history of Jamaica

The following history of Jamaica focuses on events from the time of European contact. For treatments of the island in its regional context, see West Indies and history of Latin America.

…and then of factories in Jamaica and Trinidad, and Jamaicans and Trinidadians acquired interest in foreign banks.

…the 17th and 18th centuries, Jamaica, a British colony with many sugar plantations, was the frequent scene of revolts. One of the most notable took place in 1760; an uprising of hundreds of enslaved people, led by an enslaved man named Tacky, inspired others across the island during the same…

…and search for gold in Jamaica, only to conclude that Hispaniola promised the richest spoils for the settlers. The admiral decided that Hispaniola was indeed the biblical land of Sheba and that Cuba was the mainland of Cathay. On June 12, 1494, Columbus insisted that his men swear a declaration…

…and political movement, begun in Jamaica in the 1930s and adopted by many groups around the globe, that combines Protestant Christianity, mysticism, and a pan-African political consciousness.

…healing that guaranteed respect in Jamaica’s remote hill country. As a child, Marley was known for his shy aloofness, his startling stare, and his penchant for palm reading. Virtually kidnapped by his absentee father (who had been disinherited by his own prominent family for marrying a Black woman), the preadolescent…

…popular music that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s and quickly emerged as the country’s dominant music. By the 1970s it had become an international style that was particularly popular in Britain, the United States, and Africa. It was widely perceived as a voice of the oppressed.

…Indies, and in May 1655 Jamaica was conquered. As the price for sending an expeditionary force to Spanish Flanders to fight alongside the French he obtained possession of the port of Dunkirk. He also interested himself in Scandinavian affairs; although he admired King Charles X of Sweden, his first consideration…

…Leeward Islands (1860–61) and of Jamaica (1861–64) was rewarded with his permanent appointment as governor of Jamaica. On October 11, 1865, a revolt by blacks began at Morant Bay, and, in the repression that followed, the total of executions passed 400. Eyre then caused the island’s legislature to abolish itself…