The Caribbean Island of Jamaica was initially inhabited in approximately 600 AD or 650 AD by the Redware people, often associated with redware pottery. By roughly 800 AD, a second wave of inhabitants occurred by the Arawak tribes, including the Tainos, prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. Early inhabitants of Jamaica named the land "Xaymaca", meaning "land of wood and water". The Spanish enslaved the Arawak, who were ravaged further by diseases that the Spanish brought with them. Early historians believe that by 1602, the Arawak-speaking Taino tribes were extinct. However, some of the Taino escaped into the forested mountains of the interior, where they mixed with runaway African slaves, and survived free from first Spanish, and then English, rule.Michael Sivapragasam, After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739–1842 , PhD Dissertation, African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica library (Southampton: Southampton University, 2018), pp. 23–24.E. Kofi Agorsah, "Archaeology of Maroon Settlements in Jamaica", Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives, ed. E. Kofi Agorsah (Kingston: University of the West Indies Canoe Press, 1994), pp. 180–81.
The Spanish also captured and transported hundreds of West African people to the island for the purpose of slavery. However, the majority of Africans were brought into Jamaica by the English.
In 1655, the English invaded Jamaica, and defeated the Spanish. Some African enslaved people took advantage of the political turmoil and escaped to the island's interior mountains, forming independent communities which became known as the Maroons. Meanwhile, on the coast, the English built the settlement of Port Royal, a base of operations where piracy flourished as so many European rebels had been rejected from their countries to serve sentences on the seas. Captain Henry Morgan, a Welsh plantation owner and privateer, raided settlements and shipping bases from Port Royal, earning him his reputation as one of the richest pirates in the Caribbean.
In the 18th century, sugar cane replaced piracy as British Jamaica's main source of income. The sugar industry was labour-intensive and the British brought hundreds of thousands of enslaved black Africans to the island. By 1850, the black and mulatto Jamaican population outnumbered the white population by a ratio of twenty to one. Enslaved Jamaicans mounted over a dozen major uprisings during the 18th century, including Tacky's Revolt in 1760. There were also periodic skirmishes between the British and the mountain communities of the Jamaican Maroons, culminating in the First Maroon War of the 1730s and the Second Maroon War of 1795–1796.
The aftermath of the Baptist War shone a light on the conditions of slaves which contributed greatly to the abolition movement and the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which formally ended slavery in Jamaica in 1834. However, relations between the white and black community remained tense coming into the mid-19th century, with the most notable event being the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865. The latter half of the 19th century saw economic decline, low crop prices, droughts, and disease. When sugar lost its importance, many former plantations went bankrupt, and land was sold to Jamaican peasants and cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers.
Jamaica's first political parties emerged in the late 1920s, while workers association and trade unions emerged in the 1930s. The development of a new Constitution in 1944, universal male suffrage, and limited self-government eventually led to Jamaican Independence in 1962 with Alexander Bustamante serving as its first prime minister. The country saw an extensive period of postwar growth and a smaller reliance on the agricultural sector and a larger reliance on bauxite and mining in the 1960s and 1970s. Political power changed hands between the two dominant parties, the JLP and PNP, from the 1970s to the present day. While Jamaica's murder rate fell by nearly half after the 2010 Tivoli Incursion, the country's murder rate remains one of the highest in the world. Economic troubles hit the country in 2013, the IMF agreed to a $1 billion loan to help Jamaica meet large debt payments, making Jamaica a highly indebted country that spends around half of its annual budget on debt repayments.
Pre-Columbian Jamaica
The first inhabitants of Jamaica probably came from islands to the east in two waves of migration. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Taíno developed a well-organized society with agricultural villages governed by caciques (chiefs). They cultivated cassava and sweet potatoes, fished, and created a vibrant spiritual tradition centered on zemis—ancestral deities that reflected their cosmology and social structure. In about 600 CE the culture known as the “Redware people” arrived. Little is known of these people, however, beyond the red pottery they left behind."Jamaica" , Encyclopædia Britannica. Alligator Pond in Manchester Parish and Little River in St. Ann Parish are among the earliest known sites of this Ostionoid person, who lived near the coast and extensively hunted turtles and fish., Atkinson, Lesley-Gail. "The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taíno."
Around 800 CE, the Arawak tribes of the Tainos arrived, eventually settling throughout the island. Living in villages ruled by tribal chiefs called the caciques, they sustained themselves on fishing and the cultivation of maize and cassava. At the height of their civilization, their population is estimated to have numbered as much as 60,000.
The Tainos brought a South America system of raising yuca known as "conuco" to the island.Rogozinski, Jan. "A Brief History of the Caribbean." To add nutrients to the soil, the Tainos burned local bushes and trees and heaped the ash into large mounds, into which they then planted yuca cuttings. Most Tainos lived in large circular buildings (bohios), constructed with wooden poles, woven straw, and palm leaves. The Tainos spoke an Arawakan language and did not have writing. Some of the words used by them, such as barbacoa ("barbecue"), hamaca ("hammock"), kanoa ("canoe"), tabaco ("tobacco"), yuca, batata ("sweet potato"), and juracán ("hurricane"), have been incorporated into Spanish and English.
Spanish period (1494–1655)
Spanish colonization introduced the encomienda system, which forced the Taíno into hard labor and led to rapid depopulation due to disease, overwork, and violence. By the early 1600s, the Taíno population had nearly vanished, prompting the Spanish to begin importing enslaved Africans.
Christopher Columbus is believed to be the first European to reach Jamaica. He landed on the island on 5 May 1494, during his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus returned to Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the Americas. He had been sailing around the Caribbean for nearly a year when a storm beached his ships in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on 25 June 1503. Columbus and his men remained stranded on the island for one year, finally departing on June 1504.Clinton V. Black, "History of Jamaica" (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 27-32.
The Spanish crown granted the island to the Columbus family, but for decades it was something of a backwater, valued chiefly as a supply base for food and animal hides. In 1509 Juan de Esquivel founded the first permanent European settlement, the town of Sevilla la Nueva (New Seville), on the north coast of the island. In 1534 the capital was moved to Villa de la Vega (later Santiago de la Vega), now called Spanish Town. This settlement served as the capital of both Spanish and English Jamaica, from its founding until 1872, after which the capital was moved to Kingston.Clinton V. Black, "History of Jamaica" (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 33-7.
The Spanish enslaved many of the Tainos. Some escaped to the mountains to join the Maroons. However, most died from European diseases as well as from being overworked.C.V. Black, History of Jamaica (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 34–35. The Spaniards also introduced the first African slaves into the island. By the early 17th century, when most of the Taino had died out, the population of the island was about 3,000, including a small number of African slaves. Disappointed in the lack of gold on the island, Jamaica was mainly used as a military base to supply colonization efforts in the mainland Americas.
The Spanish colonists did not bring women in the first expeditions and took Taíno women for their common-law wives, resulting in mestizo children.
Although the Taino referred to the island as "Xaymaca", the Spanish gradually changed the name to "Jamaica".Cundall, Frank. The Story of the Life of Columbus and the Discovery of Jamaica. In the so-called Admiral's map of 1507 the island was labeled as "Jamaiqua" and in Peter Martyr's work Decades of 1511, he referred to it as both "Jamaica" and "Jamica".
British rule (1655–1962)
17th century English conquest
British rule transformed Jamaica into a plantation economy built on enslaved African labor. Conditions on sugar plantations were extremely harsh, with high mortality rates and strict punishments. Enslaved Africans resisted through rebellion, escape, and by forming independent Maroon communities in the mountainous interior.Clinton V. Black, "History of Jamaica", (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 78-111.
In late 1654, English leader Oliver Cromwell launched the Western Design armada against Spain's colonies in the Caribbean. In April 1655, General Robert Venables led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola. After the Spanish repelled this poorly executed attack, the English force then sailed for Jamaica, the only Spanish West Indies island that did not have new defensive works. In May 1655, around 7,000 English soldiers landed near Jamaica's capital, named Spanish Town and soon overwhelmed the small number of Spanish troops (at the time, Jamaica's entire population only numbered around 2,500).Clinton V. Black, "History of Jamaica", (London: Collins, 1975), pp. 46-57.
Spain never recaptured Jamaica, losing the Battle of Ocho Rios in 1657 and the Battle of Rio Nuevo in 1658. In 1660, a group of maroons, under the leadership of Juan de Bolas, broke their alliance with the Spanish and allied themselves with the English, which served as a turning point in the English domination of the island.C.V. Black, History of Jamaica (London: Collins, 1975), p. 54. For England, Jamaica was to be the "dagger pointed at the heart of the Spanish Empire," but in fact, it was a possession of little economic value then. England gained formal possession of Jamaica from Spain in 1670 through the Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for constant defence against a Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to planting.C.V. Black, History of Jamaica (London: Collins, 1975), p. 68.
Population growth in early Jamaica
Cromwell's Protectorate increased the island's white population by sending indentured servants and prisoners captured in battles with the Irish and Scots, as well as some common criminals. This population was supplemented by refugees from Willoughbyland who were brought over in 1674 by Edward Cranfield and settled in the Surinam Quarter, now known as Westmoreland Parish.Long, Edward. (1774). The history of Jamaica. Or, General survey of the antient and modern state of the island: : with reflections on its situation settlements, inhabitants, climate, products, commerce, laws, and government. In three volumes. Illustrated with copper plates. London: : Printed for T. Lowndes, in Fleet-Street. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/historyofjamaica01long/page/624/mode/