The history of Jamaica, and of St. Ann's Bay in particular, is closely entwined with the Columbus dynasty. Christopher Columbus discovered the island during his second voyage to the New World.  Entering present-day St. Ann's Bay, which he named "Santa Gloria," on May 5, 1494, he declared that the island was "the fairest that eyes had beheld."  The discoverer returned to the bay in 1503 while on his fourth voyage.  Unable to make sufficient headway on the return passage to Hispaniola due to the waterlogged condition of his ships, he beached the caravels at Santa Gloria and remained there with his crews until their rescue a year later.  

In 1509 Diego Colon, his eldest son and newly appointed Governor of the Spanish West Indies, laid personal claim to Jamaica by establishing the town of Sevilla la Nueva near the place where his father had been marooned.  Although Jamaica lacked the lucrative mineral resources to attract large numbers of Spanish settlers, it did have fertile soil and an abundant supply of native labor. The island played an important role in early colonizing ventures into Central America by supplying foodstuffs and animals to the Spanish conquistadors and their troops. At the height of its prosperity Sevilla la Nueva had a population of 80 and contained a fort, a Governor's palace, a sugar mill, and a cathedral, the construction of which was never completed.  Documentary sources state that the town site was moved a short distance in 1519, but the relocation did not bring increased affluence. 

Sevilla la Nueva was abandoned in 1534, when its few remaining inhabitants moved to the south coast of the island.  Historic accounts point to the unhealthy environment of the surrounding mangrove swamps as the cause of the town's demise; the actual reasons, however, may have been economic.  By the third decade of the sixteenth century the main Spanish shipping routes were diverted to Jamaica's south coast, making it unprofitable to maintain a major port and center of administration in the north.

St. Ann's Bay is also the birth place of the international renown civil rights leader and Jamaican hero "Marcus Mosiah Garvey", Reggae icon "Burning Spear".  It is also the capital of the parish of St. Ann from which the legendary Reggae Superstar "Bob Marley" lived.

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