By: Jamilah Owens
Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean located just south of Cuba. It measures about 4,411 square miles and stretches across 461 miles from east to west, and varies between 22 and 51 miles from north to south. The island is home to more than 2.7 million people of African, English, Chinese, East Indian, and Palestinian descent.
Much of Jamaica's history has been shaped by the efforts of other countries to rule and control the island. It is a history entrenched in oppression, violence, and tyranny, and the struggle for independence. For centuries, Jamaica has been used a layover retreat for Spanish galleons, a market for slaves and wares from other countries, and a valued asset for the British, Spain, marauders, and capitalists.
The Arawak
Around 600 A.D. the Arawak Indians arrived in Jamaica. They originated from northern South America, and were a peaceful people skilled as fishermen, hunters, and pottery makers. The Arawak called the island, Xymaca, which means "land of wood and water".
Spaniards and British Arrive
Christopher Columbus landed on the island in May 1494. By 1509, Spain had conquered and settled Jamaica. By the end of the 16th century, the Arawak Indian population had been eradicated at the hands of the Spaniards by European disease, slavery, and war. In 1517, Spain brought the first African slaves to the island. Jamaica remained under Spanish rule for 150 years. In 1655, the British conquered the island; and in 1670, it was formally ceded to Great Britain.
Slave Trade
Sugarcane dominated the economy into the 18th century. Sugar and slavery made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions in the world for more than 150 years. A sudden international demand for sugar allowed Jamaica to grow rich and powerful as more and more slaves, mainly Fante, Ashanti, Ibo and Yoruba people, were imported to the island to expand the plantations. Because of the inhumane nature of slavery, slave revolts became commonplace in Jamaica. Freed and escaped slaves (called the Maroons) continually fought the British. They demanded autonomy and the rights to the land (a desolate, virtually inaccessible hilly area called Cockpit Country) they inhabited. (Today, their descendants maintain the land and enjoy citizenry as Jamaicans.)
Slavery was abolished in Jamaica in 1833; but it was not until 1838 that slaves were actually emancipated. The sugar industry toppled as a result of emancipation. Britain bought in indentured laborers from China and India to work on the plantations, replacing the freed African slaves, who had taken to the hills.
Civil Unrest
The American Civil War, which was fought from 1861 to 1865, levied extreme economic hardships against the people of Jamaica. The island experienced numerous uprisings and struggles over land that culminated in the Morant Bay rebellion. The inhumane, brutal manner by which the British quashed the uprising forced Great Britain make Jamaica a crown colony.
In the years to follow, a national movement for independence began to take root. In the late 1930s, Jamaica achieved a level of local political control. The island held its first election where Jamaicans were granted the right to vote in 1944. Membership in the West Indies Federation, made up of nine other U.K. territories, was short-lived for Jamaica. It joined the federation in 1958, but withdrew after Jamaican voters rejected membership in 1961. Jamaica gained full independence on August 6, 1962, remaining a member of the Commonwealth.
Post Independence
Two cousins--Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley--have been at the forefront of Jamaican politics since the late 1930s and instrumental in post-independence political affairs. Bustamante, the island's first prime minister, formed the first trade union in the Caribbean in the 1940s. He later founded the Jamaican Labor Party (JLP). In 1938, Manley convened the island's first political party, the People's National Party (PNP).
With an interest in democratic socialism, Manley's son, Michael, assumed leadership of the PNP and steered it in a new direction. This move would prove detrimental to Jamaica's economy, which could ill-afford the eminent decline of foreign support--namely resources from tourism.
In 1980, Edward Seaga (JLP) won the election against Manley and began to restore some measure of economic stability to the island. He relinquished Jamaica's close relationship with Cuba, and embraced the new United States administration under Ronald Reagan's presidency. Manley was re-elected in 1989 and held office with a drastic change in political ideology. He retired in 1992, and was succeeded by the island's first black prime minister, Percival James Patterson (PNP). Patterson was elected in 1993 and won re-election in 1998. |
