The Pre-Twentieth Century Collection, also known as the ‘Historical Collection’, is an assembly of numerous visual art objects dated from as early as circa 1000 AD to the late nineteenth century. It contains pre-Columbian artefacts such as ‘zemis’ produced by the Jamaican Taino people; stone relics and maps from Jamaica’s Spanish Colonial Period as well as lithographic prints, paintings, sculpture, furniture and crafts produced within the first two centuries of the English Colonial period, leading up to the eventual abolition of chattel slavery in Jamaica between 1834 and 1838.

Among the many themes illustrated by this extraordinary collection are expressions of human dignity as well as notions of wealth and exoticism. Other themes reflect the suppression of the artistic and cultural freedoms of the Taino as well as the island’s enslaved Africans and their descendants. The Pre-Twentieth Century Collection also introduces the emergence of the artisanal communities that were within or adjacent to port cities like Port Royal, specializing in ceramics and the crafting of exotic materials such as turtle shell.