Jamaica

Jamaica, an island in the West Indian archipelago that encircles the Caribbean Sea, has a land area encompassing 4,471 square miles, an area slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. The climate is mostly tropical, with a temperate interior. The terrain is predominantly mountainous, reaching a height of 7,400 feet in the Blue Mountain range. The nation's population in 2007 was approximately 2.7 million, 49 percent of which lived in urban areas. The ethnic divisions are as follows: 90 percent African; 7.3 percent multiracial; 1.3 percent East Indian and Afro-East Indian. Ethnic diversity plays a major role in Jamaican history.

Although recorded Jamaican history began with European arrival in the New World, Jamaica has a rich pre-Columbian history. Its earliest inhabitants were the peaceful Arawak Indians who sought refuge from the more aggressive Caribs. Unfortunately, little remains of their culture. Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct some patterns from kitchen middens, burial caves, and other artifacts. Although Jamaica provided the necessary refuge from the Caribs, no such haven could protect the Arawaks from the Europeans.

Christopher Columbus, on his second transatlantic voyage, arrived in Jamaica on May 5, 1494, going ashore at what is now called Discovery Bay. He received a less than hospitable welcome from native inhabitants. On further excursions, he found the natives living on the western part of the island more amiable. As Jamaica was not a source of gold, Spain used it mainly as a supply base. Whereas the first Spanish community, Sevilla la Nueva, was unsuccessful, other settlements and townships, most notably St. Jago de la Vega (Spanish Town), became well established. Settlers introduced the banana and most citrus fruits.

English interest in the island dated from at least 1569, but not until 1643 did the British attach much importance to it. During this time, Spanish-English relations became more tenuous. In 1655, under Cromwell's "Western Design," Admiral William Penn and General Oliver Robert Venables attacked Jamaica after being routed by the Spaniards at Santo Domingo, having relatively little trouble taking the island. The Spaniards, intent on making British occupation temporary, freed their black slaves, who escaped to the mountains and aggravated the British through guerrilla warfare. These guerrillas would later become known as Maroons.

In 1656 some 1,600 colonists came to the island, settling around Port Morant. While the soil was healthy, the surrounding area was swampy, and within three months 1,200 colonists had died. The Spaniards tried at various times to recapture the island but failed. Jamaica was legally ceded to the English by the Treaty of Madrid (1670), but the island received only nominal English attention. It was not until large sugar plantations displaced the small independent settler that the island increased in political importance.

Beginning with the seventeenth century, sugar and slavery were central factors in Jamaica's development. By 1673 sugar had become Jamaica's staple crop, the "gold" sought by the Spaniards. For the most part, absentee ownership was the preferred form of plantation management. Slaves and intensive labor were needed to tend sugarcane. During the eighteenth century, approximately five thousand slaves per year were brought to Jamaica. The slaves brought their customs and religions, which were often an important force in slave rebellions.

The Maroons, the freed Spanish slaves who had escaped to the dense forest interior, also carried out rebellions. They molested the English from the very beginning, swooping down from the hills, raiding farms and towns, and burning fields. Escaped slaves flocked to the Maroons, swelling their numbers and strengthening their position. Conflict with the Maroons lasted until 1796 and cost the British approximately £250,000.

Resolving the Maroon conflict, however, did little to rectify social inequalities for the Jamaican slave. Men and women continued to suffer under the prevailing system. Foreign events promoted the continued use of slavery on Jamaica. First, wars with both the United States and France were costly, and Jamaica's sugar and coffee were important commodities in financing the wars. Second, as ideas from the French Revolution filtered to the Caribbean and especially Haiti, slaves of that nation clamored for freedom. After a failed attempt to take Haiti, but having witnessed its slave rebellions, the British returned to Jamaica determined to prevent similar uprisings.

In 1838, humanitarian efforts in England coupled with resistance to slavery led to emancipation. As in many nations, however, the abolition of slavery brought new social struggles. In Jamaica two distinct societies continued to exist. At times social diversity led to increased tensions, as with the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, in which the peasantry revolted against the planter class.

Social tensions exacerbated a declining economy. Jamaica's agricultural industry remained highly susceptible to fluctuating world markets and economic conditions, and continued to decline until the pre-World War II era, when England reinstituted isolationist policies and subsidies for its colonies. This refuge was temporary.

When Jamaica received its independence in 1962, social tensions continued to permeate Jamaican life. The black shoulder continued to bear Jamaica's poverty. Out of these conditions grew the influential Rastafarian religious movement. Founded in the 1930s, the Rastafarians advocated black nationalism and recognized the ties of the people to Africa. Black nationalism was strengthened by the civil rights movement in the United States. In 1963 Jamaicans took to the streets of Kingston, inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. The Kingston protests were strongly anti-imperialist and pro-socialist; the calls for an end to social injustices, however, fell on deaf ears at the official level.

This intransigence was made all too clear when popular Guyanese lecturer Walter Rodney, an advocate of black power, was denied entrance into Jamaica by Prime Minister Hugh Shearer on October 15, 1968. The following day black Jamaicans once again took to the streets in protest. The demonstration resulted in substantial property damage and the loss of two lives. Shearer labeled Rodney a subversive and a Communist. Although calls for reform sounded from many parts of the country, legislators were slow to respond.

In the 1970s, the failure to respond to social injustice allowed a socialist government under the leadership of Michael Manley and the People's National Party to come to power. Poor economic world trends, however, produced many hardships for Jamaica, and while Manley's government did make gains in social justice, real economic changes were hindered. The socialist experiment failed in 1980, after which Jamaica was ruled by the more conservative Labour Party. Under Prime Minister Edward Seaga, Jamaica reestablished ties with the International Monetary Fund, yet continued to struggle with its debt. Economic and social conditions were exacerbated when, in 1988, Michael Manley once again returned to power. Enacting austerity measures and continuing a free-market approach, the People's National Party was positive about Jamaica's future. Manley was able to convince major world powers to forgive a substantial portion of Jamaica's debt.

Manley stepped down in 1992 and P. J. Patterson of the People's National Party became prime minister until 2006. Fellow party member Portia Simpson-Miller replaced him and became the first female prime minister. However, Bruce Golding of the Jamaican Labour Party defeated Simpson-Miller in the 2007 election. While the economy went through a recession in the mid-1990s, Jamaica has experienced moderate economic growth in the early twenty-first century. Nevertheless, income inequality and high unemployment will continue to be policy concerns.

See alsoBritish-Latin American Relations; Buccaneers and Privateers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrahams, Peter. Jamaica: An Island Mosaic. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1957.

G. Beckford, George, and Michael Witter. Small Garden, Bitter Weed: The Political Economy of Struggle and Change in Jamaica. London: Zed Press, 1982.

Black, Clinton V. The Story of Jamaica from Prehistory to the Present. London: Collins, 1965.

Ingram, Kenneth E. Jamaica. Oxford, U.K.: Clio, 1984.

Knight, Franklin W. The Caribbean: Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Knight, Franklin W., and Colin A. Palmer, eds., The Modern Caribbean Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Looney, Robert E. The Jamaican Economy in the 1980s Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986.

Manley, Michael. Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery. London: Third World Media Ltd., 1982.

McCarthy, Lloyd D. Independence from Bondage: Claude McKay and Michael Manley: Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007.

Nettleford, Rex. Jamaica in Independence. London: James Currey, 1989.

Payne, Anthony J. Politics in Jamaica, rev. edition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

                                    Allan S. R. Sumnall