Wild Jamaica

Rose Hall is a beautiful yet ghostly mansion that’s worth a visit for those who enjoy history and a good scare.

As the story goes, Annie Palmer was raised in Haiti as the daughter of English and Irish colonists.  When her parents died, she is said to have learned both witchcraft and voodoo from a nanny. Seeking fortune and a new life, she eventually moved to Jamaica to marry the owner of the Rose Plantation, John Palmer, on whom she cast a spell on to acquire–19th Century Tinder. Her goal apparently was simple: Marry up. What wasn’t so simple, and indeed not so common, was her plan to kill her husband and become the owner of the plantation. After some time, she is said to have killed her husband John and achieved her goal of becoming the plantation master. Annie Palmer reportedly ruled the plantation ruthlessly, utilizing both the terror of violence as well as her reported strength in the dark arts to control and punish her slaves on the plantation. Not one for being alone apparently, she married again, but this time kills her second husband by stabbing him to death in a fit of rage. Palmer then marries again (dudes apparently not getting the hint) and strangles him with the help of a slave by the name of Takoo with whom she had developed feelings. When she died, at the hands of her lover Takoo no less, she vowed vengeance beyond the grave and reported still haunts the property to this day. Maybe it was the story itself. Maybe it was the quiet and odd menacing way the guide delivered the tale–you felt that she admired and channeled Annie Palmer in parts–but I was unnerved for the remained of the bus ride.