White Witch of Rose Hall

The White Witch is a legendary story of a haunting in Jamaica. According to the legend, the spirit of "Annie Palmer" haunts the grounds of Rose Hall, Montego Bay.
Legend.
According to the legend, the spirit of "Annie Palmer" haunts the grounds of Rose Hall Plantation near Montego Bay. The story states that she was born in Haiti to an English mother and Irish father and spent most of her life in Haiti. When her parents died of yellow fever, she was adopted by a nanny who taught her witchcraft and voodoo. She moved to Jamaica and married John Palmer, owner of Rose Hall Plantation. Annie murdered Palmer along with two subsequent husbands and numerous male plantation slaves, later being murdered herself by a slave named "Takoo". A song about the legend called "The Ballad of Annee Palmer" was recorded by Johnny Cash. For many years Cash owned the nearby Cinnamon Hill Great House.
Investigations.
Geoffrey S. Yates, Assistant Archivist, Jamaica Archives, claimed that the story started with an account by Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell of the strangling of Mrs. Palmer at the adjacent Palmyra Estate in 1830. However, the passage in Waddell's memoirs simply includes a footnote claiming, "The estate furnished scenes and characters for Dr. Moore's novel "Zeluco". The cellars and spikes used by a lady owner therefor the necks of her slaves I have seen, and also the bed on which she was found dead "one morning", having been strangled". However, the novel has an anti-slavery theme, and the only scenes set in the Caribbean are located in Cuba and feature none of the details claimed by Waddell. Waddell, himself an abolitionist, was also writing in the context of the Baptist War of which Waddell was a first-hand witness. He stated that the Palmyra Estate was set on fire alongside the Kensington Estate, located further in land as a signal for a general insurrection.
The legend was elaborated by the journalist John Castello in 1868. Castello was the owner of the local "Falmouth Post" when he published a small pamphlet "Legend of Rose Hall" and erroneously describes a memorial in St. James Church to "Anne Palmer".
An investigation of the legend in 2007 by Benjamin Radford concluded that the story was fictionalized and modeled on the title character in a famous Jamaican novel, "The White Witch of Rosehall" by Herbert G. de Lisser, published in 1929. An Annie Palmer unrelated to Rose Hall did exist, and by all accounts had no tendencies toward sadism or lechery. "Rough Guide To Jamaica" author Polly Thomas writes that the name of Annie Palmer may have become confused with Rosa Palmer, the original mistress of Rose Hall who did have four husbands but was said to be unwaveringly virtuous.