17th century English conquest In late 1654, English leader
Oliver Cromwell launched the
Western Design armada against
Spain's colonies in the Caribbean. In April 1655,
General Robert Venables led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at
Santo Domingo,
Hispaniola. However, the Spanish repulsed this poorly-executed attack, known as the
Siege of Santo Domingo, and the English troops were soon decimated by disease, injured badly or possibly killed. 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). In the following years, Spain repeatedly attempted to recapture Jamaica, and in response in 1657 the English Governor of Jamaica invited
buccaneers to base themselves at
Port Royal on Jamaica, to help defend against Spanish attacks. Spain never recaptured Jamaica, losing the
Battle of Ocho Rios in 1657 and the
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. 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.
Early English colonisation Cromwell's
Protectorate increased the island's white population by sending indentured servants and prisoners captured
in battles with the
Irish and
Scots, as well as some common criminals. This practice was continued after the
restoration of
Charles II, and the white population was also augmented by immigrants from the
North American mainland and other islands, as well as by the English
buccaneers. Although the slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded roughly 9,500, by the end of the seventeenth century
imports of
slaves increased the
black population to at least three times the number of whites. Beginning with the
Stuart monarchy's appointment of a civil
governor to Jamaica in 1661, political patterns were established that lasted well into the twentieth century. England gained formal possession of Jamaica from
Spain in 1670 through the
Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for constant defence against Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to
planting. In 1687, James II appointed the
Duke of Albemarle as Governor, who pursued a policy of excluding the planter oligarchy from state offices.
Maroons When the English captured
Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled. Since 1512, though slavery was forbidden due to the laws of Burgos there were no more than 400 African "free" workers living in the island. 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. 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. In the early eighteenth century, Maroon forces frequently defeated the British in small-scale skirmishes. In the early eighteenth century, English-speaking escaped
Asante 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
rebellion finally ended, however, with the signing of peace agreements in 1739 and 1740. 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
English rule, Jamaica became a
haven of
privateers,
buccaneers, and occasionally outright
pirates:
Christopher Myngs,
Edward Mansvelt, and most famously,
Henry Morgan. 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. 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". 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." 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 File:Political Evolution of Central America and the Caribbean 1700 and on.gif|European colonies in the Caribbean during the 18th century
1692 earthquake and the collapse of Port Royal On 7 June 1692, a violent
earthquake struck Port Royal. Two-thirds of the town sank into the sea immediately after the main shock. 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." 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
liquefied and the buildings, along with their occupants, appeared to flow into the sea. 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
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.
18th century Jamaica's sugar boom In the mid-17th century,
sugarcane had been brought into the
English West Indies by the
Dutch, 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
cakes and to sweeten
teas. In the eighteenth century, sugar replaced
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. The sugar monoculture and slave-worked
plantation society spread across Jamaica throughout the eighteenth century. 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. 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. Jamaica eventually became 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
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.
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. During the eighteenth century, those men who survived tropical diseases, were, on average, 50 times wealthier than those who resided in the
British Isles. Other notable planters in Jamaica who became wealthy as a result of owning slave plantations included
Peter Beckford,
Francis Price and
Charles Ellis.
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." 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. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of enslaved Africans in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000, 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. 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. In 1728, the British authorities sent
Robert Hunter to assume the office of governor of Jamaica; Hunter's arrival led to an intensification of the conflict. However, despite increased numbers, the British colonial authorities were unable to defeat the Windward Maroons. By 1739, the colonial authorities recognised that 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, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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
shot, before marching on to overrun the plantations at Heywood Hall and Esher. By dawn, hundreds of other enslaved Africans had joined Tacky and his followers. At Ballard's Valley, the rebels stopped to rejoice in their success. One newly freed captive from Esher decided to slip away and sound the alarm. Rebels were surrendering every day. On July 3, the "King of the Rebels" Apongo was among those rebel Africans captured by the militia. Another rebel named Davie was executed by being put in the gibbets to starve to death, which took a week to reach its conclusion. Apongo himself was hung up in chains for three days, after which he was to be taken down and burnt to death, according to his sentence. The remaining rebels then fell under the leadership of an escaped slave named Simon, which took refuge in 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. 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. 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.
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, 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. In 1781, Jack was killed by a party of Maroons. However, Jack's runaway community continued to thrive under his deputies. In 1792, Dagger was captured by the colonial militia, but Toney then took over as leader of the community of runaway slaves in St Thomas, and they were never apprehended or dispersed.
Second Maroon War In 1795, the
Second Maroon War was instigated when two
Maroons from
Cudjoe's Town were flogged by a Black slave for allegedly stealing two
pigs. When six Maroon leaders came to the British to present their grievances, the colonial authorities took them as prisoners. This sparked an eight-month conflict, spurred by the fact that the Trelawny Maroons felt that they were being mistreated under the terms of
Cudjoe's Treaty of 1739, which ended the
First Maroon War. The treaty signed in December between Major-General Walpole and the Trelawny
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
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 in
West Africa.
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 and discrimination against mixed-race colonists- a move which drew fierce criticism from British abolitionists
William Wilberforce and
Thomas Clarkson.
19th century Minorities campaign for rights In the 18th century, a number of slaves secured their freedom through a variety of means, such as enduring sexual slavery to white plantation owners, who viewed their sex captives as "mistresses". In 1780, one of these
free people of color,
Cubah Cornwallis, became well-known when she nursed British naval hero
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, back to health in Port Royal when he took ill. 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. 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. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Jamaica Assembly granted Jews voting rights that had previously been denied them. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807/8, the Jamaican Assembly felt they needed the support of minority groups in order to avoid the complete emancipation of the slaves. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
The Baptist War , 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, lasting 10 days and mobilised as many as 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slave population. The rebellion was suppressed by British forces, under the control of
Sir Willoughby Cotton, but the death toll on both sides was high. The reaction of the Jamaican Government and
plantocracy was far more brutal. Approximately five hundred Black people were killed in total: 207 during the revolt and somewhere in the range between 310 and 340 were killed through "various forms of judicial executions" after the rebellion was concluded, including at times, for quite minor offenses (one recorded execution indicates the crime being the theft of a pig; another, a cow). An 1853 account by
Henry Bleby described how three or four simultaneous executions were commonly observed; bodies would be allowed to pile up until the blacks enslaves in the workhouses carted the bodies away at night and bury them in mass graves outside town. During most of the eighteenth century, a
monocrop economy based on sugar production for export flourished. 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.
Post-Emancipation Jamaica The period after
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
people of mixed race (browns or
mulattos) to vote, but placed property ownership restrictions on them, which excluded the majority of non-white men from voting. The requirements were an income of £180 a year, or real property worth £1,800, or both real and personal property worth £3,000. These figures excluded the vast majority of freed black Jamaicans from the right to vote in Assembly elections. Consequently, neither Emancipation nor the change in voting qualifications resulted in a change in the political system. The chief interests of the planter class lay in the continued profitability of their estates, and they continued to dominate the
elitist Assembly. The Jamaica Railway, constructed in 1845, was the first line opened to traffic outside Europe and North America. The first line ran from Spanish Town to Kingston.
Morant Bay Rebellion Tensions resulted in the October 1865
Morant Bay rebellion led by
Paul Bogle. The rebellion was sparked on 7 October, when a black man was put on trial and imprisoned for allegedly trespassing on a long-abandoned
plantation. During the proceedings, James Geoghegon, a black spectator, disrupted the trial, and in the police's attempts to seize him and remove him from the courthouse, a fight broke out between the police and other spectators. While pursuing Geoghegon, the two policeman were beaten with sticks and stones. The following Monday arrest warrants were issued for several men for rioting, resisting arrest, and assaulting the police. Among them was Baptist preacher Paul Bogle. A few days later on 11 October, Mr. Paul Bogle marched with a group of protesters to Morant Bay. When the group arrived at the court house they were met by a small and inexperienced volunteer militia. The crowd began pelting the militia with rocks and sticks, and the militia opened fire on the group, killing seven black protesters before retreating. Governor
John Eyre sent government troops, under Brigadier-General
Alexander Nelson, to hunt down the poorly armed rebels and bring Paul Bogle back to Morant Bay for trial. The troops met with no organised resistance, but regardless they killed blacks indiscriminately, most of whom had not been involved in the riot or rebellion: according to one soldier, "we slaughtered all before us… man or woman or child". In the end, 439 black Jamaicans were killed directly by soldiers, and 354 more (including Paul Bogle) were arrested and later executed without cause, with no reasons given, and without proper trials. Paul Bogle was executed "either the same evening he was tried or the next morning." 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
John Eyre and his policies, was later arrested by Governor
John Eyre who believed he had been behind the rebellion. Despite having very little to do with it, Gordon was executed. Though he was arrested in Kingston, he was transferred by Eyre to Morant Bay, where he could be tried under
martial law. The execution and trial of Gordon via
martial law raised some constitutional issues back in Britain, where concerns emerged about whether British dependencies should be ruled under the government of law, or through military license. The speedy trial saw Gordon hanged on 23 October, just two days after his trial had begun. He and William Bogle, Paul's brother, "were both tried together, and executed at the same time."
Economic decline By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828. 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. 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. 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. 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. File:Valentine_and_Sons_-_Street_View,_Kingston,_Jamaica,_1891_15518824134.jpg|Kingston in 1891 File:Valentine_and_Sons_-_Street_View,_Kingston,_Jamaica,_1891_15955077659.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
20th century Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a black activist and
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. Garvey, to no avail, pleaded with the colonial government to improve living conditions for black and indigenous peoples in the West Indies. Garvey, a controversial figure, had been the target of a four-year investigation by the
United States government.
Rastafari movement The
Rastafari movement, an
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. 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, through his own ministry, called
Ethiopian Coptic Faith; he too moved to Kingston the next year, to find
Leonard Howell already teaching many of these same doctrines, having returned to Jamaica around the same time. With the addition of
Robert Hinds, himself a Garveyite and former Bedwardite, these four preachers soon began to attract a following among Jamaica's poor.
The Great Depression and worker protests Elected black Council members, such as barrister J.A.G. Smith, strongly criticised the colonial government in the early 20th century. While acknowledging these criticisms, the British government did little to address them. The
Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans, who had migrated abroad for work. Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, the British in 1938 appointed the
Moyne Commission.
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
1938 labour riots that took place in Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. The other three members were Frank Hill, Ken Hill and Arthur Henry, and they were collectively referred to as "the four Hs". Hart and the other members of "the four Hs" were very active in the trade union movement in Jamaica. In the 1940s and 1950s. Hart worked as a member of the Executive Committee of the
Trade Union Council from 1946 to 1948. He served as Assistant Secretary of the
Caribbean Labour Congress from 1945 to 1946 and Assistant Secretary from 1947 to 1953.
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. 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.
West Indies Federation and road to independence When the British government decided to merge
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
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 Federation membership referendum Jamaica voted 54% to leave the West Indies Federation. Other members began withdrawing soon after. After losing the referendum, Manley took Jamaica to the polls in April 1962, to secure a mandate for the island's independence. On 10 April 1962, of the 45 seats up for contention in the
1962 Jamaican general election, the JLP won 26 seats and the PNP 19. The voter turnout was 72.9%. This resulted in the
independence of Jamaica on 6 August 1962, and several other British colonies in the West Indies followed suit in the next decade. Bustamante had replaced Manley as premier between April and August, and on independence, he became Jamaica's first prime minister. ==Economy==