VI.

History

Members of the Arawak tribe, an important group of the Arawakan linguistic stock of Native North Americans, were the aboriginal inhabitants of Jamaica (the Arawakan word Xaymaca, meaning “isle of springs”). Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his second voyage, and it became a Spanish colony in 1509. Saint Jago de la Vega (now Spanish Town), the first settlement and, for the ensuing 350 years, the capital, was founded about 1523. Colonization was slow under Spanish rule. The Arawak quickly died out as a result of harsh treatment and diseases. African slaves were imported to overcome the resultant labor shortage.

A.

British Colony

Jamaica was captured by an English naval force under Sir William Penn in 1655. The island was formally transferred to England in 1670 under the provisions of the Treaty of Madrid. During the final decades of the 17th century, growing numbers of English immigrants arrived; the sugar, cacao, and other agricultural and forest industries were rapidly expanded; and the consequent demand for plantation labor led to large-scale importation of black slaves. Jamaica soon became one of the principal slave-trading centers in the world. In 1692 an earthquake destroyed Port Royal, the chief Jamaican slave market, and Kingston was established nearby shortly thereafter. By parliamentary legislation passed in 1833, slavery was abolished on August 1, 1834. The act made available $30 million as compensation to the owners of the nearly 310,000 liberated slaves.

Large numbers of the freed blacks abandoned the plantations following emancipation and took possession of unoccupied lands in the interior, gravely disrupting the economy. Labor shortages, bankrupt plantations, and declining trade resulted in a protracted economic crisis. Oppressive taxation, discriminatory acts by the courts, and land-exclusion measures ultimately caused widespread unrest among the blacks. In 1865 an insurrection occurred at Port Morant. Imposing martial law, the government speedily quelled the uprising and inflicted brutal reprisals. Jamaica was made a crown colony, thus losing the large degree of self-government it had enjoyed since the late 17th century. Representative government was partly restored in 1884.

B.

Creation of the Two-Party System

During the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, growing bananas for export to the United States became very important, but the resulting economic recovery did not provide enough jobs to employ Jamaica’s rapidly growing population. Thousands of Jamaicans left the country to seek employment elsewhere. However, the economic boom and the possibility of finding jobs abroad ended with the world depression in the 1930s, and many migrant Jamaicans returned to the island. The resulting increase in the Jamaican labor force combined with the depression to create great hardships, culminating in an outbreak of riots in 1938.

That same year saw the beginnings of Jamaica’s two-party system. Norman Manley, a lawyer, founded the moderately leftist People’s National Party (PNP). His cousin Alexander Bustamante, a businessman with considerable political flair and personal popularity, formed the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, and it served as the basis for the moderately conservative Jamaican Labor Party (JLP), which he founded in 1943.

Britain responded to the riots of 1938 by allocating funds for economic development and gradually extending self-government to the Jamaican people. A new constitution in 1944 provided for election of members of the House of Representatives. In the 1950s bauxite mining and tourism became major industries, but high unemployment continued.

C.

Independence

Jamaica was one of the British colonies that, on January 3, 1958, was united in the Federation of the West Indies. Disagreement over the role Jamaica would play led to the breakup of the federation, and on August 6, 1962, the island gained independence. The JLP won the elections of 1962, and Bustamante became prime minister. In 1967 he retired and was succeeded by Hugh Lawson Shearer. In 1968 Jamaica was a founding member of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA).

Elections in 1972 brought the PNP to power under Michael N. Manley, a labor leader who promised economic growth. His leftist policies and open friendship with Cuba’s Communist leader Fidel Castro, however, polarized the population. When he proved unable to revitalize the economy, Manley was voted out in 1980 following a turbulent election campaign that left about 800 Jamaicans dead, mainly as a result of clashes between political gangs. Election-related violence remained a part of Jamaica’s political scene into the 1990s.

Edward Seaga of the JLP, a former finance minister, then formed a government. Repudiating socialism, he severed relations with Cuba, established close ties with the United States, and tried hard to attract foreign capital. However, weak prices for Jamaica’s mineral exports impeded economic recovery.

The PNP won a large parliamentary majority in 1989, returning Manley to power. He introduced moderate free-market policies before resigning in 1992 because of poor health. P. J. Patterson succeeded him as prime minister and PNP leader. The PNP maintained its majority in the House in the 1993, 1997, and 2002 elections. Patterson continued as prime minister, and he worked to improve the country’s economy and lower its high murder rate. In 2004 Hurricane Ivan, the strongest hurricane to hit the island in decades, caused widespread destruction.

In March 2006 Patterson retired and Portia Simpson Miller was elected to replace him and lead the PNP. She became the first female prime minister in Jamaica’s history. In September 2007 Bruce Golding of the JLP narrowly defeated Simpson Miller in a tight general election. The JLP unseated the PNP after the latter’s 18 consecutive years in power.