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General Background
Jamaica is the third largest of the greater Antilles and the only one which is surrounded completely by the Caribbean sea. It looks like a turtle with its head protruding from its shell. This turtle seems to be swimming toward Central America.
It is situated 90 miles (145 km) south of Cuba at a crossroads of major sea
trade routes in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. It covers an area of 4,244 square miles (10,991 square km). The capital is Kingston.
The island is about 146 miles (235 km) long from east to west and about 35 miles (56 km) wide from north to south. The population is about 2,500,000.
Kingston is the capital. Others major cities are Spanish Town and Montego Bay.
History
Christopher Columbus discovered the island called Xamayaka (or Jamaica) by its Arawaks inhabitants in 1494 during his second voyage to the New World. When he saw Jamaica ((Xamayaka) for the first time, he was saw impress that he called it" the fairest island that eyes ever beheld."
The conquest of Jamaica really started 1502-03 during the fourth voyage of Columbus. He and his crew stayed for a year at present day St. Ann's Bay
after his ship run aground. Jamaica is probably the last important milestone in Columbus career. He returned to Spain, he ill health and died in 1506 at Valladolid.
The Arawak had migrated from Coastal Venezuela and Brazil (South America) through the greater Antilles about AD 250. They probably reached Jamaica a couple of hundred years later.
After Columbus death, his son, Don
Diego Columbus, leads the first group of the Spanish colonists to Jamaica in 1510. The formal colonization of had given. After several attempts, they build a permanent settlement called Villa de la Vega Real which became the Capital of the colony The Arawaks were enslaved and submitted to forced labor. Most of the population of about 60.000 disappeared in a few years after the beginning of the colonization, victims of hard labor, massacre and European diseases like small pox
Only traces of their existence are left in Jamaica. A considerable number of artifacts like pots and stone carvings have been found. Aside of the physical objects, the Arawaks left behind a number of words which are now part of the language of the modern world. These words are many but to name a few we will note the following: tobacco, potato, hurricane, hammock, cassava, canoe, barbecue and cannibal.
The disappearance of the Indians prompted the Spanish to replace
them with African slaves. The Spanish were soon very disappointed because they could not find gold. Jamaica thereafter became an isla inutile, a neglected colony under the Spanish.
The historical adventure of the island remained without any major event
until 1655 when it fell into British hands. In 1670, Spain formally cedes Jamaica to England as part of the Treaty of Madrid.
Unlike the Spain, Britain tried to take full advantage of the agricultural potentials of the island. Sugar Cane, Saccharum officinarum, which was brought to the island by Columbus became the main crop.
Huge plantations appeared gradually on the island which was divided among absentee landowners who left the task of managing their land and sugar production to overseer and managers.
The growth of the production of sugar necessitated an increased of the number of African slaves.
The population of African slaves reached its highest point in the 18th century. This increase was facilitated by a key event that happen in the beginning of the 18th century. At that time, Britain, Spain and France ended a European war by signing the Treaty of Utrecht. Under the treaty, Britain receives the
asiento, or monopoly on the slave trade in the West Indies. Jamaica became the center of the English slave trade.
The trade grew steadily in volume as the sugar produced by Jamaican slave increased in quantity and value.
The slave population grew very fast. The ratio between black and white became 15 to 1. By the end of the 18th century, Jamaica became a prized colonial possession of the British Crown. The prosperity of the island was build with the sweat, the blood and the dehumanization of the slaves. The humanity of the slaves which was ignored by the masters, the overseers and managers was the key reason for his resentment and his revolt.
Resistance to British rule and the fight against slavery.
The seeds of the well organized slave revolts that spreaded throughout the island in 18th century were planted by the Maroons since the beginning of the British colonization of Jamaica in 1655.
The maroons (meaning wild men of the mountains)
were escaped slaves who live in the mountains and the forests. After Spain ceded the island to Britain in 1670 they continued, for several generations a guerilla war in the mountains. The initial group of guerilla fighter was constantly increasing in number by new African slaves who were fleeing the harsh treatment of the masters.
The slaves of Jamaica kept on fighting until the abolition of slavery.
The major slaves revolt were the first Maroon war in 1729, the Tacky rebellion in 1760, the second Maroon War of 1795 and the Christmas rebellion of Sam Sharpe in 1831.
Slavery was finally abolished by a law created the British parliament in 1834.
The law stated that every slave in the British Empire should be given his freedom immediately. In Jamaica, the government gave the land owners a small amount of compensation, amounting to approximately 27 British pounds for every adult slave and 4 British pounds for every child slave they possessed. In addition of this compensation, the exslaves had to continue working for their previous owners for a small salary for at least a further three years.
The abolition of slavery brought about the collapse of the plantation system .
In 1866 England established the crown-colony form of government, with the governor wielding executive and legislative power.
By the late 1930s, dissatisfaction with the crown-colony system increased with the consequences of the Great Depression, causing widespread rioting and later the formation of labor unions and a growing demand for self-determination.
A 1944 constitution provided
for a bicameral legislature, ministerial government, and universal adult suffrage. Full internal self-government was obtained in 1959, and three years later in 1962, Jamaica became an independent country within the British Commonwealth.
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Geography
The land
Jamaica has three major physiographic regions: the coastal lowlands and valleys, a limestone plateau, and the interior highlands. The heavily cultivated coastal lowlands that encircle the island are most extensive (5 to 10 miles [8 to 16 km]
wide) in the south and west. Toward the center the lowlands rise to a highly dissected limestone plateau (average elevation 1,500 feet [460 m] above sea level) covering about one-half of the total area of the island; . The interior of the island is dominated by the rugged and thickly forested highlands (5,000 to 7,000 feet [1,524 to 2,134 km] in elevation) with mountain ranges oriented east-west; the Blue Mountains in the east are the principal mountain system and culminate in Blue Mountain
Peak (7,402 feet [2,256 m]), the highest point in the country.
Map of Jamaica
Click on the map to view a
larger verssion
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The mean temperature is about 75º F (24º C) in winter; it rises to about 80º F
(27º C) in summer.. The natural vegetation varies from dense bamboo, ebony, mahogany, and rosewood forests in the northeast and east to dry savanna vegetation with scattered dwarf trees and cacti in the southwest. Banana plantations are largely concentrated in the valleys and the foothills of the northeast, and sugarcane plantations occupy most of the level coastal plains. .
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The people
The population consists mostly of black and mulatto descendants of African slaves. Small minorities from the United Kingdom, India, China, Syria, Portugal, and Germany live in Jamaica. English is the official language, and a
Creole derived from English, a variety of African languages, Spanish, and French is widely spoken.
The Church of England was the early established church, but today Pentecostal, Baptist, and other Christian denominations prevail. Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim communities are also represented.
Syncretic revivalist sects based largely on Christianity and spirit possession include the Pocomania and Cumina sects, and the island is the home of the Rastafarian sect.
Jamaica's average annual population growth rate is relatively low for a developing country. Family-planning programs influenced the decline in the birth rate, reducing it by half between the 1960s and the late 1970s.
Consequently, less than two-fifths of the population is younger than 15 years of age. Emigration is encouraged by the government to alleviate the effects of a growing population.
Nearly half of Jamaica's population lives in urban areas. Significant
rural-to-urban migration during the 1960s and '70s led to increased unemployment in urban areas. The government began agrarian-reform programs to improve neglected rural areas. The coastal lowlands are the most densely populated area of the country.
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Politics
Jamaica is an independent parliamentary state within The Commonwealth. Under its 1962 constitution, the British monarch, represented by the governor-general, is the head of state. The governor-general's role is largely ceremonial, however, and executive power is exercised by the Cabinet under the leadership of the prime minister, who is the leader of the majority party in
parliament. The bicameral parliament is composed of a House of Representatives, with 60 directly elected members, and a Senate, with 21 members appointed by the governor-general, 13 with the advice of the prime minister and 8 with the advice of the leader of the opposition party. General elections are held at least once every five years.. The Jamaican judicial system is headed by the Court of Appeals.
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Culture
The culture of Jamaica is a mixture of the African and English heritage of the
Island. The African heritage came with the slaves that were captured in Africa, transported to the Island in slaves ships and transformed into the subhuman tools of the colonial machinery called a Negro. Much like everywhere in the Caribbean, the English colonists of Jamaica did not succeed in eradicating the African cultural context from the mind of the slaves. The religious practices survived. The African concept of the relation of the living with the dead and the
African gods went underground but remained, to this day, an integral part of the Jamaican belief system. The pressure of the religious practices of the masters forced the African context to assimilate the concepts of Christianity and to create several syncretic form of religions. These religions, which are collectively called Pocomania ( from Spanish little mad because of the possession by spirits) are variants of expressions of the same African context
of relation with the intemporal. The elements of Jamaica's African religions are similar to those found in the African based religions of Cuba, Haiti an Bresil. The common tread of all those religions is Africa. They are initiatic religions that contains the possession of the adept by spirits as a key elements of communication between the spiritual and the material world.
Although forced to live underground by the domineering force of the European cultural perspective, this African cultural context expresses it self in the arts, the craft and entertainments. Officially, Jamaica is just beginning to accept its African roots as a viable portion of its national identity. For a long time in Jamaica, persons of dark skins were not perceived as being capable of accomplishing superior things although the country is 95% black.. Because of
their integration in the power structure by the English, The mulattos became since the country independence its political leaders and its only recently that Patterson, a black man, became the Prime Minister.
The movement of Valorization of the African roots of the nation started with Marcus Garvey who was born in 1887 in St. Ann's parish near Ocho Rios. He started the black consciousness movement started in Jamaica and the United
States. He is the founder of the Rastafarian movement in 1930. The movement took its name from Haile Selassie I, king of Ethiopia. Selassie's name before ascending on the trone was Rasta Fari. There are about 70.000 rastafarians in Jamaica.
In the 1960s, the Rastafarians have become well known for their music called reggae. The singer Bob Marley made reggae music popular all over the world. He died in 1981 at 36 years of age..
Bob Marley picture
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