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Jamaica

Jamaica is an island country rich in cultural history located in the Caribbean Sea basin just south of Cuba, east of the Yucatán Peninsula, and due West of Haiti. Jamaica, which enjoys a subtropical climate year round, is separated into a number of provinces called “parishes” where its approximately 2.7 million people live according to 2007 estimates. Its chief exports are bauxite and aluminum, yet it also exports sugar, citrus, and bananas. The culture of Jamaica is a multifac-eted phenomenon involving the convergence of African, Native American, and European history and lineage. Human inhabitation began with the Native American Arawak tribe, then transitioned to Spanish control briefly, and then to the British, who ruled the colony for 300 years before its independence in 1962. This entry looks at that history.

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The Arawaks

The history of Jamaica begins with the Arawak Indians of Jamaica, who lived in prosperity in Jamaica until the 15th century. The Arawak, Native Americans originating in the Andes Mountains, settled many Caribbean islands off the coastal countries of South America. There is some debate about whether the Taíno Indians also inhabited the island. The natives were skilled in hunting and trapping, and maintained complex social structures, economy, and politics. Their contributions to society include the hammock and tobacco.

The arrival of the Europeans marked the end of Arawak prosperity because the natives were enslaved and ultimately decimated by disease. By the late 15th century, smallpox had so diminished the island's Arawak population that demand for labor rose, and consequently the first Black slaves were brought to Jamaica around 1517. From that time, Jamaica became one of the largest importers of slave labor into the New World.

The European Colonists

Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer contracted by the Spanish, arrived at Jamaica during his second voyage to the West Indies in 1494. The Spanish took control of what was then an underdeveloped island. The Spanish colonial economy relied on ship repair and buccaneering and as a result was constantly subjected to pirate attacks. In 1655, the Spanish were displaced by the British, and Jamaica began slave importation and sugar production in earnest.

Jamaica's coastline and rolling hills were deemed highly fertile land, and the British began to export citrus in addition to sugar and bananas. During the late 17th and most of the 18th centuries, the British called Jamaica the Jewel of the Empire, as Jamaican exports generated by slave labor on sugar plantations increased England's profitability margins. The Caribbean climate and the island's strategic location were important contributing factors that led to its rise as one of the prized Crown Colonies of England during the colonial period. Today, the European proportion of the population is at 0.2%

The African Creoles

Because of the large amounts of labor required for sugar production during colonial times, the African population of Jamaica was a solid majority of 90.1%. By 1807, more than 600,000 Africans had been brought to the island, most of them purchased through the transatlantic trade routes that originated in forts on the Gold Coast of Africa, the Bight of Benin, Lonango, Melimba, and Cape Benda. In Jamaica, the Africans were taught skilled labor trades such as masonry, shipbuilding, and plantation maintenance. Many slaves did not stay in Jamaica but were shipped to other colonial islands such as Antigua or Trinidad, or as far as the United States. High amounts of labor required to work the sugar fields demanded a slave population many times larger than the number of colonists. In 1790, for example, the number of English colonists on the island was 23,000, whereas the number of slaves was 256,000, roughly 11 slaves to 1 English settler. This uneven ratio was the root of slave revolts that were a colonial reality in Jamaica.

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