Ancient History of Jamaica

July 31, 2006 (Press Release) -- Jamaica has a vivid and painful history, marred since European settlement by an undercurrent of violence and tyranny. Christopher Columbus first landed on the island in 1494, when there were perhaps 100,000 peaceful Arawak Amerindians who had settled Jamaica around 700 AD. Spanish settlers arrived from 1510, raising cattle and pigs, and introducing two things that would profoundly shape the island's future: sugar and slaves. By the end of the 16th century the Arawak population had been entirely wiped out, worn down by hard labour, ill-treatment and European diseases to which they had no resistance. In 1654 an ill-equipped and badly organised English contingent sailed to the Caribbean. After failing to take Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the 'wicked army of common cheats, thieves and lewd persons' turned to weakly defended Jamaica. Despite the ongoing efforts of Spanish loyalists and guerilla-style campaigns of freed Spanish slaves (cimarrones - 'wild ones' - or Maroons), England took control of the island. Investment and further settlement hastened as profits began to accrue from cocoa, coffee, and sugarcane production. But with Britain constantly at war with France or Spain, effective control of the island was entrusted to buccaneers, a motley band of seafaring miscreants, political refugees and escaped criminals, who committed themselves to lives of piracy against the Spaniards. Depending on whether Britain and Spain had just signed or just broken peace agreements, Britain was either supporting the buccaneers, or helping Spain repel them. Slave rebellions didn't make life any easier for the English, as escaped slaves joined with descendants of the Maroons, engaging in extended ambush-style campaigns and eventually forcing the English to grant them autonomy in 1739. New slaves kept arriving, however, most of them put to work on sugar plantations in appalling conditions. Slaves were burnt, strangled and otherwise tortured to terrorise them into obedience. There were constant insurrections, especially after the American War of Independence (1775-81) and the French Revolution (1789) spread a spirit of subversion, but they were quashed with the utmost severity. The last and largest of the slave revolts in Jamaica was the 1831 Christmas Rebellion, inspired by 'Daddy' Sam Sharpe, an educated slave and lay preacher who incited passive resistance. The rebellion turned violent, however, as up to 20,000 slaves razed plantations and murdered planters. When the slaves were tricked into laying down arms with a false promise of abolition, and then 400 were hanged and hundreds more whipped, there was a wave of revulsion in England, causing the Jamaican parliament to finally abolish slavery on August 1, 1834.

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