Europeans in Jamaica Essay

When did they come? Jamaica was first colonized by a native meeting of South American origin who, in the primal narration of Jamaica, cal direct their home a paradise of wood and water. The Arawak were there to agnize Christopher capital of Ohio when he arrived in Jamaica in 1494, beginning a languish terminus of atomic number 63an colonization there. The history of Jamaica as a European outpost saw the island below Spanish rule for 150 eld, during which the urban center now known as Spanish Town was established and flourished as the colonys economic hub.In the 1650s, Jamaica was captured by the British. Despite bit Jamaica into a profitable colony, continued harassment by a throng of ex- strivers brought over by dint ofout the Spanish period and set ease during their call in and their descendants dogged the British until they relented and granted emancipation to all stay orchard laborers in 1838. The Maroons, as this small army was known, are assuage revered today as some of the most brave and direful figures in the history of Jamaica. Why did they come?On May 10, 1655, an face expedition, commanded by Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables, landed at the present-day coastal town of Passage Fort, in the southeastern parish of Saint Catherine. This expedition, which had failed to capture Hispaniola, proceeded to take on the island of Jamaica for England. At the time of the English conquest, the Spaniards were unable to effectively resist the assault because only about 500 of them were armed with weapons. The English ordered the Spanish colonists to deliver all of their strivers and goods and leave the island. most followed these orders, but a group led by Don Cristabal Arnaldo de Isasi remained and put up guerrilla opponent to the English. Isasi freed the strivers, many of whom hit the hayed with the Spanish rebels into the hills. From there, the Spanish and the freed shamefuls who had joined them frequently raided and waged guerrilla warfare on English closings. Isasi, finally overwhelmed by English forces, fled to Cuba for reinforcement. Some of the wispys who had fought with Isasi, recognizing that the Spanish case was lost, defected to the English.A black regiment fighting for the English, led by the former slave Juan de Bolas, proved a decisive factor in the final defeat of the Spanish, marked by Isasis retreat in 1660. How did they colonize? Jamaicas English- appointive governor Edward DOyley compensated the black regiment by officially recognizing their freedom and granting them landholdings. Other formerly Spanish-owned slaves remained self-governing of the colonial administration, living in their own communities as maroons. Spain officially ceded the island to England under the Treaty of Madrid in 1670.The English established a lesson organisation of government, giving white settlers the power to make their own laws by means of an elected House of Assembly, which acted as a legislative body. The Legislative Council, whose members were appointed by the governor, served an advisory function and took disrupt in legislative debates. This system lasted until it was replaced in 1866 by the crown colony system of government, which stripped the island elite of most of its political power. What changes did they make?The English encouraged permanent settlement through generous land grants. In 1664 Sir Thomas Modyford, a loot plantation and slave owner in Barbados (a Caribbean island of the Lesser Antilles chain), was appointed governor of Jamaica. He brought 1,000 English settlers and black slaves with him from Barbados. Modyford immediately encouraged plantation agriculture, specially the cultivation of cacao and sugarcane. By the early 1700s sugar estates worked by black slaves were established throughout the island, and sugar and its by-products dominate the economy.Other economic activities, including descent rearing and the cultivation of coffee and pimento (alls pice), developed as well. With the nerve of the plantation system, the slave clientele grew. Slaves of both genders and every age were institute in all facets of the islands economy, in both rural and urban areas. They were laborers on plantations, domestic servants, and skilled artisans (tradesmen, technicians, and itinerant traders). The wealth created in Jamaica by the labor of black slaves has been estimated at ? 18,000,000, more than half of he estimated meat of ? 30,000,000 for the entire British West Indies. It has been postulated that the profit generated by the triangular trade (involving sugar and tropical advance from the British Caribbean colonies, the trade in make goods for slaves in Africa, and the trade of slaves in the British Caribbean) financed the Industrial Revolution in Britain. More than 1 million slaves are estimated to have been transported directly from Africa to Jamaica during the period of slavery of these, 200,000 were reexported to other places in the Americas.During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Akan, Ga, and Adangbe from the northwestern coastal region known as the Gold Coast (around modern Ghana) dominated the slave trade to the island. Not until 1776 did slaves import from other parts of Africa-Igbos from the fasten of Biafra (southern modern Nigeria) and Kongos from Central Africa-outnumber slaves from the Gold Coast. But slaves from these regions represented 46 part of the total number of slaves. The demand for slaves required about 10,000 to be imported annually.Thus slaves born in Africa far outnumbered those who were born in Jamaica on average they constituted more than 80 percent of the slave people until Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807. When Britain abolished the institution of slavery in 1834, Jamaica had a creation of more than 311,000 slaves and only about 16,700 whites. By the mid-1700s plantation owners were distributing small plots of peripheral land to their slaves, both men and women, as a way to delete the cost of providing food. However, the slaves were expected to tend their own crops only during their limited free time.Although slaves were not allotted much time to work the plots, they were able to produce enough not only for their own subsistence but also for sale. A vibrant marketing ne twainrk developed among the slaves throughout the island, creating what is referred to as a proto-peasantry. In the British mind, slaves were no more than property and merchandise to be bought and sold. On this premise, the British enacted a whole system of slave laws aimed in the main at policing slaves. In general, the premise that slaves were no more than property allowed slave owners to treat them brutally.The severity of this brutality varied. Slaves on large sugar estates mainly suffered the harshest punishments, while those on smaller estates and in towns received somewhat better treatment. Colonialism The history of Jamaica is crucial to understanding the countrys c urrent situation. galore(postnominal) of the problems today are results of neocolonial forces. The roots of such concerns can be launch within the countrys long legacy of colonialism extending 300 years in length before reaching independence. Jamaica was the meeting place of two expropriate populations the Britisher uprooting himself in search of quick wealth through sugar and the African uprooted by force from his environment to supply slave labor upon which his owners dream of wealth depended (Manley, 1975 12). In 1494 Christopher Columbus arrived on the island to be followed by his son, Diego, in 1509. Diego Columbus sent a delegation to the island thus supporting Spanish control in Jamaica until 1660. During the reign of the Spanish the colonizers managed to wipe out the entire population of native Arawaks, comprised of 60,000 people.The Spanish had imported some slaves from Africa during this time but developed little of the island. expectant developing began in 1660 when, after a five-year struggle against the Spanish crown, the British won power. There was a significant rise in population under British control. Their system allowed the colony to prosper as they gave unfermented European settlers land to cultivate sugar cane and cocoa. The European planter has been described as a machine for making money (Waters, 1985 22).The role of this colonial economic system was to provide raw materials and goods for the Mother Country. In addition, a general consumer market was developed to send wealth to Europe and allow for capital accumulation, all for the benefit of the colonizers. Slavery represents an important part of Jamaican history and the cultivated dominant atmosphere. For one, plantations highly depended on slave labor to maximize profit margins. Between 1655 and 1808 one million slaves were forcefully brought to Jamaica (Waters, 1985 21-23).Persaud (2001 72) suggests, the plantation system, the totality of institutional arrangements surrounding the production and marketing of plantation crops, has seriously affected society in Jamaica. In other words, the slave mode of production was a crucial factor in the make-up of Jamaicas structural society. Jamaicas class structure today reflects its history as a colonial plantation society and its beginnings of industrial development characterized by a high rate of inequality and poverty