Saint Thomas, once known as Saint Thomas in the East, is a suburban parish situated at the south eastern end of Jamaica, within the county of Surrey. It is the birthplace of the Right Honourable Paul Bogle, designated in 1969 as one of Jamaica's seven National Heroes. Morant Bay, its chief town and capital, is the site of the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865, of which Bogle was a leader.

Representative George William Gordon, a wealthy mixed race businessman and politician from this district, was tried and executed in 1865 under martial law on suspicion of directing the rebellion. Governor Eyre was forced to resign due to the controversy over his execution of Gordon and violent suppression of the rebellion. Gordon was designated in 1969 as a National Hero. Saint Thomas was densely populated by the Taíno/Arawak when Christopher Columbus first came to the island in 1494. The Spaniards established cattle ranches at Morant Bay and Yallahs. In 1655, when the English captured Jamaica, they organised their new territory into a number of parishes. This was when Saint Thomas Parish was established, administering part of what is now Portland Parish, which was not established until 1722, and excluding what is now the western part of the parish, which was in the historic Saint David Parish. The Crown invited residents from other British colonies to settle here. About 1600 colonists, mainly from Nevis – including the Governor of Nevis, his wife, children – settled there. In a short time, however, two-thirds of them died of tropical fevers.