17th century
English conquest
In late 1654, English leaderEarly English colonisation
Despite the fact that Jamaica was an English colony, Cromwell increased the island's white population by sending indentured servants and prisoners captured in battles with theMaroons
When the English capturedJamaica's pirate economy
Spanish resistance continued for some years after the English conquest, in some cases with the help of the1692 earthquake and the collapse of Port Royal
On 7 June 1692, a violent18th century
Jamaica's sugar boom
Growth of slavery
The oppression of the enslaved Africans in Jamaica was considered by contemporaries to be amongst the most brutal in the world. Punishments heaped on enslaved African populations by white enslavers included forcing one enslaved person to defecate in the mouth of another enslaved person and then gagging the victim for several hours and forcing them to swallow it (a practice known as Derby's Dose), floggings, whippings to the point of loss of life, "pickling" which was whipping a person until there were open wounds and then placing the victim in a vat of salt and banana peppers (another part of Derby's Dose), hanging by the feet, gang rape, branding on the forehead, and more. In 1739, Charles Leslie wrote that, "No Country excels amaicain a barbarous Treatment of Slaves, or in the cruel Methods they put them to Death." Jamaica's Black African population did not increase significantly in number until well into the eighteenth century, in part because the slave ships coming from the west coast ofFirst Maroon War
Starting in the late seventeenth century, there were periodic skirmishes between the colonial militia and the Windward Maroons, alongside occasional slave revolts. In 1673 one such revolt in St. Ann's Parish of 200 enslaved Africans created the separate group of Leeward Maroons. These Maroons united with a group of Madagascars who had survived the shipwreck of a slave ship and formed their own maroon community in St. George's parish. Several more rebellions strengthened the numbers of this Leeward group. Notably, in 1690 a revolt at Sutton's plantation in Clarendon freed 400 enslaved Africans, who then joined and strengthened the Leeward Maroons. The Leeward Maroons inhabited "cockpits," caves, or deep ravines that were easily defended, even against troops with superior firepower. Such guerrilla warfare and the use of scouts who blew the abeng (the cow horn, which was used as a trumpet) to warn of approaching militiamen, which allowed the Maroons to evade, thwart, frustrate, and defeat any expeditions sent against them. In 1728, the British authorities sent Robert Hunter to assume the office of governor of Jamaica; Hunter's arrival led to an intensification of the conflict. However, despite increased numbers, the British colonial authorities were unable to defeat the Windward Maroons.. By 1739, the colonial authorities recognised that it could not defeat the Maroons, so they offered them treaties of peace instead. In the same year, the colonial authorities, led by Governor Edward Trelawny, sued for peace with the Leeward Maroon leader,Tacky's Revolt
Among the population of Africans human trafficked for slavery, one was named Ancoma. In the 1750s, one captive named Ancoma escaped and formed a community made up of other escaped captives in what is now known as Saint Thomas Parish, Jamaica, Saint Thomas Parish. In 1759, Ancoma was eventually killed by a Maroon woman and another woman, both his captives. However, his community continued to thrive, and probably formed the basis of the community of Jack Mansong later that century. The colony's enslaved Africans, who outnumbered their white captors by a ratio of 20:1 in 1800, mounted over a dozen major slave conspiracies (the majority of which were organised by Coromantins), and uprisings during the 18th century, including Tacky's revolt in May 1760. In that revolt, Tacky, an enslaved Akan man forced to work as slave overseer on the Frontier plantation in Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, Saint Mary Parish, led a group of enslaved Africans in taking over the Frontier and Trinity plantations while killing their enslavers. They then marched to the storeroom at Fort Haldane, where the munitions to defend the town of Port Maria were kept. After killing the storekeeper, Tacky and his men stole nearly 4 barrels of gunpowder and 40 firearms with lead shot, shot, before marching on to overrun the plantations at Heywood Hall and Esher. By dawn, hundreds of other enslaved Africans had joined Tacky and his followers. At Ballard's Valley, the rebels stopped to rejoice in their success. One newly freed captive from Esher decided to slip away and sound the alarm. Obeahmen (Caribbean magic practicianers) quickly circulated around the camp dispensing a powder that they claimed would protect the men from injury in battle and loudly proclaimed that an Obeahman could not be killed. Confidence was high. Soon there were 70 to 80 mounted militia on their way along with some Maroons from Scott's Hall, who were bound by treaty to suppress such rebellions. When the militia learned of the Obeahman's boast of not being able to be killed, an Obeahman was captured, killed and hung with his mask, ornaments of teeth and bone and feather trimmings at a prominent place visible from the encampment of rebels. Many of the rebels, confidence shaken, returned to their plantations. Tacky and 25 or so men decided to fight on. Tacky and his men went running through the woods being chased by the Maroons and their legendary marksman, Davy the Maroon. While running at full speed, Davy shot Tacky and cut off his head as evidence of his feat, for which he would be richly rewarded. Tacky's head was later displayed on a pole in Spanish Town until a follower took it down in the middle of the night. The rest of Tacky's men were found in a cave near Tacky Falls, having committed suicide rather than going back to slavery. The revolt did not end there, as other rebellions broke out all over Jamaica, many of which were attributed to Tacky's cunning and strategy. Other enslaved people learned of Tacky's revolt, which inspired unrest and disorder throughout the island. Rebels numbering about 1,200 regrouped in the unsettled mountainous forests in western Jamaica, under the leadership of a rebel slave christened Wager, but going by his African name of Apongo. They attacked eight slave plantations in Westmoreland Parish and two in Hanover Parish, killing a number of whites. Whenever they were faced with defeat, many rebels committed suicide. Militia writers boasted that about 700 rebels were killed in the western conflict. Thistlewood noted the stench of death emanating from nearby woods, where white colonizers also reported encountering hanging bodies of African men, women and children. Rebels were surrendering every day. On July 3, the "King of the Rebels" Apongo was among those rebel Africans captured by the militia. Another rebel named Davie was executed by being put in the gibbets to starve to death, which took a week to reach its conclusion. Apongo himself was hung up in chains for three days, after which he was to be taken down and burnt to death, according to his sentence. The remaining rebels then fell under the leadership of an escaped slave named Simon, which took refuge in theRunaway communities in the Blue Mountains
Maroon communities continued to be a safe haven for any enslaved people who managed to free themselves, or who were freed during Maroon attacks on plantation. In addition, despite his defeat, Tacky's revolt continued to be a source of inspiration for enslaved people to resist, either by rebellion or by running away. Jack Mansong, better known as Three Fingered Jack (Jamaica), Three Fingered Jack, was an escaped slave who formed a community of runaways in eastern Jamaica in the 1770's and 1780's. The runaway community thrived in the same parish of St-Thomas-in-the-East, protected by the forested Blue Mountains, from where they often attacked sugar plantations and enabled other slaves to escape. They also attacked white travellers on the roads. In 1781, Jack was killed by a party of Maroons. However, Jack's runaway community continued to thrive under his deputies. In 1792, Dagger was captured by the colonial militia, but Toney then took over as leader of the community of runaway slaves in St Thomas, and they were never apprehended or dispersed.Second Maroon War
In 1795, the Second Maroon War was instigated when two Jamaican Maroons, Maroons from Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town), Cudjoe's Town were flogged by a Black slave for allegedly stealing two pigs. When six Maroon leaders came to the British to present their grievances, the colonial authorities took them as prisoners. This sparked an eight-month conflict, spurred by the fact that the Trelawny Maroons felt that they were being mistreated under the terms ofHaitian Revolution
In 1791, a Haitian Revolution, slave revolt broke out in the French colonial empire, French colony of Saint-Domingue. British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger directed a concerted and ultimately unsuccessful effort to capture the colony from France while it was occupied with the French Revolution. As part of this effort, troops from Jamaica, including Afro-Jamaican "Black Shot" militiamen were among the British forces dispatched to Saint-Domingue. Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, who served the Secretary of State for War in the Pitt ministry, instructed Sir Adam Williamson, the lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, to sign an agreement with representatives of the French colonists in Saint-Domingue which promised to restore the ''ancien regime'', Slavery in Haiti, slavery and discrimination against mixed-race colonists- a move which drew fierce criticism from British abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson.19th century
Minorities campaign for rights
In the 18th century, a number of slaves secured their freedom through a variety of means, such as enduring sexual slavery to white plantation owners, who viewed their sex captives as "mistresses". In 1780, one of these free people of color, Cubah Cornwallis, became well-known when she nursed British naval hero Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, back to health in Port Royal when he took ill. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Jamaica Assembly granted Jews voting rights that had previously been denied them. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807/8, the Jamaican Assembly felt they needed the support of minority groups in order to avoid the complete emancipation of the slaves. At first, the Assembly resisted attempts fromSlave resistance
Hundreds of runaways secured their freedom by escaping and fighting alongside the Maroons. For those who joined with the Maroons of Trelawny Town, about half of them ended up surrendering with the Maroons, and many were executed or re-sold in slavery to Cuba. However, a few hundred stayed out in the forests of theThe Baptist War
In 1831, enslaved Baptist preacher Samuel Sharpe led a strike among demanding more freedom and a working wage of "half the going wage rate." Upon refusal of their demands, the strike escalated into a full rebellion. The Baptist War, as it was known, became the largest slave uprising in the British West Indies, lasting 10 days and mobilised as many as 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slave population. The rebellion was suppressed by British forces, under the control of Willoughby Cotton, Sir Willoughby Cotton, but the death toll on both sides was high. The reaction of the Jamaican Government and plantocracy was far more brutal. Approximately five hundred Black people were killed in total: 207 during the revolt and somewhere in the range between 310 and 340 were killed through "various forms of judicial executions" after the rebellion was concluded, including at times, for quite minor offenses (one recorded execution indicates the crime being the theft of a pig; another, a cow). An 1853 account by Henry Bleby described how three or four simultaneous executions were commonly observed; bodies would be allowed to pile up until the blacks enslaves in the workhouses carted the bodies away at night and bury them in mass graves outside town. The continued attacks, uprisings, and wars for independence, as well as the brutality of the plantocracy during the revolt is thought to have accelerated the process of emancipation, with initial measures beginning in 1833.Decline of sugar and Emancipation
Some historians believe that with the Abolitionism, abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and slavery itself in 1834, the island's sugar- and slave-based economy faltered. However, Eric Williams has argued that the British only abolished first the slave trade and then slavery itself when they were no longer economically viable institutions.Eric Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery'' (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1945). During most of the eighteenth century, a Monocropping, monocrop economy based on sugar production for export flourished. In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade. Despite the British Parliament's Slave Trade Act 1807, 1807 abolition of the slave trade, under which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after 1 March 1808 was forbidden, sugar continued to have some success over the next decade. By the 1820s, however, Jamaican sugar had become less competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and production subsequently declined.When sugar declined as a crop, the British government was persuaded to emancipate the Black people they kept enslaved with Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation within four years. Because of the loss of property and life in the 1831 Baptist War rebellion, the British Parliament held two inquiries. Their reports on conditions contributed greatly to the abolition movement and passage of the 1833 law to abolish slavery as of 1 August 1834, throughout the British Empire. But freedom from whites would not be found for those kept enslaved. Jamaican slaves were bound (indentured) to their former owners' service, albeit with a guarantee of rights, until 1838 under what was called the Apprenticeship System. This Apprenticeship was originally scheduled to run until 1840, but the numerous abuses committed by white plantation owners on their black apprentices led to the British government terminating it two years ahead of schedule, and the ex-slaves were finally awarded full freedom. The planters often found themselves in conflict with Richard Hill, the mixed-race Head of the Department of the Stipendiary Magistrates, over their mistreatment of the apprentices.Mavis Campbell, ''The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society'' (London: AUP, 1976), p. 156.Post-Emancipation Jamaica
The period after abolitionism in the United Kingdom, emancipation in the 1830s initially was marked by a conflict between the plantocracy and elements in the Colonial Office over the extent to which individual freedom should be coupled with political participation for blacks. In 1840 the Assembly changed the voting qualifications in a way that enabled a significant number of blacks and Mixed race people, people of mixed race (browns or mulattos) to vote, but placed property ownership restrictions on them, which excluded the majority of non-white men from voting.. The requirements were an income of £180 a year, or real property worth £1,800, or both real and personal property worth £3,000. These figures excluded the vast majority of freed black Jamaicans from the right to vote in Assembly elections. Consequently, neither Emancipation nor the change in voting qualifications resulted in a change in the political system. The chief interests of the planter class lay in the continued profitability of their estates, and they continued to dominate the Elitism, elitist Assembly. At the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth century, the Crown began to allow some white Jamaicans – mostly local merchants, urban professionals, and artisans – into the appointed councils. Two free people of colour, Edward Jordon and Richard Hill, became leading figures in post-emancipation Jamaica. In 1835, Hill was appointed Head of the Department of Stipendiary Magistrates, a position he held for many years. In 1835, Jordon was elected a member of the Assembly for Kingston, and he led the Kings House Party, or Coloured Party, that opposed the Planters Party. In 1852, Jordon became mayor Kingston, a post he held for 14 years, and he was speaker for the Assembly in the early 1860s. The Jamaica Railway, constructed in 1845, was the first line opened to traffic outside Europe and North America. The first line ran from Spanish Town to Kingston.Morant Bay Rebellion
Tensions resulted in the October 1865 Morant Bay rebellion led by Paul Bogle. The rebellion was sparked on 7 October, when a black man was put on trial and imprisoned for allegedly trespassing on a long-abandoned plantation. During the proceedings, James Geoghegon, a black spectator, disrupted the trial, and in the police's attempts to seize him and remove him from the courthouse, a fight broke out between the police and other spectators. While pursuing Geoghegon, the two policeman were beaten with sticks and stones. The following Monday arrest warrants were issued for several men for rioting, resisting arrest, and assaulting the police. Among them was Baptist preacher Paul Bogle. A few days later on 11 October, Mr. Paul Bogle marched with a group of protesters to Morant Bay. When the group arrived at the court house they were met by a small and inexperienced volunteer militia. The crowd began pelting the militia with rocks and sticks, and the militia opened fire on the group, killing seven black protesters before retreating. Governor Edward John Eyre, John Eyre sent government troops, under Brigadier-General Alexander Nelson (British Army officer), Alexander Nelson, to hunt down the poorly armed rebels and bring Paul Bogle back to Morant Bay for trial. The troops met with no organised resistance, but regardless they killed blacks indiscriminately, most of whom had not been involved in the riot or rebellion: according to one soldier, "we slaughtered all before us… man or woman or child". In the end, 439 black Jamaicans were killed directly by soldiers, and 354 more (including Paul Bogle) were arrested and later executed without cause, with no reasons given, and without proper trials. Paul Bogle was executed "either the same evening he was tried or the next morning.""The Jamaica Prosecutions. Further Examinations of Colonel Nelson and Lieutenant Brand", ''The Illustrated Police News: Law-Courts and Weekly Record'' (London), 23 February 1867: 1. Other punishments included flogging for over 600 men and women (including some pregnant women), and long prison sentences, with thousands of homes belonging to black Jamaicans were burned down without any justifiable reason. George William Gordon, a Jamaican businessman and politician, who had been critical of Governor Edward John Eyre, John Eyre and his policies, was later arrested by Governor Edward John Eyre, John Eyre who believed he had been behind the rebellion. Despite having very little to do with it, Gordon was executed. Though he was arrested in Kingston, he was transferred by Eyre to Morant Bay, where he could be tried under martial law. The execution and trial of Gordon via martial law raised some constitutional issues back in Britain, where concerns emerged about whether British dependencies should be ruled under the government of law, or through military license. The speedy trial saw Gordon hanged on 23 October, just two days after his trial had begun. He and William Bogle, Paul's brother, "were both tried together, and executed at the same time."Economic decline
By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828. Unable to convert the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class similar to the one established in the Reconstruction Era, post-Civil War South of the United States, planters became increasingly dependent on wage labour and began recruiting workers abroad, primarily from British Raj, India, Qing Dynasty, China, and Sierra Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or small farm communities in the interior of the island, the "yam belt," where they engaged in subsistence and some cash crop farming. The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay rebellions of 1865. Governor Eyre took this opportunity to abolish the Assembly, which was becoming increasingly influenced by free black and mixed-race representatives. Jordon and Osborn strongly opposed the measure, but it was pushed through by Eyre despite their opposition. However, renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the form of Crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure. Agricultural development was the centrepiece of restored British rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, a land reform programme of sorts, which allowed small farmers to purchase two hectares or more of land on favourable terms. Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement whereas other cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers, most notably by the British firm Tate & Lyle, Tate and Lyle. Although the concentration of land and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the Spanish Caribbean, Spanish-speaking Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plantation on the island had increased to an average of 266 hectares. But, as noted, smallscale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers. The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry. Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares. The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems (32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. As with sugar, the presence of American companies, like the well-known United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force behind renewed agricultural exports. The British also became more interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Expansion of banana production, however, was hampered by serious labour shortages. The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year.Jamaica as a Crown Colony
In 1846 Jamaican planters, still reeling from the loss of slave labour, suffered a crushing blow when Britain passed the Sugar Duties Act 1846, Sugar Duties Act, eliminating Jamaica's traditionally favoured status as its primary supplier of sugar. The Jamaica House of Assembly and successive governors stumbled from one crisis to another until the collapse of the sugar trade, when racial and religious tensions came to a head during the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865. Although suppressed ruthlessly, the severe rioting so alarmed the white planters that governor Edward John Eyre and the Colonial Office succeeded in persuading the two-centuries-old assembly to vote to abolish itself and ask for the establishment of direct British rule. This move ended the growing influence of the people of colour in elective politics. The practice of barring non-whites from public office was reinstated, despite opposition from leading people of colour such as Jordon. In 1866 the new Crown colony government consisted of the Legislative Council and the executive Privy Council containing members of both chambers of the House of Assembly, but the Colonial Office exercised effective power through a presiding British governor. The council included a few handpicked prominent Jamaicans for the sake of appearance only. In the late nineteenth century, Crown colony rule was modified; representation and limited self-rule were reintroduced gradually into Jamaica after 1884. The colony's legal structure was reformed along the lines of English common law and county courts, and a Jamaica Constabulary Force, constabulary force was established. The smooth working of the Crown colony system was dependent on a good understanding and an identity of interests between the governing officials, who were British people, British, and most of the nonofficial, nominated members of the Legislative Council, who were Jamaican people, Jamaicans. The elected members of this body were in a permanent minority and without any influence or administrative power. The unstated alliance – based on shared color, attitudes, and interest – between the British officials and the Jamaican upper class was reinforced in London, where the West India Committee lobbied for Jamaican interests. However, the property qualification and a literacy test ensured that only a small percentage of the black Jamaican majority could vote in these elections. Jamaica's white or near-white propertied class continued to hold the dominant position in every respect; the vast majority of the black population remained poor and disenfranchised.. As black Jamaicans becoming discontented with their lack of political representation, they turned to the support of two leaders who challenged the racial hierarchy, both insisting that black people were the equals of the white people who dominated the government and the island's wealth. Alexander Bedward was a Revivalist (person), Revivalist preacher who espoused the concept of pan-Africanism. Dr Joseph Robert Love founded a newspaper and campaigned for black representation in the political arena. Both men were the forerunners of Marcus Mosiah Garvey.Kingston, the new capital
In 1872, the government passed an act to transfer government offices from Spanish Town to Kingston. Kingston had been founded as a refuge for survivors of the 1692 Jamaica earthquake, 1692 earthquake that destroyed Port Royal. The town did not begin to grow until after the further destruction of Port Royal by the Nick Catania Pirate Fleet's fire in 1703. Surveyor John Goffe drew up a plan for the town based on a grid bounded by North, East, West and Harbour Streets. By 1716 it had become the largest town and the center of trade for20th century
Marcus Garvey
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement, an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religion, was developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia. Haile Selassie I was crowned as Emperor in November 1930, a significant event in that the Ethiopian Empire was the only African country other than Liberia to be independent from colonialism, and Haile Selassie was the only African leader accepted among the kings and queens of Europe. Over the next two years, three Jamaicans who all happened to be overseas at the time of the coronation each returned home and independently began, as street preachers, to proclaim the divinity of the newly crowned Emperor as the returned Christ.Leonard E. Barrett, ''The Rastafarians'', pp. 81–82. First, in December 1930, Archibald Dunkley, formerly a seaman, landed at Port Antonio and soon began his ministry; in 1933, he relocated to Kingston where the ''King of Kings Ethiopian Mission'' was founded. Joseph Hibbert returned from Costa Rica in 1931 and started spreading his own conviction of the Emperor's divinity in Benoah district, Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica, Saint Andrew Parish, through his own ministry, called ''Ethiopian Coptic Faith''; he too moved to Kingston the next year, to find Leonard Howell already teaching many of these same doctrines, having returned to Jamaica around the same time. With the addition of Robert Hinds, himself a Garveyite and former Bedwardite, these four preachers soon began to attract a following among Jamaica's poor.The Great Depression and worker protests
Elected black Council members, such as barrister J.A.G. Smith, strongly criticised the colonial government in the early 20th century. While acknowledging these criticisms, the British government did little to address them.. The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans, who had migrated abroad for work. Economic stagnation, discontent with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor living conditions caused British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–1939, social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in Jamaica began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western Westmoreland Parish, parish of Westmoreland and quickly spread east to Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston. Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule. The police put down the strike with force, resulting in the deaths of several strikers, while a number of policemen were injured. This led to further disturbances occurring in other parts of the island. In 1938, the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union gathered support, while Norman Manley formed the People's National Party, which initially also included his cousin, union leader Alexander Bustamante. Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, the British in 1938 appointed the Report of West India Royal Commission (Moyne Report), Moyne Commission. An immediate result of the Commission was the Colonial Development Welfare Act, which provided for the expenditure of approximately Ł1 million a year for twenty years on coordinated development in the British West Indies. Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems.New labour unions and political parties
The rise of nationalism, as distinct from island identification or desire for self-determination, is generally dated to the British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–1939, 1938 labour riots that took place in Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. William Alexander Bustamante, a moneylender in the capital city of Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston who had formed the Jamaica Trade Workers and Tradesmen Union (JTWTU) three years earlier, captured the imagination of the black masses with his messianic personality. He was light-skinned, affluent, and aristocratic. Bustamante emerged from the 1938 strikes and other disturbances as a populist leader and the principal spokesperson for the militant urban working class. In that year, using the JTWTU as a stepping stone, he founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), which inaugurated Jamaica's workers movement. A cousin of Bustamante, Norman Manley, Norman W. Manley, concluded as a result of the 1938 riots that the basis for national unity in Jamaica lay in the masses. Unlike the union-oriented Bustamante, however, Manley was more interested in access to control over Power (social and political), state power and political rights for the masses. On 18 September 1938, he inaugurated the People's National Party (PNP). It began as a nationalist movement supported by the mixed-race middle class and the liberal sector of the business community; its leaders were highly educated members of the upper middle class. The 1938 riots spurred the PNP to Trade union, unionise labour, although it would be several years before the PNP formed major labour unions. The party concentrated its earliest efforts on establishing a network both in urban areas and in banana-growing rural Parishes of Jamaica, parishes, later working on building support among small farmers and in areas of bauxite mining. In 1940 the PNP adopted a socialist ideology and later it joined the Socialist International, allying formally with the social democratic parties of Western Europe. Guided by socialist principles, Manley was not a doctrinaire socialist. PNP socialism during the 1940s was similar to British Labour Party ideas on state control of the factors of production, equality of opportunity, and a welfare state. The left-wing element in the PNP held more orthodox Marxist views and worked for the internationalisation of the trade union movement through the Caribbean Labour Congress. In those formative years of Jamaican political and union activity, relations between Manley and Bustamante were cordial. Manley defended Bustamante in court against charges brought by the British for his labour activism in the 1938 riots and looked after the BITU during Bustamante's imprisonment. Bustamante had political ambitions of his own, however. In 1942, while still incarcerated, he founded a political party to rival the PNP, called the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The new party, whose leaders were of a lower class than those of the PNP, was supported by conservative businessmen and 60,000 dues-paying BITU members. They encompassed dock and sugar plantation workers and other unskilled urban labourers. On his release in 1943, Bustamante began building up the JLP. Meanwhile, several PNP leaders organised the leftist-oriented Trade Union Congress (TUC). Thus, from an early stage in modern Jamaica, unionised labour was an integral part of organised political life. For the next quarter century, Bustamante and Manley competed for centre stage in Jamaican political affairs, the former espousing the cause of the "barefoot man"; the latter, "democratic socialism," a loosely defined political and economic theory aimed at achieving a Classless society, classless system of government. Jamaica's two founding fathers projected quite different popular images. Bustamante, lacking even a high school diploma, was an autocratic, charismatic, and highly adept politician; Manley was an athletic, University of Oxford, Oxford-trained lawyer, Rhodes Scholarship, Rhodes scholar, humanist, and liberal intellectual. Although considerably more reserved than Bustamante, Manley was well liked and widely respected. He was also a visionary nationalist who became the driving force behind the Crown colony's quest for independence. Following the 1938 disturbances in the West Indies,Colonial elections
The new Constitution increased voter eligibility considerably. In 1919, women gained the right to vote in Jamaica, but only about one-twelfth of the population had the right to vote. In 1943, out of a population of 1.2 million, about 700,000 now had the right to vote. Issued on 20 November 1944, the Constitution of Jamaica, Constitution modified the Crown colony system and inaugurated limited self-government based on the Westminster system, Westminster model of government and universal adult suffrage. It also embodied the island's principles of ministerial responsibility and the rule of law. Thirty-one percent of the population participated in the Jamaican general election, 1944, 1944 elections. Held on 12 December 1944, the turnout was 58.7%. The Jamaica Labour Party – helped by its promises to create jobs, its practice of dispensing public funds in pro-JLP parishes, and the PNP's relatively radical platform – won an 18 percent majority of the votes over the PNP, as well as 22 seats in the 32-member House of Representatives. The PNP won 5 seats and 5 were gained by other, short-lived parties. Bustamante took office as the unofficial leader of government. Under the new charter, the British governor, assisted by the six-member Privy Council and ten-member Executive Council, remained responsible solely to the Crown. The Jamaican Legislative Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parliament. House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies. Despite these changes, ultimate power remained concentrated in the hands of the governor and other high officials. The 1949 Jamaican general election was much closer. The PNP received more votes (203,048) than the JLP (199,538), but the JLP secured more seats; 17 to the PNP's 13. Two seats were won by independents. The voter turnout was 65.2%. The parties lobbied the colonial government for a further increase in constitutional powers for the elected government, and in June 1953 a new constitution provided for the appointment of a chief minister and seven other Ministers from the elected House of Representatives. They now had a majority over the official and nominated members. For the first time, the Ministers could now exercise wide responsibility in the management of the internal affairs of the island. The only limits placed on their powers pertained to public security, public prosecutions and matters affecting members of the Civil Service, which still fell under the Colonial Secretary. In 1953, Bustamante became Jamaica's first chief minister (the pre-independence title for Prime Minister of Jamaica, head of government).. In the 1955 Jamaican general election, the PNP won for the first time, securing 18 out of 32 seats. The JLP ended up with 14 seats, and there were no independents. The voter turnout with 65.1%. As a result, Norman Manley became the new chief minister. The 1959 Jamaican general election was held on 28 July 1959, and the number of seats was increased to 45. The PNP secured a wider margin of victory, taking 29 seats to the JLP's 16. Manley was appointed Jamaica's first premier on 14 August 1959.West Indies Federation and road to independence
When the British government decided to merge British West Indies, its Caribbean colonies, the West Indies Federation consisting of Jamaica and nine other colonies was formed in 1958. The West Indies Federal Labour Party was organised by Manley and the West Indies Democratic Labour Party, Democratic Labour Party by Bustamante. In the 1958 Federal Elections, the DLP won 11 of the 17 seats in Jamaica. Neither Manley nor Bustamante contested the Federal elections. However, nationalism was at a rise and dissatisfaction with the new union was great. Jamaica's share of seats in the Federal parliament was smaller than its share of the total population of the Federation; many Jamaicans expressed the view that the smaller islands would be a drain on Jamaica's wealth; Jamaica was geographically distant from the eastern Caribbean; and many Jamaicans were upset that Kingston was not chosen as the Federal capital. Three years after the Federal elections, the Federation was no closer to secured independence, and Bustamante began campaigning for Jamaica's withdrawal from the Federation, in order for Jamaica to secure its independence in its own right. Manley responded by offering the people a chance to decide whether or not they wanted Jamaica to remain in the Federation. In the 1961 Jamaican Federation of the West Indies membership referendum, 1961 Federation membership referendum Jamaica voted 54% to leave the West Indies Federation. Other members began withdrawing soon after. After losing the referendum, Manley took Jamaica to the polls in April 1962, to secure a mandate for the island's independence. On 10 April 1962, of the 45 seats up for contention in the 1962 Jamaican general election, the JLP won 26 seats and the PNP 19. The voter turnout was 72.9%. This resulted in the independence of Jamaica on 6 August 1962, and several other British colonies in the West Indies followed suit in the next decade. Bustamante had replaced Manley as premier between April and August, and on independence, he became Jamaica's first prime minister.Economy
The first European colonization of the Americas, European settlers, the Spanish people, Spanish, were primarily interested in extracting precious metals and did not develop or otherwise transform Jamaica. In 1655 the English occupied the island and began a slow process of creating an agricultural economy based on slave labour in support of England's industrial revolution. During the seventeenth century, the basic patterns and social system of the Plantation economy, sugar plantation economy were established in Jamaica. Large estates owned by absentee planters were managed by local agents. The slave population increased rapidly during the last quarter of the seventeenth century and, by the end of the century, slaves outnumbered white Europeans by at least five to one. Because conditions were extremely harsh under the slave regime and the mortality rate for slaves was high, the slave population expanded through the slave trade from West Africa rather than by natural increase. During most of the eighteenth century, a Monocropping, monocrop economy based on sugar production for export flourished. In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade. By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and production subsequently declined.Eric Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery'' (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964). By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828. Some historians believe that a major reason for the decline of sugar was the British Parliament's Slave Trade Act 1807, 1807 abolition of the slave trade, under which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after 1 March 1808 was forbidden. However, Seymour Drescher has argued that the Jamaican sugar economy flourished before and after the abolition of the slave trade.. The abolition of the slave trade was followed by Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation within four years. Eric Williams presented evidence to show that the sugar economy went into decline in the 1820s, and it was only then that the British anti-slavery movement gathered pace. Unable to convert the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class similar to the one established in the Reconstruction Era, post-Civil War South of the United States, planters became increasingly dependent on wage labour and began recruiting workers abroad, primarily from British Raj, India, Qing Dynasty, China, and Sierra Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or small farm communities in the interior of the island, the "yam belt", where they engaged in subsistence and some cash crop farming. The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay rebellions of 1865. However, renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the form of Crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure. Agricultural development was the centrepiece of restored British rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, a land reform program of sorts, which allowed small farmers to purchase two hectares or more of land on favourable terms. Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement whereas other cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers, most notably by the British firm Tate & Lyle, Tate and Lyle. Although the concentration of land and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the Spanish Caribbean, Spanish-speaking Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plantation on the island had increased to an average of 266 hectares. But, as noted, small-scale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers. The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry. Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares. The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems (32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. As with sugar, the presence of American companies, like the well-known United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force behind renewed agricultural exports. The British also became more interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Expansion of banana production, however, was hampered by serious labour shortages. The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year. The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans. Economic stagnation, discontent with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor living conditions caused British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–1939, social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in Jamaica began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western Westmoreland Parish, parish of Westmoreland and quickly spread east to Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston. Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule. Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, the British in 1938 appointed the Report of West India Royal Commission (Moyne Report), Moyne Commission. An immediate result of the Commission was the Colonial Development Welfare Act, which provided for the expenditure of approximately Ł1 million a year for twenty years on coordinated development in the British West Indies. Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems. The expanding relationship that Jamaica entered into with the United States during World War II produced a momentum for change that could not be turned back by the end of the war. Familiarity with the early economic progress achieved in Puerto Rico under Operation Bootstrap, renewed immigration to the United States, the lasting impressions of Marcus Garvey, and the publication of the Moyne Commission Report led to important modifications in the Jamaican political process and demands for economic development. As was the case throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean in the mid- to late 1930s, social upheaval in Jamaica paved the way for the emergence of strong trade unions and nascent Politics of Jamaica, political parties. These changes set the stage for early modernisation in the 1940s and 1950s and for limited self-rule, introduced in 1944. An extensive period of postwar growth transformed Jamaica into an increasingly industrial society. This pattern was accelerated with the export of bauxite beginning in the 1950s. The economic structure shifted from a dependence on agriculture that in 1950 accounted for 30.8 percent of GDP to an agricultural contribution of 12.9 percent in 1960 and 6.7 percent in 1970. During the same period, the contribution to GDP of mining increased from less than 1 percent in 1950 to 9.3 percent in 1960 and 12.6 percent in 1970. Manufacturing expanded from 11.3 percent in 1950 to 12.8 in 1960 and 15.7 in 1970.See also
*Invasion of Jamaica (1655) *References
Sources
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Colony of Jamaica Colony of Jamaica, History of Jamaica, Colony of Jamaica British West Indies Former countries in the Caribbean Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas, Jamaica Former colonies in North America, Jamaica Former English colonies, Jamaica 1655 establishments in the British Empire 1962 disestablishments in the British Empire 1962 disestablishments in North America Country articles requiring maintenance States and territories disestablished in 1962