Jamaica / History, Population, Politics

For a Caribbean island, Jamaica has a long and turbulent history. And in parts both romantic and extremely brutal. For a while it was the richest colony in the Caribbean, built on the back of the brutal subjection of slaves. As always it was a leader in the British Caribbean. 

It started quietly enough. A number of Arawak tribes lived in Jamaica before the arrival of the Europeans. The Tainos led a fairly simple life, fishing, gathering food from the wild and cultivating small plots. They lived incaneyes, wooden, thatch-roofed cottages, slept in hammocks woven from cotton and made pottery. They wore few clothes but painted their bodies. Perhaps the most striking thing about them was that they deformed their skulls, binding them so that they formed a point, and made the bone extremely hard - tough enough to break the Spaniards’ swords sometimes. The name Jamaica derives from an Arawak word Xamayca, which, so the speculation goes (there is little evidence for it), meant ‘land of wood and water’. If nothing else it is a good appreciation of what the island is like. 

It is thought that there were around 100,000 Tainos living on the island at the time that the Europeans arrived. Within a hundred years they were wiped out. They died in hordes from European diseases such as smallpox, even the common cold, to which they had no resistance. (They did manage to pass back syphilis and tobacco, so they had some revenge.) Also, the Spaniards also used them brutally in their search for gold and then put them to work on plantations. 

Columbus landed and claimed the island for Spain May 4th 1494. (Now it is believed that he sailed into the bay at Rio Bueno, and not Discovery Bay as was once thought.) His only return to the island was on his fourth voyage in 1503, when he then limped in after a year’s exploration, his ships in such bad repair that he had to beach them and use the wood to build a defensive fort. The authorities in the main colony in Hispaniola knew he was there but didn’t want him interfering in their colony. He mouldered there for a year before they saved him. 

In 1510 the Spaniards arrived to colonise the island, setting up their first settlement at Sevilla la Nueva on the north coast. The island remained a backwater in the gradually developing New World - Cuba and Santo Domingo were more important initially, then even they were rejected as the Spaniards turned to the Spanish Main – and so Jamaica was used as a supply station for other islands, farming pigs and ranching cattle. Little Spanish influence remains in Jamaica nowadays, beyond the names of a few towns and rivers. They did however leave a nasty surprise for the British colonists in 1655. 

The British, or English as they were known then, took the island after an unsuccessful invasion of Santo Domingo, a part of Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design (to take as much Spanish territory as possible in the New World). Eight thousand soldiers descended on the undefended island. They landed at Kingston, marched to Spanish Town and took it without loss of life. Unlike previous invasions, they never left. The Spaniards fought them on and off for five years but in 1660 they gave up and left for Cuba. The nasty surprise they left was that they released and armed their slaves. The Maroons battled with the British for nearly 100 years. 

The British immediately fortified Port Royal. It quickly became the home base of the buccaneers, and unofficially the springboard of English operations against the Spaniards in the Caribbean. The buccaneers were an unofficial army in times of war, when they carried letters of marque from the Governor, giving them permission to capture enemy shipping. Of course they never quite lost the habit in peacetime, and carried on their activities, which then tipped into piracy (even if it often had the tacit assent of the Governor). Port Royal became the richest place in the world for its size in a few years and the ‘wickedest city in Christendom’. Until a natural vengeance was wreaked on it by the earthquake of 1692. 

Meanwhile the British were attempting to develop the sugar plantations, cutting into the forests and planting cane. And for their part the maroons did their best to prevent it, by raiding the plantations at night, burning them and encouraging the slaves to escape. Runaways were welcomed and so there was a general haemorrhage of slaves from the plantations. Only the coastal areas could be protected. Eventually, in 1739, a treaty was signed with theMaroons, who were awarded their own areas where they could live undisturbed as long as they returned runaway slaves. 

It was at this time that the plantations really got in gear in Jamaica and a uniquely brutal system of slavery developed. It also fuelled the slave trade with its infamous ‘Middle Passage’, in which Africans were packed aboard ships for the trans-Atlantic voyage in appalling conditions. Slavery lasted for another 100 years, until the mid 1800s, when outside pressure forced it to be made illegal. Slavery officially ended in 1834 and full emancipation came in 1938. Eventually West Indian sugar itself became uneconomic and although other trades came to the fore, for instance the export of bananas, the island steadily slipped into the doldrums. 

The twentieth century saw a rising black consciousness, led by men such asMarcus Garvey, who became Jamaica’s first National Hero, and as elsewhere in the Caribbean, a political consciousness too, that gave birth to trade union movement. From it eventually grew the political parties that forced universal adult voting rights in 1944 and eventually Independence from Britain. The two most colourful figures were Alexander Bustamante, leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, and Norman Manley, who led the People’s National Party. After a brief attempt at a West Indian Federation for a few years from 1958, Jamaica took its independence on 6th August 1962. 
 

Population 

Jamaica is the largest English-speaking island in the Caribbean and it currently has a population of approximately 2.71 million, with the greatest concentration of people living around the capital, Kingston. The island’s second town, Montego Bay, in the north west, is far smaller, at less than 100,000 inhabitants. 

Around 91% of Jamaicans are of African descent. The remainder are made up of 7.3% mixed race, 1.3% East Indian, 0.2% Chinese and 0.2% of European descent and 0.1% “other” such as Syrians, Lebanese, and Jews. The literacy race is just under 88%. 
 

Politics 

Jamaica has been an independent nation since 1962, when it took its independence from Britain. It is still a member of the British Commonwealth and it retains a Westminster style bicameral parliamentary system with a Prime Minister at its head and a Governor General, currently Sir Patrick Allen, who is appointed by the British Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, as the official Head of State. Jamaica is currently led by Portia Simpson-Miller of the People’s National Party (PNP), who defeated Andrew Holness of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) with a 41 to 22 seat victory on 29 December 2011 – former Prime Minister Holness had called for an early election shortly after his leadership takeover of the JLP on 23 October 2011, following the resignation of then PM, Bruce Golding. The JLP had been elected to power in September 2007 after a 33 to 27 seat victory at the polls. The incumbent party, the PNP has previously been in office from 1989 to 2007 under PJ Patterson and Jamaica’s first woman Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller. Other major parties the National Democratic Party (NDM) and the United People’s Party (UPP).

Contributors: Deana Bellamy (update December 2011)