Editing Colony of Jamaica

{{Short description|English/British colony in The Caribbean from 1655 to 1962}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Use Jamaican English|date=December 2012}}
{{Infobox former country
| conventional_long_name = Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies
| common_name            = Jamaica
| status                 = [[Crown colony|Colony]] of [[Kingdom of England|England]] (1655–1707)<br />Colony of [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] (1707–1800)<br />Colony of the United Kingdom (1801–1962){{efn|Including both the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]] (1801–1922) and the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]] (1922–1962)}}
| empire                 = United Kingdom
| government_type        = [[Vicegerency]] under a [[parliamentary republic]] (1655–1660) <br /> [[Viceroyalty]] under a [[constitutional monarchy]] (1660–1962)
| event_start            = [[Invasion of Jamaica (1655)|Established]]
| date_start             = 10 May
| year_start             = 1655
| event_end              = [[Independence of Jamaica|Independence]]
| date_end               = 6 August
| year_end               = 1962
| event1                 = Attachment of<br />''Bay Islands''<br />''British Honduras''<br />''Cayman Islands''<br />''Turks and Caicos''
| date_event1            = 15 June 1852<br />1749<br />18 July 1670<br />4 April 1873
| event2                 = Detachment of<br />''Bay Islands''<br />''British Honduras''<br />''Cayman Islands''<br />''Turks and Caicos''
| date_event2            = 14 July 1860<br />2 October 1884<br />4 July 1959<br />4 July 1959
| p1                     = Spanish Jamaica
| flag_p1                = Flag of Cross of Burgundy.svg
| p2                     = Spanish West Indies
| flag_p2                = Flag of Cross of Burgundy.svg
| p3                     = Captaincy General of Guatemala
| flag_p3                = Flag of Cross of Burgundy.svg
| p4                     = Turks and Caicos Islands
| flag_p4                = Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
| s1                     = Jamaica
| flag_s1                = Flag of Jamaica.svg
| s2                     = Cayman Islands
| flag_s2                = Flag of the Cayman Islands (pre-1999).svg
| s3                     = Bay Islands Department{{!}}Bay Islands
| flag_s3                = Flag of Honduras (1839-1866).svg
| s4                     = British Honduras
| flag_s4                = Flag of British Honduras (1919–1981).svg
| s5                     = Turks and Caicos Islands
| flag_s5                = Flag of the Turks and Caicos Islands (1889–1968).svg
| image_flag             = Flag of Jamaica (1957–1962).svg
| flag_type              = [[Flag of Jamaica|Flag]]
| image_coat             = Badge of Jamaica (1957-1962).svg
| symbol_type            = [[Coat of arms of Jamaica|Badge]]
| image_map              = Jamaica (orthographic projection).svg
| capital                = [[Spanish Town]] (1655–1872) <br /> [[Port Royal]] (de facto, 1655–1692) <br /> [[Kingston, Jamaica|Kingston]] (1872–1962)
| national_motto         = ''Indus Uterque Serviet Uni''<br />"The two Indies will serve as one"
| national_anthem        = [[God Save the King|God Save the Queen]] {{center|[[File:Rufst_du,_mein_Vaterland,_God_Save_the_King,_Íslands_minni,_Kongesangen_and_Oben_am_jungen_Rhein_(1938).oga]]}}
| common_languages       = [[English language|English]], [[Jamaican Patois]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Scottish Gaelic]], [[Scots language|Scots]], [[Irish language|Irish]], [[Languages of Africa|African languages]], [[Caribbean Hindustani|Hindustani]], [[Chinese language|Chinese]], [[Arabic]]
| religion               = [[Christianity]], [[Hinduism in Jamaica|Hinduism]], [[Islam in Jamaica|Islam]], [[Bedwardism]], [[Rastafari]], [[Traditional African religion]], [[Afro-American religion]], [[Chinese folk religion]], [[History of the Jews in Jamaica|Judaism]]
|ethnic_groups=[[Afro-Jamaicans|Afro-Jamaican]], [[Multiracial]], [[White Jamaicans|White]] (incl. [[Irish people in Jamaica|Irish]], [[Scottish Jamaicans|Scottish]]), [[Indo-Jamaicans|Indian]], [[Chinese Jamaicans|Chinese]], [[Hispanic]], [[Arab Jamaicans|Arab]], and [[History of the Jews in Jamaica|Jewish]]
| currency               = {{unbulleted list|[[Spanish dollar]] (1655–1840)|[[Jamaican pound]] (1840–1962)|[[British West Indies dollar]] (1954–1962)}}
| leader1                = [[Lord Protector]] [[Oliver Cromwell]]
| year_leader1           = 1655–1658
| leader2                = [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]]
| year_leader2           = 1952–1962
| title_leader           = [[Monarchy of Jamaica|Head of State]]
| representative1        = [[William Penn (Royal Navy officer)|William Penn]]
| representative2        = [[Kenneth Blackburne|Sir Kenneth Blackburne]]
| year_representative1   = 1655
| year_representative2   = 1957–1962
| title_representative   = [[List of Governors of Jamaica|Governor]]
| deputy1                = [[Alexander Bustamante]]
| deputy2                = [[Norman Manley]]
| year_deputy1           = 1953–1955
| year_deputy2           = 1955–1962
| title_deputy           = [[Prime Minister of Jamaica|Chief Minister]]
| legislature            = [[Parliament of Jamaica|Parliament]]
| house1                 = [[Senate of Jamaica|Legislative Council]]
| house2                 = [[House of Representatives of Jamaica|House of Representatives]]
| stat_year1             = 1943
| stat_pop1              = 1,249,900
| ref_pop1               = <ref>{{harvnb|Ayearst|1960|p=64}}.</ref>
| stat_year2             = 1956
| stat_pop2              = 1,577,410
| ref_pop2               = <ref>{{harvnb|Ayearst|1960|p=12}}.</ref>
}}
{{History of Jamaica}}

The '''Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies''' was a [[British colony]] from 1655, when it was [[Invasion of Jamaica (1655)|captured]] by the [[The Protectorate|English Protectorate]] from the [[Spanish Empire]]. Jamaica became a [[British Empire|British colony]] from 1707 and a [[Crown colony]] in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for [[sugarcane]] production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Petley |first=Christer |date=2021-10-02 |title=War, Fire, and Rebellion in Jamaica |journal=Slavery & Abolition |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=847–853 |doi=10.1080/0144039X.2021.1974183 |s2cid=239633942 |issn=0144-039X|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Jamaica]] was granted independence in 1962.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Guide to the United States’ History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Jamaica |url=https://history.state.gov/countries/jamaica#:~:text=Jamaica%20became%20independent%20on%20August,the%20American%20Embassy%20at%20Kingston. |website=}}</ref>

== History ==
{{Main|History of Jamaica}}

=== 17th century ===

====English conquest====
{{Main|Invasion of Jamaica}}

In late 1654, English leader [[Oliver Cromwell]] launched the ''Western Design'' armada against [[Spanish West Indies|Spain's colonies in the Caribbean]].  In April 1655, [[Robert Venables|General Robert Venables]] led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at [[Santo Domingo]], [[Hispaniola]]. However, the Spanish repulsed this poorly-executed attack, known as the [[Siege of Santo Domingo (1655)|Siege of Santo Domingo]], and the English troops were soon decimated by disease, injured badly or possibly killed.{{sfn|Rodger|2005|p=29}}{{sfn|Rodger|2005|p=24}}{{sfn|Coward|2002|p=134}}

Weakened by fever and looking for an easy victory following their defeat at Santo Domingo, the English force then sailed for Jamaica, the only Spanish West Indies island that did not have new defensive works. [[Spanish Jamaica]] had been a colony of Spain for over a hundred years. In May 1655, around 7,000 English soldiers landed near Jamaica's [[Spanish Town]] capital.  The English invasion force soon overwhelmed the small number of Spanish troops (at the time, Jamaica's entire population only numbered around 2,500).<ref>{{harvnb|Parker|2012}}.{{page needed|date=June 2021}}</ref>

In the following years, Spain repeatedly attempted to recapture Jamaica, and in response in 1657 the English Governor of Jamaica invited [[buccaneer]]s to base themselves at [[Port Royal]] on Jamaica, to help defend against Spanish attacks.  Spain never recaptured Jamaica, losing the [[Battle of Ocho Rios (1657)|Battle of Ocho Rios]] in 1657 and the [[Battle of Rio Nuevo (1658)|Battle of Rio Nuevo]] in 1658. Governor [[Edward D'Oyley]] succeeded in persuading one of the leaders of the Spanish [[Maroons]], [[Juan de Bolas]], to switch sides and join the English along with his Maroon warriors. In 1660, when Don Cristobal de Ysasi realised that de Bolas had joined the English, he admitted that the Spanish no longer had a chance of recapturing the island, since de Bolas and his men knew the mountainous interior better than the Spanish and the English. Ysasi gave up on his dreams, and fled to Cuba.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=14–20}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=54}}.</ref>

For England, Jamaica was to be the 'dagger pointed at the heart of the Spanish Empire,' although in fact it was a possession of little economic value then.{{sfn|Coward|2002|p=134}}

====Early 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 [[Wars of the Three Kingdoms|in battles with]] the [[Irish people|Irish]] and [[Scottish people|Scots]], as well as some common criminals.<ref name=":0">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean: a regional study|publisher=[[Federal Research Division]], [[Library of Congress]]|location=Washington, D.C.|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/88600483/|last1=Hudson|first1=Rex A.|date=1987|editor1-last=Meditz|editor1-first=Sandra W.|language=English|oclc=49361510|postscript=. {{PD-notice}}|last2=Seyler|first2=Daniel J.|entry=Jamaica|editor2-first=Dennis M.|editor2-last=Hanratty}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=51}}.</ref>

This practice was continued under [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], and the white population was also augmented by immigrants from the [[British America|North American mainland]] and other islands, as well as by the English [[buccaneer]]s.<ref name=":0" /> But [[tropical diseases]] kept the number of whites well under 10,000 until about 1740.<ref name=":0" /> The white population increased, through migration from Britain, to 80,000 in the 1780s.<ref>{{harvnb|Petley|2018|p=24}}.</ref>

Although the slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded roughly 9,500, by the end of the seventeenth century [[History of slavery|imports]] of [[slave]]s increased the [[Jamaicans of African ancestry|black population]] to at least three times the number of whites.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=p95>{{harvnb|Patterson|1973|p=95}}.</ref>

Beginning with the [[House of Stuart|Stuart]] monarchy's appointment of a civil [[Governor of Jamaica|governor]] to Jamaica in 1661, political patterns were established that lasted well into the twentieth century.<ref name=":0" /> The second governor, [[Thomas Hickman-Windsor, 1st Earl of Plymouth|Lord Windsor]], brought with him in 1662 a proclamation from the king giving Jamaica's non-slave populace the rights of English citizens, including the right to make their own laws.<ref name=":0" /> Although he spent only ten weeks in Jamaica, Lord Windsor laid the foundations of a governing system that was to last for two centuries: a Crown-appointed governor acting with the advice of a nominated council in the legislature.<ref name=":0" /> The legislature consisted of the governor and an elected but highly unrepresentative [[House of Assembly of Jamaica|House of Assembly]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=55}}.</ref>

England gained formal possession of Jamaica from [[Spanish Empire|Spain]] in 1670 through the [[Treaty of Madrid (1670)|Treaty of Madrid]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=69}}.</ref> Removing the pressing need for constant defence against Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to [[Plantation economy|planting]].<ref name=":0" /> For years, however, the planter-dominated Jamaica House of Assembly was in continual conflict with the various governors and the Stuart kings; there were also contentious factions within the assembly itself.<ref name=":0" /> For much of the 1670s and 1680s, Charles II and [[James II of England|James II]] and the assembly feuded over such matters as the purchase of slaves from ships not run by the royal English trading company.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="auto2">{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=72–73}}.</ref>

The [[Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle|last Stuart governor]], the [[Duke of Albemarle]], who was more interested in [[treasure hunting]] than in planting, turned the planter oligarchy out of office.<ref name=":0" /> After the duke's death in 1688, the planters, who had fled Jamaica to [[London]], succeeded in lobbying James II to order a return to the pre-Albemarle political arrangement and the revolution that brought [[William III of England|William III]] and [[Mary II of England|Mary]] to the throne in 1689 confirmed the local control of Jamaican planters belonging to the Assembly.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="auto2"/>

This settlement also improved the supply of slaves and resulted in more protection, including military support, for the planters against foreign competition.<ref name=":0" /> This was of particular importance during the [[Nine Years' War#Asia and the Caribbean|Anglo-French War]] in the Caribbean from 1689 to 1713.<ref name=":0" /> However, even though the Spaniards no longer threatened Jamaica, the early English settlers had to ward off attacks from the French. In 1694, [[Jean-Baptiste du Casse]] led a force of three warships and 29 transport ships that landed at [[Port Morant]] in eastern Jamaica, where they burnt plantations, destroyed over 50 sugar-works, kidnapped hundreds of slaves, and killed and tortured many white colonists. Du Casse then sailed down the southern coast, eventually landing at Carlisle Bay, with the object of marching on to [[Spanish Town]]. However, a militia company of planters and their slaves defeated du Casse, who then destroyed Carlisle Bay, and withdrew to [[St Domingue]].<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=74–75}}.</ref>

====Maroons====
{{Main|Jamaican Maroons#History}}

When the English captured [[Jamaica]] in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled. Since 1512, though slavery was forbidden due to the laws of Burgos<ref>{{Cite web|last=Macías|first=Francisco|date=2012-12-27|title=The Laws of Burgos: 500 Years of Human Rights {{!}} In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/12/the-laws-of-burgos-500-years-of-human-rights/|access-date=2021-09-01|website=blogs.loc.gov|archive-date=23 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180123131625/https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/12/the-laws-of-burgos-500-years-of-human-rights/|url-status=live}}</ref> there were no more than 400 African "free" workers living in the island.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Jamaica Plantation Era and the Abolition of Slavery|url=https://jamaicagreathouses.com/slavery/index.html|access-date=2021-09-01|website=jamaicagreathouses.com|archive-date=26 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726160006/https://jamaicagreathouses.com/slavery/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref>  These former Spanish citizens created three ''Palenques'', or settlements. Former citizens organised under the leadership of [[Juan de Serras]] allied with the Spanish guerrillas on the western end of the [[Cockpit Country]], while those under [[Juan de Bolas]] established themselves in modern-day [[Clarendon Parish, Jamaica]] and served as a "black militia" for the English. The third chose to join those who had previously escaped from the Spanish to live and intermarry with the [[Arawak]] people. Each group of [[Jamaican Maroons]] established distinct communities of [[Free black people in Jamaica]] in the mountainous interior. They survived by subsistence farming and periodic raids of plantations. Over time, the Maroons came to control large areas of the Jamaican interior.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series: America and West Indies|date=1970|editor-last=Sainsbury|editor-first=William Noel|series=|volume='''1, 5''' (1574–1660, 1661–1668)|location=London|language=English|oclc=970920774}}</ref>

In the second half of the seventeenth century, de Serras fought regular campaigns against the English forces, even attacking the capital of [[Spanish Town]], and he was never defeated by the English.<ref>Mavis Campbell, ''The Maroons of Jamaica 1655–1796: a History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal'' (Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988), pp. 20-27.</ref> In the early eighteenth century, Maroon forces frequently defeated the British in small-scale skirmishes.<ref name=":0" /> In response, the British colonial authorities dispatched the [[Colonial troops|colonial militia]] to attack them, but the Maroons successfully fought a guerrilla campaign against them in the mountainous interior, and forced the colonial authorities to seek peace terms to end the expensive conflict.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=14–35}}.</ref>

In the early eighteenth century, English-speaking escaped [[Akan people|Akan]] slaves (hailing originally from West Africa, specifically Ghana) were at the forefront of the Maroon fighting against the British. [[Cudjoe]] (or "Kojo" in the original Akan) led the Leeward Maroons in western Jamaica, while [[Quao]] (or "Yaw" in the original Akan) and [[Queen Nanny]] were the leaders of the Windward Maroons in the Blue Mountains of eastern Jamaica. The [[First Maroon War|rebellion]] finally ended, however, with the signing of peace agreements in 1739 and 1740.<ref>{{harvnb|Craton|1982|p=87}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Carey|1997|pp=190–282}}.</ref>

White planters later tried to sow seeds of division among Maroon communities by pressuring them to re-capture any escaped slaves, and to protect British property in exchange for no longer being attacked by British forces. Although a small faction of the Maroons of Trelawny Town accepted these conditions (and were later re-captured and sold back into slavery, to be shipped off to Cuba and the American state of Georgia), overwhelmingly Maroon communities remained bastions of hope and freedom for escapees. Maroon warfare and continued successful attacks on plantations continued to serve as a driving force behind Britain's decision to emancipate the colony of Jamaica in later years.

====Jamaica's pirate economy====
Spanish resistance continued for some years after the English conquest, in some cases with the help of the [[Jamaican Maroons]], but Spain never succeeded in retaking the island.  The English established their main coastal town at [[Port Royal]]. 
Under early [[Kingdom of England|English]] rule, Jamaica became a [[pirate haven|haven]] of [[privateer]]s, [[buccaneer]]s, and occasionally outright [[pirate]]s: [[Christopher Myngs]], [[Edward Mansvelt]], and most famously, [[Henry Morgan]].<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=55–71}}.</ref>

In addition to being unable to retake their land, Spain was no longer able to provide their colonies in the New World with manufactured goods on a regular basis. The progressive irregularity of annual Spanish fleets, combined with an increasing desperation by colonies for manufactured goods, allowed Port Royal to flourish and by 1659, two hundred houses, shops, and warehouses surrounded the fort.  Merchants and privateers worked together in what is now referred to as "forced trade." Merchants would sponsor trading endeavors with the Spanish while sponsoring privateers to attack Spanish ships and rob Spanish coastal towns.<ref name="autogenerated1986"/>

While the merchants most certainly had the upper hand, the privateers were an integral part of the operation. [[Nuala Zahedieh]], a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, wrote, "Both opponents and advocates of so-called 'forced trade' declared the town’s fortune had the dubious distinction of being founded entirely on the servicing of the privateers' needs and highly lucrative trade in prize commodities."<ref name="autogenerated1986">{{Cite journal|last=Zahedieh|first=Nuala|date=1986|title=Trade, Plunder, and Economic Development in Early English Jamaica, 1655-89|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596150|journal=The Economic History Review|volume=39|issue=2|pages=205–222|doi=10.2307/2596150|jstor=2596150|issn=0013-0117|access-date=9 June 2021|archive-date=1 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501111958/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596150|url-status=live}}</ref> She added, "A report that the 300 men who accompanied Henry Morgan to Portobello in 1668 returned to the town with a prize to spend of at least £60 each (two or three times the usual annual plantation wage) leaves little doubt that they were right".<ref name="autogenerated1986"/>

The forced trade became almost a way of life in Port Royal. Michael Pawson and David Busseret wrote "...one way or the other nearly all the propertied inhabitants of Port Royal seem to have an interest in privateering."<ref>Michael Pawson and David Buisseret, ''Port Royal, Jamaica'' (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2000).</ref> Forced trade was rapidly making Port Royal one of the wealthiest communities in the English territories of North America, far surpassing any profit made from the production of [[sugarcane]]. Zahedieh wrote, "The Portobello raid [in 1668] alone produced plunder worth £75,000, more than seven times the annual value of the island’s sugar exports, which at Port Royal prices did not exceed £10,000 at this time."<ref name="autogenerated1986"/>

However, many successful privateers and buccaneers became integrally involved in the growing [[sugar industry]], human trafficking, and the acquisition of large numbers of enslaved Africans. In the 1670s and 1680s, in his capacity as an owner of a large population of humans he kept enslaved, Morgan led three campaigns against the Jamaican Maroons of Juan de Serras. Morgan achieved some success against the Maroons, who withdrew further into the Blue Mountains, where they were able to stay out of the reach of Morgan and his forces.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=23, 32–33}}.</ref>

<gallery>
File:Old Port Royal - Project Gutenberg eText 19396.png|An illustration of pre-1692 Port Royal

File:Jamaica1671ogilby.jpg|English map of Jamaica from the 1670s<ref>{{cite web |url=http://prestwidge.com/river/jamaica1671ogilby.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-05-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222101724/http://prestwidge.com/river/jamaica1671ogilby.html |archive-date=22 February 2012 }}</ref>
File:Political Evolution of Central America and the Caribbean 1700 and on.gif|European colonies in the Caribbean during the 18th century
</gallery>

====1692 earthquake and the collapse of Port Royal====
{{Main|1692 Jamaica earthquake}}

On 7 June 1692, a violent [[1692 Jamaica earthquake|earthquake]] struck Port Royal.  Two-thirds of the town sank into the sea immediately after the main shock.<ref name="USGS">{{cite web|url=https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1692_06_07.php|title=Historic Earthquakes: Jamaica 1692 June 07 UTC|last=USGS|date=21 October 2009|access-date=6 December 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120408181146/http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1692_06_07.php|archive-date=8 April 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to Robert Renny in his 'An History of Jamaica' (1807): "All the wharves sunk at once, and in the space of two minutes, nine-tenths of the city were covered with water, which was raised to such a height, that it entered the uppermost rooms of the few houses which were left standing. The tops of the highest houses, were visible in the water, and surrounded by the masts of vessels, which had been sunk along with them."<ref name="Renny">{{cite book|last=Renny|first=Robert|title=An history of Jamaica: with observations on the climate, scenery, trade, productions, negroes, slave trade, diseases of Europeans, customs, manners, and dispositions of the inhabitants: to which is added, an illustration of the advantages which are likely to result from the abolition of the Slave Trade|publisher=J. Cawthorn|year=1807|page=333|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNMTAAAAYAAJ|access-date=2009-12-20|archive-date=2 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702124252/https://books.google.com/books?id=CNMTAAAAYAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> Before the earthquake, the town consisted of 6,500 inhabitants living in about 2,000 buildings, many constructed of brick and with more than one storey, and all built on loose sand. During the shaking, the sand [[Soil liquefaction|liquefied]] and the buildings, along with their occupants, appeared to flow into the sea.<ref name="Gragg"/>

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, it was common to ascribe the destruction to [[divine retribution]] on the people of Port Royal for their sinful ways. Members of the Jamaica Council declared: "We are become by this an instance of God Almighty's severe judgement."<ref name="Gragg">{{cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/185283/The-Port-Royal-Earthquake-History-Today|title=The Port Royal Earthquake|last=Gragg|first=L.|year=2000|publisher=History Today|access-date=21 December 2009|archive-date=5 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111205031707/http://www.scribd.com/doc/185283/The-Port-Royal-Earthquake-History-Today|url-status=live}}</ref> This view of the disaster was not confined to Jamaica; in [[Boston]], the Reverend [[Cotton Mather]] said in a letter to his uncle: "Behold, an accident speaking to all our English America." After the earthquake, the town was partially rebuilt. But the colonial government was relocated to Spanish Town, which had been the capital under [[Spain|Spanish rule]]. Port Royal was devastated by a fire in 1703 and a [[hurricane]] in 1722. Most of the sea trade moved to Kingston. By the late 18th century, Port Royal was largely abandoned.<ref name="Tortello">{{cite web|url=http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story001.html|title=1692:Earthquake of Port Royal|last=Tortello|first=Rebecca|access-date=22 December 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309071447/http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story001.html|archive-date=9 March 2010|website=[[The Gleaner]]}}</ref>

=== 18th century ===

====Jamaica's sugar boom====
[[File:Cane cutters in Jamaica.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Sugar cane cutters in Jamaica, 1880]]

In the mid-17th century, [[sugarcane]] had been brought into the [[British West Indies|English West Indies]] by the [[Dutch Republic|Dutch]],<ref>Nancy sharkey, [https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/11/travel/a-barbados-synagogue-is-reborn.html?sec=travel&pagewanted=print "A Barbados Synagogue Is Reborn"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729051858/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/11/travel/a-barbados-synagogue-is-reborn.html?sec=travel&pagewanted=print |date=29 July 2018 }}, ''The New York Times'', 11 December 1988</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.planetware.com/tourist-attractions-/bridgetown-bar-mi-bdgtn.htm#BAR-MI-SYN|title=9 Top-Rated Attractions & Things to Do in Bridgetown &#124; PlanetWare|website=www.planetware.com|access-date=18 May 2021|archive-date=18 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518093443/https://www.planetware.com/tourist-attractions-/bridgetown-bar-mi-bdgtn.htm#BAR-MI-SYN|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Ralph G.|last=Bennett|url=http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/011/jewcar.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607142034/http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/011/jewcar.html|archive-date=7 June 2011|title=History of the Jews of the Caribbean|publisher=Institut Sepharade Europeen}}{{unreliable source?|date=June 2021}}</ref> from [[Brazil]]. Upon landing in Jamaica and other islands, they quickly urged local growers to change their main crops from [[cotton]] and [[tobacco]] to sugar cane. With depressed prices of cotton and tobacco, due mainly to stiff competition from the North American colonies, the farmers switched, leading to a boom in the Caribbean economies. [[Sugar]] was rapidly becoming more popular in Britain, where it was used in [[cake]]s and to sweeten [[tea]]s. In the eighteenth century, sugar replaced [[Piracy in the Caribbean|piracy]] as Jamaica's main source of income and Jamaica became the largest exporter of sugar in the British Empire. Sugar became Britain's largest import by the late eighteenth century.<ref>{{harvnb|Sheridan|1974|p=489}}.</ref>

The sugar monoculture and slave-worked [[Sugar plantations in the Caribbean|plantation]] society spread across Jamaica throughout the eighteenth century.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=FNM7DAAAQBAJ The Plantation Machine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702124252/https://books.google.com/books?id=FNM7DAAAQBAJ |date=2 July 2023 }} by Trevor Burnard, p. 37.</ref> The [[sugar industry]] was labour-intensive and the English brought hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans to Jamaica. In 1673, there were only 57 sugar estates in Jamaica, but by 1739, the number of sugar plantations grew to 430.<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=97–110}}.</ref> By 1832, the median-size plantation in Jamaica had about 150 slaves, and nearly one of every four bondsmen lived on units that had at least 250 slaves.<ref>Robert William Fogel, "Slavery in the New World". Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. pp. 21–23</ref>

Jamaica eventually become one of Britain's most valuable colonies during the 18th century. During the [[Seven Years' War]] of 1756–63, the British government sought to protect Jamaica from a possible [[Kingdom of France|French]] invasion. In 1760, at the height of the war, there were 16 warships stationed in Jamaica, compared to 18 in the Leeward Islands, and only 19 vessels assigned to the whole of the North American continent.<ref>Vincent Brown, ''Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020), p. 65.</ref>

[[Simon Taylor (sugar planter)|Simon Taylor]], who owned estates in the Jamaican parishes of St Thomas and St Mary, was one of the wealthiest men in the British Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/simon-taylor-and-jamaican-slavery/|title=Simon Taylor &#124; Slavery and Revolution|access-date=15 December 2018|archive-date=15 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215222830/https://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/simon-taylor-and-jamaican-slavery/|url-status=live}}</ref> During the eighteenth century, those men who survived tropical diseases, were, on average, 50 times wealthier than those who resided in the [[British Isles]].<ref>{{harvnb|Petley|2018|p=40}}.</ref> Other notable planters in Jamaica who became wealthy as a result of owning slave plantations included [[Peter Beckford (colonial administrator)|Peter Beckford]], [[Francis Price (planter)|Francis Price]] and [[Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford|Charles Ellis]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

====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 [Jamaica] in a barbarous Treatment of Slaves, or in the cruel Methods they put them to Death."<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|2020|p=57}}.</ref><ref>Charles Leslie, ''A New and Exact Account of Jamaica'' (Edinburgh: R. Fleming, 1740), pp. 41–2.</ref>

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 of [[Africa]] preferred to first unload at the islands of the [[Eastern Caribbean]].<ref name=":0" />

In 1673, there were nearly 8,000 white colonizers in Jamaica, and over 9,000 Africans kept in slavery. By 1690, that margin increased to 10,000 white colonizers and 30,000 Africans kept enslaved. .<ref name="Hilary Beckles 2001 p. 224">Hilary Beckles, "The 'Hub of Empire': The Caribbean and Britain in the Seventeenth Century", ''The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume 1 The Origins of Empire'', ed. by Nicholas Canny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 224.</ref> At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of enslaved Africans in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000,<ref name=":0" /> but by 1713, the white population had declined to an estimated 7,000, while there were 55,000 enslaved Africans on the island.<ref name="Hilary Beckles 2001 p. 224"/> The population of enslaved Africans rose to about 75,000 in 1730, and passed the 100,000 mark in the 1740s. In 1778, the population of enslaved Africans passed 200,000, and by 1800 it had increased to over 300,000.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=p95/>

The oppression of free Africans and [[free people of color]] increased during the early 18th century. In 1724, a white planter named William Brodrick insulted [[Francis Williams (poet)]], who also ran a school for the children of [[Free black people in Jamaica]]. Brodrick called him a "black dog", whereupon Williams reacted by calling Brodrick a "white dog" several times. Brodrick punched Williams, as a result of which his "mouth was bloody", but Williams retaliated, after which Brodrick's "shirt and neckcloth had been tore ''(sic)'' by the said Williams". Williams insisted that since he was a free black man, he could not be tried for assault, as would have been the case with black slaves who hit a white man, because he was defending himself.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), pp. 119-120.</ref><ref name=JAJ>''Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica'', Vol. 2, 19 November 1724, pp. 509–512.</ref>

The Assembly, which comprised elected white enslavers, was alarmed at the success with which Williams argued his case, and secured the dismissal of Brodrick's attempts to prosecute him. Complaining that "Williams's behaviour is of great encouragement to the negroes of the island in general", the Assembly then decided to "bring in a bill to reduce the said Francis Williams to the state of other free negroes in this island". This legislation made it illegal for any black person in Jamaica to strike a white person, even in self-defence.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), pp. 119-120.</ref><ref name=JAJ />

After slavery was abolished in the 1830s, sugar plantations used a variety of forms of labour including workers imported from [[India]] under contracts of [[indenture]].

====First Maroon War====
{{Main|First 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 [[Malagasy people|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.<ref>{{harvnb|Patterson|1970|pp=256–58}}</ref> 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, allowed the Maroons to evade, thwart, frustrate, and defeat any expeditions sent against them.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

In 1728, the British authorities sent [[Robert Hunter (colonial administrator)|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.<ref name="auto3">{{harvnb|Carey|1997|pp=315–355}}.</ref> By 1739, the colonial authorities recognised that they 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 (governor)|Edward Trelawny]], sued for peace with the Leeward Maroon leader, [[Cudjoe]], described by Jamaican planters as a short, almost dwarf-like man who for years fought skilfully and bravely to maintain his people's independence. Some writers maintain that during the conflict, Cudjoe became increasingly disillusioned, and quarrelled with his lieutenants and with other Maroon groups. He felt that the only hope for the future was a peace treaty with the enemy which recognized the independence of the Leeward Maroons. In 1742, Cudjoe had to suppress a rebellion of Leeward Maroons against the treaty.<ref name="auto7">{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=88–126}}.</ref>

In 1740, the even more rebellious Windward Maroons of the Blue Mountains also agreed to sign a treaty under pressure from both white Jamaicans and the Leeward Maroons.<ref name="auto7"/> In exchange for securing their freedom, the Maroons were asked to agree not to harbour new runaway slaves, but rather to help catch them. This last clause in the treaty naturally caused a split between the Maroons and the rest of the black population, although from time to time runaways from the plantations still found their way into new maroon settlements, such as those run by [[Three Fingered Jack (Jamaica)]]. Another provision of the agreement was that the Maroons would serve to protect the island from invaders. The latter was because the Maroons were revered by the British as skilled warriors.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=126–63}}.</ref>

Following the peace treaties of 1739–1740, virgin land was opened up to settlement, and Jamaica's economy flourished in the period of peace that followed.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=77–79}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Diptee|2010|p=10}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brown|2008|p=15}}.</ref> Five official Maroon towns were established in the aftermath of the treaties – [[Accompong]]; [[Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)]]; [[Nanny Town]], later known as [[Moore Town]], [[Scott's Hall (Jamaica)]], and [[Charles Town, Jamaica]], living under their own rulers and a British supervisor known as a superintendent.<ref name="auto3"/>

====Tacky's Revolt====
{{Main|Three Fingered Jack (Jamaica)|Tacky's revolt}}

[[File:Easter Rebellion memorial 20231007 120611.jpg|thumb|Easter Rebellion memorial 20231007 120611]]
Among the population of Africans 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=109–110}}.</ref>

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.<ref name="jamaicans1">{{cite web |url=http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/articles_culture/tackys_rebellion.shtml |title=Jamaican Culture |publisher=Jamaicans.com |date=2014-06-20 |access-date=2015-04-16 |archive-date=16 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016000555/http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/articles_culture/tackys_rebellion.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:ArmorySign20231007 122020.jpg|thumb|left|Armory sign at Fort Haldane]]
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.<ref name="jamaicans1"/> [[Obeah]]men (Caribbean magic practitioners) 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.<ref name="jamaicans1"/>

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.<ref name="jamaicans1"/>

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.<ref name="jamaicans1"/>

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.<ref>Vincent Brown, ''Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020), p. 188.</ref>

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.<ref>Vincent Brown, ''Tacky's Revolt'', p. 197.</ref>

The remaining rebels then fell under the leadership of an escaped slave named Simon, which took refuge in the [[Cockpit Country]] at a place called High Windward, from which they mounted a number of attacks on nearby plantations in [[Saint Elizabeth Parish]]. In October, in one such raid, the rebels attacked and destroyed Ipswich sugar estate, which was located at the mouth of the Y.S. river.<ref>Vincent Brown, ''Tacky's Revolt'', p. 201.</ref>

In January 1761, Simon's rebels relocated to a place named Mile Gully, which was then situated in [[Clarendon Parish, Jamaica]]. There were reports that Simon was shot and killed in a skirmish with a party sent to apprehend the rebel slaves.<ref>Vincent Brown, ''Tacky's Revolt'', p. 204.</ref>

By late 1761, Governor Moore declared that the main western revolt was over. However, some remaining rebels scattered in small bands continued operating from the forested interior of the [[Cockpit Country]], and they conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare for the rest of the decade, staging raids on plantations within their reach.<ref>Craton, Michael. ''Testing the Chains''. Cornell University Press, 1982, pp. 138–39.</ref>

====Runaway 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 1770s and 1780s. 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=113–114}}.</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=116–117}}.</ref>

====Second Maroon War====
{{Main|Second Maroon War}}

[[File:The Maroons In Ambush On The Dromilly Estate In The Parish Of Trelawney, Jamaica in 1795.jpg|thumb|The Maroons In Ambush On The Dromilly Estate In The Parish Of Trelawney]]

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 [[pig]]s. 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 of [[Cudjoe]]'s Treaty of 1739, which ended the [[First Maroon War]].<ref name="auto8"/>

The war lasted for five months and ended in a stalemate, after the colonial militias suffered a number of defeats. Despite the colonial militia outnumbering the [[Jamaican Maroons|Maroons]] and their runaway slave allies ten to one, the military skill of the Maroons, coupled with the mountainous and forested topography of Jamaica which proved ideal for [[guerrilla warfare]], meant that the Maroons could not be defeated. The Trelawny Maroons accepted the stalemate in December 1795 when they felt they were unable to maintain their guerrilla campaign, on the condition that they would not be deported, a promise given to them by Major-General [[George Walpole (British Army officer)|George Walpole]].<ref name="auto8">{{harvnb|Campbell|1988|pp=209–249}}.</ref>

The treaty signed in December between Major-General Walpole and the Trelawny [[Jamaican Maroons|Maroon]] leaders established that the Maroons of Trelawny Town would beg on their knees for the King's forgiveness, return all runaway slaves, and be relocated elsewhere in Jamaica. [[Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres]], the governor of Jamaica, ratified the treaty- but gave the Trelawny Maroons only three days to present themselves to beg forgiveness on 1 January 1796. Suspicious of British intentions, most of the Trelawny Maroons did not surrender until mid-March. The colonial authorities used the contrived breach of treaty as a pretext to deport the entire Trelawny Town [[Jamaican Maroons|Maroons]] to [[Nova Scotia]]. After a few years the Trelawny Maroons were again transported, this time by their request, to the fledgling British settlement of [[Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate|Sierra Leone]] in [[West Africa]].<ref name="auto8"/>

====Haitian Revolution====

[[File:Prise de la Ravine-à-Couleuvres (23 février 1802), par Karl Girardet, gravé par Jean-Jacques Outhwaite.jpg|thumb|Fighting between French soldiers and insurgents during the [[Haitian Revolution]] (1791–1802)]]

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.<ref>C.V. Black, ''History of Jamaica'' (London: Collins, 1958), pp. 131–132.</ref> [[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]].<ref>C.L.R. James, ''Black Jacobins'' (London: Penguin, 1938), p. 109.</ref><ref>David Geggus, ''Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–1798'' (New York: Clarendon Press, 1982).</ref>

=== 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=117}}.</ref>

In the first half of the 18th century, many free people of colour sponsored bills in the Assembly to have themselves legally declared white, in order to improve their opportunities of advancing in Jamaican society. The large numbers of applications alarmed the Assembly so much that they sought to pass legislation to place restrictions on these activities.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), pp. 120-2.</ref>

In 1761, the Assembly of Jamaica passed a law entitled "An Act to prevent the inconveniences arising from exorbitant grants and devices, made by white persons", restricting anyone with less than four generations from a black ancestor from acquiring the "rights and privileges of whites". This law sought to curtail mixed-race children form inheriting significant amounts of property from white landowners.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), pp. 119-120.</ref>

However, despite this legislation, large numbers of free people of colour continued to apply to become 'structurally white', in order to inherit property from their white fathers, and many of these applications were approved by the Assembly, upon payment of a fee.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), pp. 123-4.</ref>

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Jamaica Assembly granted Jews voting rights that had previously been denied them.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story0054.htm|title=Pieces of the Past: The Jews in Jamaica|website=[[The Gleaner]]|access-date=26 December 2018|archive-date=10 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110233027/http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story0054.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

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. In 1813, the Assembly passed a law removing restrictions on people of colour inheriting property, and allowing them to appear on court alongside white citizens.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), p. 124.</ref>

In 1826, Richard Barrett, a member of the Assembly from St James, piloted a bill which removed fees on free people of colour seeking to become legally white, and that led to a significant influx in people of colour seeking to change their status.<ref>Michael Sivapragasam, "Becoming 'Structurally White' in Eighteenth Century Jamaica", ''Caribbean Cosmopolitanisms and Caribbean Sciences'', ed. by Nicholas Faraclas, etc (Curacao/Puerto Rico: University of Curacao, 2022), p. 124.</ref>

At first, the Assembly resisted attempts from [[Free black people in Jamaica]] to secure equal rights, and in 1823 the Assembly deported one of their leaders, [[Louis Celeste Lecesne]]. However, after they granted the Jews voting rights, they finally succumbed to demands from the free coloureds for equal rights. Campaigners such as [[Edward Jordon]], [[Robert Osborn (Jamaica)]] and [[Richard Hill (Jamaica)]] were successful in securing equal rights for [[free people of colour]] at the beginning of the 1830s.<ref>Mavis Campbell, ''The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society'' (London: AUP, 1976).</ref>

====Slave 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 the [[Cockpit Country]], and they joined other runaway communities. In 1798, an enslaved man named [[Cuffee (Jamaica)]] (from the Akan name Kofi) ran away from a western estate, and established a runaway community which was able to resist attempts by the colonial forces and the Maroons remaining in Jamaica to subdue them.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=165–169, 172–175, 180–189}}.</ref> In the early nineteenth century, colonial records describe hundreds of runaway slaves escaping to "Healthshire" where they flourished for several years before they were captured by a party of Maroons, and ingratiated into the Maroon community.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=163–164, 196}}.</ref>

In 1812, a community of newly escaped captives started when a dozen men and some women escaped from the sugar plantations of Trelawny into the Cockpit Country, and they created a village with the curious name of [[Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come]]. By the 1820s, Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come housed between 50–60 runaways. The headmen of the community were escaped captives who had been slaves, two men named Warren and Forbes. Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come also conducted a thriving trade with self-freed Black communities from the north coast, who exchanged their salt provisions with newer runaways so they could have ground provisions.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=191–192}}.</ref> In October 1824, the colonial militias tried to destroy this community. However, the community of Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come continued to thrive in the Cockpit Country until Emancipation in the 1830s.<ref>{{harvnb|Sivapragasam|2018|pp=192–193}}.</ref>

====The Baptist War====
{{Main|Baptist War}}

[[File:Duperly (1833) Destruction of the Roehampton Estate January 1832.png|thumb|Destruction of the [[Roehampton Estate]], January 1832, during the Baptist War, by [[Adolphe Duperly]]]]

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,<ref name=Revauger>{{cite book |title=The Abolition of Slavery – The British Debate 1787–1840 |first=Cécile |last=Révauger |author-link=Cécile Révauger|pages=107–108 |publisher=Presse Universitaire de France |date=October 2008 |isbn=978-2-13-057110-0}}</ref> lasting 10 days and mobilised as many as 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slave population.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Eltis|first=David|date=1985|title=Review of Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/204213|journal=The Journal of Interdisciplinary History|volume=16|issue=2|pages=365–367|doi=10.2307/204213|jstor=204213|issn=0022-1953|access-date=9 June 2021|archive-date=2 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220402045141/https://www.jstor.org/stable/204213|url-status=live}}</ref>

The rebellion was suppressed by British forces, under the control of [[Willoughby Cotton|Sir Willoughby Cotton]],<ref name=Jamaica-Guide.info>{{cite web|title=An End to Slavery – 1816–1836: Jamaica Reluctantly Makes History by Freeing its Slaves |url=http://www.jamaica-guide.info/past.and.present/history/slavery.emancipation |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927021153/http://jamaica-guide.info/past.and.present/history/slavery.emancipation/ |archive-date=27 September 2013 }}</ref> but the death toll on both sides was high. The reaction of the Jamaican Government and [[plantocracy]]<ref>{{harvnb|Craton|1982|pp=297–298}}</ref> 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).<ref>Mary Reckord. "The Jamaican Slave Rebellion of 1831", ''Past & Present'' (July 1968), 40(3): pp. 122, 124–125.</ref> 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.<ref name=Revauger/> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name="auto1">Eric Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery'' (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1945).</ref>

During most of the eighteenth century, a [[Monocropping|monocrop]] economy based on sugar production for export flourished.<ref name=":0" /> In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name="auto1"/>

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]].<ref>{{harvnb|Craton|1982|pp=319–323}}.</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=159–167}}.</ref><ref name="auto6">Mavis Campbell, ''The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society'' (London: AUP, 1976), p. 156.</ref>

===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 [[mulatto]]s) to vote, but placed property ownership restrictions on them, which excluded the majority of non-white men from voting.<ref name="auto9">{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=183–184}}.</ref>

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.<ref name="auto9"/>

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.<ref name="auto6"/>

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.<ref name="auto11">{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jordon-edward|title=Jordon, Edward &#124; Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com|access-date=16 December 2018|archive-date=14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414143542/https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jordon-edward|url-status=live}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jnht.com/railway_stations.php |title=Jamaica National Heritage Trust - Jamaica - Railway Stations |website=www.jnht.com |access-date=30 April 2022 |archive-date=14 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014011014/http://jnht.com/railway_stations.php |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Morant Bay Rebellion====
{{Main|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.<ref>Holt (1992), p. 295.</ref> 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]],<ref>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19875 "Alexander Nelson"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185251/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19875 |date=3 March 2016 }} at ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.</ref> 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."<ref name="IPN">"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.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Semmel|first=Bernard|title=The Governor Eyre Controversy|year=1962|publisher=MacGibbon & Kee|location=London|pages=128}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="auto1"/> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the [[Morant Bay rebellion]]s of 1865.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jordon-edward |title= |website=www.encyclopedia.com |access-date=2 September 2020 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414143542/https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jordon-edward |url-status=live }}{{title missing|date=May 2022}}</ref><ref>Tuesday, 2 April 1878 edition of ''The Colonial Standard And Jamaica Despatch''.</ref>

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.<ref name=":0" /> Agricultural development was the centrepiece of restored British rule in Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched.<ref name=":0" /> In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> But, as noted, smallscale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers.<ref name=":0" /> The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry.<ref name=":0" /> Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Pier remnants, Paggee Beach.jpg|thumb|left|Lee's Pier remnants, Pagee Beach, Port Maria]]
The rise of the [[banana]] trade during the second half of the nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on the island.<ref name=":0" /> Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter.<ref name=":0" /> By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year.<ref name=":0" />

====Jamaica as a Crown Colony====

[[File:Cane cutters, Jamaica, 1891.jpg|thumb|right|Sugar cane cutters in Jamaica, 1891]]

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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Gad Heuman, ''The Killing Time: The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica'' (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994).</ref> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name="auto11"/>

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.<ref name=":0" /> The council included a few handpicked prominent Jamaicans for the sake of appearance only.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> The elected members of this body were in a permanent minority and without any influence or administrative power.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name="auto4">{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=232}}.</ref><ref name=":0" />

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====
{{Main|Kingston, Jamaica#History}}

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 for [[Jamaica]]. The government sold land to people with the regulation that they purchase no more than the amount of the land that they owned in [[Port Royal]], and only land on the sea front. Gradually wealthy merchants began to move their residences from above their businesses to the farm lands north on the plains of [[Liguanea]].

In 1755 the [[List of Governors of Jamaica|governor]], [[Sir Charles Knowles, 1st Baronet|Sir Charles Knowles]], had decided to transfer the government offices from [[Spanish Town]] to Kingston. It was thought by some to be an unsuitable location for the Assembly in proximity to the moral distractions of Kingston, and the next governor rescinded the Act.<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|pp=91–92}}.</ref>

However, by 1780 the population of Kingston was 11,000, and the merchants began lobbying for the administrative capital to be transferred from Spanish Town, which was by then eclipsed by the commercial activity in Kingston. In 1892, electricity first came to Jamaica, when it was supplied to a coal-burning steam-generating plant.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jpsco.com/our-history/ |title= |website=www.jpsco.com |access-date=30 April 2022 |archive-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522232022/https://www.jpsco.com/our-history/ |url-status=live }}{{title missing|date=May 2022}}</ref>

The [[1907 Kingston earthquake]] destroyed much of the city.  Considered by many writers of that time one of the world's deadliest earthquakes, it resulted in the death of over eight hundred Jamaicans and destroyed the homes of over ten thousand more.<ref name="Wilson">J. F. Wilson [https://books.google.com/books?id=AsKRgxpfL_gC&dq=1907+kingston+earthquake&pg=PA69 ''Earthquakes and Volcanoes: Hot Springs''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405165244/https://books.google.com/books?id=AsKRgxpfL_gC&dq=1907+kingston+earthquake&pg=PA69 |date=5 April 2023 }}, pg. 70, BiblioLife (2008), {{ISBN|0-554-56496-3}}</ref>

<gallery>
File:Valentine and Sons - Street View 3, Kingston, Jamaica, 1891.tiff|Kingston in 1891
File:Valentine and Sons - Street View 1, Kingston, Jamaica, 1891.jpg|Horse-drawn carriages in Kingston, 1891
File:Map Kingston 1897.jpg|Map of Kingston in 1897
File:Kingston (1907).jpg|View of Kingston in 1907 showing damage caused by the earthquake
</gallery>

=== 20th century ===

====Marcus Garvey====
{{Main|Marcus Garvey}}

[[File:Marcus Garvey 1924-08-05.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Marcus Garvey]]]]

[[Marcus Garvey|Marcus Mosiah Garvey]], a black activist and [[Trade union|Trade Unionist]], founded the [[Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League]] in 1914, one of Jamaica's first political parties in 1929, and a workers association in the early 1930s. Garvey also promoted the [[Back-to-Africa movement]], which called for those of [[African descent]] to return to the homelands of their ancestors.<ref name=back>{{cite web|title=Historian situates 'back-to-Africa' movements in broad context|url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/march1/colonize-030106.html|work=1 March 2006|date=March 2006|publisher=Stanford.edu|access-date=24 August 2013|archive-date=29 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120729121919/http://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/march1/colonize-030106.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Garvey, to no avail, pleaded with the colonial government to improve living conditions for black and indigenous peoples in the West Indies.<ref>{{cite web|title=Marcus Garvey|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml|publisher=BBC|access-date=24 August 2013|archive-date=27 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130827133109/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref>

Garvey, a controversial figure, had been the target of a four-year investigation by the [[United States government]].<ref name=":0" /> He was convicted of [[mail fraud]] in 1923 and had served most of a five-year term in [[USP Atlanta|an Atlanta penitentiary]] when he was deported to Jamaica in 1927.<ref name=":0" /> Garvey left the colony in 1935 to live in the [[United Kingdom]], where he died heavily in debt five years later.<ref name=":0" /> He was proclaimed Jamaica's first national hero in the 1960s after [[Edward Seaga|Edward P.G. Seaga]], then a government minister, arranged the return of his remains to Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> In 1987 Jamaica petitioned the [[United States Congress]] to pardon Garvey on the basis that the federal charges brought against him were unsubstantiated and unjust.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Marcus Garvey 1887–1940|url=http://www.theunia-acl.com/index.php/marcus-garvey-1887-1940|publisher=UNIA-ACL|access-date=24 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617162429/http://www.theunia-acl.com/index.php/marcus-garvey-1887-1940|archive-date=17 June 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Rastafari movement====
{{Main|Rastafari}}

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.<ref name=Barrett81>Leonard E. Barrett, ''The Rastafarians'', pp. 81–82.</ref>

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====
{{Expand section|date=August 2019}}

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.<ref name="auto10">{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=228}}.</ref>

The [[Great Depression]] caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans, who had migrated abroad for work.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name="auto10"/>

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]].<ref name=":0" /> Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=229}}.</ref>

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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=230}}.</ref>

====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.<ref name=":0" /> [[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.<ref name=":0" /> He was light-skinned, affluent, and aristocratic.<ref name=":0" /> Bustamante emerged from the 1938 strikes and other disturbances as a populist leader and the principal spokesperson for the militant urban working class.<ref name=":0" /> In that year, using the JTWTU as a stepping stone, he founded the [[Bustamante Industrial Trade Union]] (BITU), which inaugurated Jamaica's workers movement.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> On 18 September 1938, he inaugurated the [[People's National Party]] (PNP).<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> The 1938 riots spurred the PNP to [[Trade union|unionise labour]], although it would be several years before the PNP formed major labour unions.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" />

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]].<ref name=":0" /> Guided by socialist principles, Manley was not a doctrinaire socialist.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> In those formative years of Jamaican political and union activity, relations between Manley and Bustamante were cordial.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

Bustamante had political ambitions of his own, however.<ref name=":0" /> In 1942, while still incarcerated, he founded a political party to rival the PNP, called the [[Jamaica Labour Party]] (JLP).<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> They encompassed dock and sugar plantation workers and other unskilled urban labourers.<ref name=":0" /> On his release in 1943, Bustamante began building up the JLP.<ref name=":0" /> Meanwhile, several PNP leaders organised the leftist-oriented Trade Union Congress (TUC).<ref name=":0" /> Thus, from an early stage in modern Jamaica, unionised labour was an integral part of organised political life.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> Jamaica's two founding fathers projected quite different popular images.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> Although considerably more reserved than Bustamante, Manley was well liked and widely respected.<ref name=":0" /> He was also a visionary nationalist who became the driving force behind the Crown colony's quest for independence.<ref name=":0" />

Following the 1938 disturbances in the [[West Indies]], [[London]] sent the [[Report of West India Royal Commission (Moyne Report)|Moyne Commission]] to study conditions in the [[British West Indies|British Caribbean territories]].<ref name=":0" /> Its findings led in the early 1940s to better wages and a new constitution.<ref name=":0" />

In 1954, the PNP expelled [[Richard Hart (Jamaican politician)]], a [[Marxist]], and three other PNP members for their (alleged) communist views.<ref name=Gleaner1>{{cite news|title=No Hard Feelings: Richard Hart forgives Manley for throwing him out of the PNP|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060612/lead/lead9.html|access-date=22 July 2012|newspaper=[[The Gleaner]]|date=12 June 2006|archive-date=24 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224113951/http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060612/lead/lead9.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Taylor|first=Orville|date=20 May 2012|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120520/focus/focus1.html|title=Workers' 'Weak': 50 Years Of Betrayal|newspaper=[[The Gleaner]]|access-date=11 September 2020|archive-date=5 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205153513/http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120520/focus/focus1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The other three members were Frank Hill, Ken Hill and Arthur Henry, and they were collectively referred to as "the four Hs".<ref name=Campbell2>{{cite news|last=Campbell|first=Howard|title=Campus Beat: University of the West Indies (UWI) explores rich legacy of Richard Hart|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060606/news/news6.html|newspaper=[[The Gleaner]]|date=6 June 2006|access-date=11 September 2020|archive-date=24 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224112904/http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060606/news/news6.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Campbell3>{{cite news|last=Campbell|first=Howard|title=Works of the Radical Hart to be Published|url=http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100418/arts/arts4.html|newspaper=[[The Gleaner]]|date=18 April 2010|access-date=11 September 2020|archive-date=27 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127030158/http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100418/arts/arts4.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>"[[John Barnes (footballer)|John Barnes]] – [http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/episode/john-barnes The footballer traces his grandfather's central role in the campaign for Jamaican independence"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200922122941/https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/episode/john-barnes/ |date=22 September 2020 }}, ''[[Who Do You Think You Are? (UK TV series)|Who Do You Think You Are?]] Magazine''. Episode aired [[BBC One]], 17 October 2012.</ref>

Hart and the other members of "the four Hs" were very active in the trade union movement in Jamaica.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/padmore/1945/labour-congress/ch13.htm "13. History of the Jamaica Labour Movement"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127180433/https://www.marxists.org/archive/padmore/1945/labour-congress/ch13.htm |date=27 November 2020 }}, ''The Voice of Coloured Labour'' ([[George Padmore]], editor), 1945.</ref> In the 1940s and 1950s. Hart worked as a member of the Executive Committee of the [[Trade Union Congress (Jamaica)|Trade Union Council]] from 1946 to 1948.<ref name=MAP>{{cite book|last=Microform Academic Publishers|title=Richard Hart Collection – Richard Hart's Collected Papers 1937–1966 on Microfilm: Finding List|year=2000|publisher=Microform Academic Publishers|location=Wakefield|url=http://www.microform.co.uk/guides/R97582.pdf|access-date=11 September 2020|archive-date=24 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224105415/http://www.microform.co.uk/guides/R97582.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Luquesi>{{cite web|last=Luquesi|first=Andrea|title=Honorary Graduate Profile: Richard Hart|url=http://www2.hull.ac.uk/news_and_events-1/winterdegreeceremonies/hongrads/hart.aspx|publisher=University of Hull|access-date=22 July 2012|date=25 January 2011}}{{Dead link|date=July 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> He served as Assistant Secretary of the [[Caribbean Congress of Labour|Caribbean Labour Congress]] from 1945 to 1946 and Assistant Secretary from 1947 to 1953.<ref name=Luquesi />

The expulsion of the 'Four Hs' signalled a parting of ways between the PNP and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), which was aligned to the PNP. The [[National Workers Union (Jamaica)|National Workers Union]] (NWU) effectively filled the vacuum left by the TUC.<ref>{{cite news|first=Garfield|last=Higgins|title=Plastic smiles and constipated glad-handing cannot smother reality, PNP|newspaper=[[Jamaica Observer]]|date=14 June 2020|url=http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/the-agenda/plastic-smiles-and-constipated-glad-handing-cannot-smother-reality-pnp_196158?profile=1096|access-date=11 September 2020|archive-date=4 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200704224846/http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/the-agenda/plastic-smiles-and-constipated-glad-handing-cannot-smother-reality-pnp_196158?profile=1096|url-status=live}}</ref>

====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.<ref name="auto4"/>

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]].<ref name=":0" /> It also embodied the island's principles of ministerial responsibility and the rule of law.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> The PNP won 5 seats and 5 were gained by other, short-lived parties. Bustamante took office as the unofficial leader of government.<ref name="auto4"/>

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.<ref name=":0" /> The Jamaican Legislative Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parliament.<ref name=":0" /> House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies.<ref name=":0" /> Despite these changes, ultimate power remained concentrated in the hands of the governor and other high officials.<ref name=":0" />

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]]).<ref name="auto5">{{harvnb|Black|1975|p=233}}.</ref>

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.<ref name="auto5"/>

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.<ref>{{cite news|first=Michael|last=Burke|title=Norman Manley as premier|newspaper=[[Jamaica Observer]]|date=13 August 2014|url=http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Norman-Manley-as-premier_17349996|access-date=10 September 2020|archive-date=27 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927133213/https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Norman-Manley-as-premier_17349996|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==== West Indies Federation and road to independence ====
{{See also|West Indies Federation|Independence of Jamaica}}

{{Expand section|date=August 2019}}

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%.<ref>Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p. 430.</ref>

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 metal]]s and did not develop or otherwise transform Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> During the seventeenth century, the basic patterns and social system of the [[Plantation economy|sugar plantation economy]] were established in Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> Large estates owned by absentee planters were managed by local agents.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

During most of the eighteenth century, a [[Monocropping|monocrop]] economy based on sugar production for export flourished.<ref name=":0" /> In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade.<ref name=":0" /> By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and production subsequently declined.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="auto">Eric Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery'' (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964).</ref> By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> However, [[Seymour Drescher]] has argued that the Jamaican sugar economy flourished before and after the abolition of the slave trade.<ref>{{harvnb|Drescher|2010}}.{{page needed|date=June 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":0" /> [[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.<ref name="auto"/> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the [[Morant Bay rebellion]]s of 1865.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> Agricultural development was the centrepiece of restored British rule in Jamaica.<ref name=":0" /> In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched.<ref name=":0" /> In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" />

Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> But, as noted, small-scale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers.<ref name=":0" /> The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry.<ref name=":0" /> Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares.<ref name=":0" />

The rise of the [[banana]] trade during the second half of the nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on the island.<ref name=":0" /> Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter.<ref name=":0" /> By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> The British also became more interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar.<ref name=":0" /> Expansion of banana production, however, was hampered by serious labour shortages.<ref name=":0" /> The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year.<ref name=":0" />

The [[Great Depression]] caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans.<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule.<ref name=":0" />

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]].<ref name=":0" /> 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]].<ref name=":0" /> Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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 union]]s and nascent [[Politics of Jamaica|political parties]].<ref name=":0" /> These changes set the stage for early modernisation in the 1940s and 1950s and for limited self-rule, introduced in 1944.<ref name=":0" />

An extensive period of postwar growth transformed Jamaica into an increasingly [[industrial society]].<ref name=":0" /> This pattern was accelerated with the export of bauxite beginning in the 1950s.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /> Manufacturing expanded from 11.3 percent in 1950 to 12.8 in 1960 and 15.7 in 1970.<ref name=":0" />

==See also==
{{portal|Jamaica}}
*[[Invasion of Jamaica (1655)]]
*[[Jamaica]]
*[[History of Jamaica]]
*[[History of the British West Indies]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{Cite book|last=Ayearst|first=Morley|url=https://archive.org/details/britishwestindie010627mbp/page/n9/mode/2up|title=The British West Indies.|date=1960|publisher=New York University Press|location=New York|language=English|oclc=1011816557}}
*{{Cite book|last=Black|first=Clinton Vane de Brosse|url=|title=History of Jamaica|date=1975|publisher=Collins Clear-Type Press|location=London; Glasgow|language=English|oclc=1089500508}}
*{{Cite book|last=Brown|first=Vincent|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.07795|title=The reaper's garden: death and power in the world of Atlantic slavery|date=2008|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|location=Cambridge, Mass.|hdl=2027/heb.07795|oclc=654289564|access-date=9 June 2021|archive-date=2 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702124247/https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/02870w26f|url-status=live}}
*{{Cite book|last=Brown|first=Vincent|url=|title=Tacky's revolt: the story of an Atlantic slave war|date=2020|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|isbn=978-0-674-24208-1|language=English|oclc=1119066110}}
*{{Cite book|last=Campbell|first=Mavis Christine|url=|title=The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655-1796: a history of resistance, collaboration & betrayal|date=1988|publisher=Bergin & Garvey|isbn=978-0-89789-148-6|location=Granby, Mass.|language=English|oclc=17766277}}
*{{Cite book|last=Carey|first=Beverly|url=|title=The Maroon story: the authentic and original history of the Maroons in the history of Jamaica, 1490-1880|date=1997|publisher=Agouti Press|isbn=978-976-610-028-5|location=Gordon Town, St. Andrew|oclc=254188257}}
*{{Cite book|last=Coward|first=Barry|title=The Cromwellian Protectorate|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-7190-4317-8}}
*{{Cite book|last=Craton|first=Michael|url=|title=Testing the chains: resistance to slavery in the British West Indies|date=1982|publisher=[[Cornell University Press]]|isbn=978-0-8014-1252-3|location=[[Ithaca, New York]]|oclc=185824747}}
*{{Cite book|last=Diptee|first=Audra A.|url=|title=From Africa to Jamaica: the making of an Atlantic slave society, 1775-1807|date=2010|publisher=[[University Press of Florida]]|isbn=978-0-8130-3482-9|location=Gainesville|oclc=650895108}}
*{{Cite book|last=Drescher|first=Seymour|url=|title=Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition|date=2010|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-0-8078-7179-9|edition=2nd|oclc=744527642}}
*Mirvis, Stanley. (2020) ''The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition''. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
*{{Cite book|last=Parker|first=Matthew|url=|title=The sugar barons: family, corruption, empire, and war in the West Indies|date=2012|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-0-8027-7798-0|location=New York|language=English|oclc=761375503}}
* {{cite book| last=Patterson | first=Orlando | author-link=Orlando Patterson| chapter=Slavery and Slave Revolts: A Sociohistorical Analysis of the First Maroon War, 1665–1740| year=1970| editor-last=Price | editor-first=Richard| title=Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas| publication-date=1973| publisher=Anchor Books| isbn=0-385-06508-6}}
*{{Cite book|last=Patterson|first=Orlando|url=|title=The sociology of slavery: an analysis of the origins, development and structure of Negro slave society in Jamaica|date=1973|publisher=Sangster's Book Stores|isbn=978-0-246-10754-1|location=Kingston, Jamaica|language=English|oclc=1039475865}}
*{{Cite book|last=Petley|first=Christer|url=|title=White fury: a Jamaican slaveholder and the age of revolution|date=2018|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-250935-2|language=English|oclc=1055160685}}
*{{cite book|last=Rodger|first=N.A.M.|title=The Command of the Ocean|location=New York|year=2005|isbn=0-393-06050-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/commandofoceanna00rodg}}
*{{Cite book|last=Sheridan|first=Richard B|url=|title=Sugar and slavery: an economic history of the British West Indies, 1623-1775|date=1974|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|isbn=978-0-8018-1580-5|location=Baltimore|oclc=934359}}
*{{Cite thesis|title=After the treaties: a social, economic and demographic history of Maroon society in Jamaica, 1739-1842|url=https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/423482/1/LIBRARY_COPY_After_The_Treaties_Final.pdf|publisher=[[University of Southampton]]|date=2018|first=Michael|last=Sivapragasam|degree=PhD|oclc=1011816557|access-date=5 April 2019|archive-date=28 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728152829/https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/423482/1/LIBRARY_COPY_After_The_Treaties_Final.pdf|url-status=live}}
{{refend}}
{{British overseas territories}}
{{Jamaica topics}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colony of Jamaica}}
[[Category:Colony of Jamaica| ]]
[[Category:British West Indies]]
[[Category:Former countries in the Caribbean]]
[[Category:Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas|Jamaica]]
[[Category:Former colonies in North America|Jamaica]]
[[Category:Former English colonies|Jamaica]]
[[Category:1655 establishments in the British Empire]]
[[Category:1962 disestablishments in the British Empire]]
[[Category:1962 disestablishments in North America]]
[[Category:Country articles requiring maintenance]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1962]]
[[Category:Sugar industry in the United Kingdom]]