settlements and urban holdings and affected the parishes of St. James, Trelawny, Westmoreland, Hanover, Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Portland, St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and St. Thomas-in-the-East.