WHY JAMAICA?
Exquisite beaches – historical sites – hiking trails – river falls – scenic caves and more…

ABOUT JAMAICA?

Jamaica was claimed for Spain after Christopher Columbus first landed there in 1494. Columbus used it as his family’s private estate. The English Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Venables seized the island in 1655. During its first 200 years of British rule, Jamaica became the world’s largest sugar exporting nation and produced over 77,000 tons of sugar annually between 1820 – 1824, which was achieved through the massive use of imported African slave labor.

By the beginning of the 19th century, Britain’s heavy reliance on slavery resulted in blacks outnumbering whites by a ratio of almost 20 to one, leading to constant threat of revolt. Following a series of rebellions, slavery was formally abolished in 1834, with full emancipation from chattel slavery declared in 1838.

HISTORY:
The recorded history of Jamaica may be roughly divided into six periods:

The first period may be said to date from Columbus’ arrival in the island in 1494 to the destruction of Port Royal in 1692. This covers nearly 200 years. But very little is known about the days when the Spaniards were masters of Jamaica. On the other hand, a good deal is known about the first fifty years of Jamaica as a British colony.

The second period of our history extends from.the destruction of Port Royal to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. During this time Jamaica flourished as an agricultural colony and became very rich. It reached the height of its prosperity just before the slave trade was abolished; that is, just before the British Government decided that no more slaves were to be brought from Africa and sold as private property

The third period of Jamaican history covers the years between the abolition of the slave trade and the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865. During the 46 years between the abolition of the slave trade and the rebellion, the country passed through many misfortunes and there was a great deal of misery and ill-feeling among the different classes of people in the island.

The fourth period dates from 1865 to the end of July, 1914.

The fifth period began with the outbreak of the First World War on August 1, 1914 and ended on August 1962.

The sixth period began on August 6, 1962, and records the history of Jamaica as an independent country.

PEOPLE / CULTURE:
Spanish colonists had exterminated the aboriginal Arawak Indians by the time the English invaded the island in 1655. The Spaniards themselves escaped the island or were expelled shortly afterward. The population of English settlers remained small, but they brought in vast numbers of African slaves to work the sugar estates. Today the population consists predominantly blacks.

Jamaica is the largest and most westerly Englisspeaking island in the Caribbean, 90 miles south of Cuba and 550 miles south of Miami. It has low coastal plains. Its best beaches on the north and west coast. Jamaica is mountainous in the interior, with a peak in the Blue Mountains of 7,402 feet.

Prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494, Jamaica was inhabited by Arawaks, living in simple communities based on fishing, hunting, and small scale cultivation of cassava. The impact of the contact with the Spanish was traumatic, and these communities disappeared in 70-80 years. Plunder, disruption of economic activities, new diseases, and migration decimated the indigenous population. Only a few artifacts-facts, examples of which are on display at the small museum at White Marl, and a few Spanish corruptions of place names (such as Ocho Rios) remain from this period. Otherwise, there is no Arawak influence on the subsequent development of life on the island.

The head of state is the British monarch, represented by a Governor General who has nominal and rarely used powers. The 60-member House of Representatives, which is responsible for legislation, is elected every five years by universal suffrage. An upper house, the Senate, has 21 appointees to ratify legislation.

Jamaica is one of the world’s largest producers of bauxite, which accounts for half of the country’s export earnings, but, despite expanding production, low world prices and falling demand have kept revenues static. After a period of rapid expansion in the mid-1970s, tourism has become the major source of foreign exchange. Agriculture (principally sugar cane, bananas, coffee and cocoa) has also been largely stagnant, with improved efficiency and production methods offset by climatic conditions and the state of the world markets. The manufacturing sector produces cement, textiles, tobacco and other consumer goods among its products. Imported oil and gas account for the bulk of the island’s energy requirements.
Economic policy has pursued a familiar course of privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation, tight budgetary controls, and reform of the tax and banking systems. The process was supervised by the IMF and aimed principally at reducing Jamaica’s large debt burden. These measures improved Jamaica’s financial position, but with little benefit to the population who still suffer from high inflation and unemployment. The economy as a whole has contracted by an average of 1 per cent annually since the mid-1990s. However, in the last few years this trend has been reversed and the economy is now growing slowly. The USA dominates Jamaica’s trade, providing half the country’s imports and taking more than 30 per cent of exports (followed by the UK, Canada and Norway). Jamaica is a member of the Caribbean trading bloc, CARICOM, and of the Inter-American Development Bank.