Like the rest of the world, Jamaica in 1929 began
experiencing a depression in its economic growth. This resulted
in a continuous decline in social conditions. By 1938, the workers
in an effort to improve their situation went on strike and related
upheavals ended with the death of a few workers. The 1938 labour
riots was another turning point in the history of the people of
Jamaica.
Alexander Bustamante who emerged as
leader of the new labour movement founded the Bustamante Industrial
Trade Union (BITU) later to be associated with the Jamaica Labour
Party. In 1938 Norman Manley, the island's foremost barrister, and
a cousin of Bustamante formed the People's National Party. Manley
led the country to Self Government and Bustamante later became the
first Prime Minister of Independent Jamaica. By 1944, adult suffrage
was granted giving all males and females 21 years of age and over,
the right to vote. The journey towards Self Government had begun.
The first election under Universal
Adult Suffrage was held in 1944 and the Jamaica Labour Party won 25
out of a total of 32 seats.
The Federation of the West Indies
was launched in 1959 and Jamaica as a part of this group. In 1961,
a referendum was called to determine whether or not the people of
Jamaica should remain a part of the Federation. The Jamaican people
voted for Independence.
In January 1962, a draft of the Independence
Constitution was brought before both Houses and after a full debate
was unanimously approved. It was also agreed that the 300 year old
Coat of Arms would be retained and the Latin motto "Indus Uterque
Serviet Uni" changed to one in English "Out of Many One
People".
At midnight 5th August 1962 the British
Flag was lowered and the Jamaican Flag was hoisted for the first time.
On the 6th of August 1962 Jamaica was given its independence. Sir
Kenneth Blackburne was the last Colonial Governor and the first Governor
General. Afterwards, Sir Clifford Campbell, formerly President of
the Senate, became the first Jamaican Governor General.
Although Jamaica has a diverse population,
Afro-Jamaicans constitute the overwhelming majority. The 1991 census
recorded a total population of 2.3 million. Blacks accounted for 2.08
million, or 90.5 percent of the total population, while whites accounted
for 5,200, or 0.2 percent. East Indians made up 1.3 percent and Chinese
0.3 percent. Other ethnic groups as well as small numbers of Syrians,
Lebanese, and Jews made up 0.5 percent. People of mixed descent accounted
for 7.3 percent of the population. Recognition of this diversity led
the framers of Jamaica's constitution at independence, in 1962, to
choose as the island's motto "Out of Many, One People,"
suggesting that despite racial and ethnic differences, all live united
as one Jamaican people.
However, racism and color discrimination—the legacy of more than three
centuries of slStretchry—persist to this day in Jamaica, although
in a very subtle and suppressed way. Since slStretchry was abolished
in 1834, blacks hStretch achieved much upward social mobility, primarily
through entrepreneurship and education. They seem to control political
power, especially since Percival Patterson became prime minister in
1992, the first black man to hold that office. Economic power, however,
continues to elude the black majority, and many issues concerning
race hStretch not been fully resolved in Jamaica.
EUROPEAN CONQUEST AND COLONIZATION
Archaeological finds suggest that the Native American Tainos were
the first to settle the island of Jamaica, which they called Xaymaca
(meaning "land of springs" or "land of wood and water").
Estimates for the Taino population at the time of the Spanish arrival
in the late 1400s vary widely, with the lowest estimates ranging from
6,000 to 9,000 and the highest from 60,000 to 100,000. Taino villages
were distributed throughout the island, with the majority situated
near the coastline and adjacent to rivers. The Tainos were a seafaring
people who relied on fishing to provide a large part of their diet.
They also were agriculturalists, cultivating cassava, maize, sweet
potatoes, and arrowroot. They traded with Native American communities
living on neighboring islands in the Greater Antilles. For administrative
purposes, the Tainos divided the island into provinces that were ruled
over by a cacique (chief) assisted by subchiefs.
Spanish Conquest.
During his second voyage to the Americas, European explorer Christopher
Columbus learned of Jamaica from the indigenous people on the island
of Cuba. He set foot on the northern part of Jamaica, at present-day
Saint Ann's Bay, on May 4, 1494. After defeating the Tainos' initial
resistance, Columbus seized the island for Spain. Spain sent Juan
de Esquivel to establish a settlement in 1509, beginning Spain's effective
colonization of Jamaica. The Spanish established Sevilla la Nueva
on the northern part of the island as their first administrative center
but abandoned it in 1523 for Saint Jago de la Vega (now Spanish Town)
in the south. Interest in Jamaica faded when it became obvious there
was no gold, and the island became a backwater in the Spanish Empire.
As late as the time of the English conquest in 1655, the island remained
underdeveloped, poor, and sparsely populated. The Spanish lived just
above subsistence level, developing a small-scale pig and cattle ranching
economy. They also practiced small-scale agricultural cultivation
for domestic consumption and for sale to the few Europe-bound vessels.
The Spanish colonists instituted a regime of forced labor of the Taino.
Although indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies were legally exempted
from slStretchry by royal decree in 1542, the colonists were able
to compel the Tainos to work for them under the systems of encomienda
and repartimiento. Overwork in the mines and fields, combined with
contact with European diseases, resulted in the annihilation of Jamaica's
indigenous population by the mid-1600s.
The Spanish began importing black slStretchs shortly after King Ferdinand
authorized the governor of Hispaniola (island encompassing present-day
Haiti and Dominican Republic) to import Christian blacks (ladinos)
from Spain in 1501. The first black slStretchs brought to Jamaica
did not come directly from Africa but were either Africans, or the
descendants of Africans, who had been enslStretchd for a time in Spain.
In 1518 King Charles I of Spain (Ferdinand's successor) signed a four-year
contract, or asiento, allowing an annual supply of 4,000 African slStretchs
to enter Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. SlStretchs then
came directly from Africa. By 1611 Jamaica had a population of 558
black slStretchs, 107 free blacks, and between 1,200 and 1,400 Spaniards.
English Conquest.
On May 10, 1655, an English expedition, commanded by Admiral William
Penn and General Robert Venables, landed at the present-day coastal
town of Passage Fort, in the southeastern parish of Saint Catherine.
This expedition, which had failed to capture Hispaniola, proceeded
to claim the island of Jamaica for England. At the time of the English
conquest, the Spaniards were unable to effectively resist the invasion
because only about 500 of them were armed with weapons. The English
ordered the Spanish colonists to deliver all of their slStretchs and
goods and leStretch the island. Some followed these orders, but a
group led by Don Crist.ãbal Arnaldo de Isasi remained and put
up guerrilla resistance to the English. Isasi freed the slStretchs,
many of whom retreated with the Spanish rebels into the hills. From
there, the Spanish and the freed blacks who had joined them frequently
raided and waged guerrilla warfare on English settlements. Isasi,
finally overwhelmed by English forces, fled to Cuba for reinforcement.
Some of the blacks who had fought with Isasi, recognizing that the
Spanish case was lost, defected to the English. A black regiment fighting
for the English, led by the former slStretch Juan de Bolas, proved
a decisive factor in the final defeat of the Spanish, marked by Isasi's
retreat in 1660.
Jamaica's English-appointed governor Edward D'Oyley compensated the
black regiment by officially recognizing their freedom and granting
them landholdings. Other formerly Spanish-owned slStretchs remained
autonomous of the colonial administration, living in their own communities
as maroons. Spain officially ceded the island to England under the
Treaty of Madrid in 1670. The English established a representative
system of government, giving white settlers the power to make their
own laws through an elected House of Assembly, which acted as a legislative
body. The Legislative Council, whose members were appointed by the
governor, served an advisory function and took part in legislative
debates. This system lasted until it was replaced in 1866 by the crown
colony system of government, which stripped the island elite of most
of its political power.
THE SLStretch TRADE AND PLANTATION ECONOMY
The English encouraged permanent settlement through generous land
grants. In 1664 Sir Thomas Modyford, a sugar plantation and slStretch
owner in Barbados (a Caribbean island of the Lesser Antilles chain),
was appointed governor of Jamaica. He brought 1,000 English settlers
and black slStretchs with him from Barbados. Modyford immediately
encouraged plantation agriculture, especially the cultivation of cacao
and sugarcane. By the early 1700s sugar estates worked by black slStretchs
were established throughout the island, and sugar and its by-products
dominated the economy. Other economic activities, including livestock
rearing and the cultivation of coffee and pimento (allspice), developed
as well.
With the establishment of the plantation system, the slStretch trade
grew. SlStretchs of both genders and every age were found in all facets
of the island's economy, in both rural and urban areas. They were
laborers on plantations, domestic servants, and skilled artisans (tradesmen,
technicians, and itinerant traders). The wealth created in Jamaica
by the labor of black slStretchs has been estimated at £18,000,000,
more than half of the estimated total of £30,000,000 for the
entire British West Indies. It has been postulated that the profit
generated by the "triangular trade" (involving sugar and
tropical produce from the British Caribbean colonies, the trade in
manufactured goods for slStretchs in Africa, and the trade of slStretchs
in the British Caribbean) financed the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
More than 1 million slStretchs are estimated to hStretch been transported
directly from Africa to Jamaica during the period of slStretchry;
of these, 200,000 were reexported to other places in the Americas.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Akan, Ga, and Adangbe from
the northwestern coastal region known as the Gold Coast (around modern
Ghana) dominated the slStretch trade to the island. Not until 1776
did slStretchs imported from other parts of Africa—Igbos from the
Bight of Biafra (southern modern Nigeria) and Kongos from Central
Africa—outnumber slStretchs from the Gold Coast. But slStretchs from
these regions represented 46 percent of the total number of slStretchs.
The demand for slStretchs required about 10,000 to be imported annually.
Thus slStretchs born in Africa far outnumbered those who were born
in Jamaica; on Stretchrage they constituted more than 80 percent of
the slStretch population until Britain abolished the slStretch trade
in 1807. When Britain abolished the institution of slStretchry in
1834, Jamaica had a population of more than 311,000 slStretchs and
only about 16,700 whites.
By the mid-1700s planters were distributing small plots of marginal
land to their slStretchs, both men and women, as a way to offset the
cost of providing food. However, the slStretchs were expected to tend
their own crops only during their limited free time. Although slStretchs
were not allotted much time to work the plots, they were able to produce
enough not only for their own subsistence but also for sale. A vibrant
marketing network developed among the slStretchs throughout the island,
creating what is referred to as a proto-peasantry.
In the British mind, slStretchs were no more than property and merchandise
to be bought and sold. On this premise, the British enacted a whole
system of slStretch laws aimed primarily at policing slStretchs. In
general, the premise that slStretchs were no more than property allowed
slStretch owners to treat them brutally. The severity of this brutality
varied. SlStretchs on large sugar estates generally suffered the harshest
punishments, while those on smaller estates and in towns received
somewhat better treatment. Despite their numbers and the education
and wealth some obtained, free coloureds had no civil rights. Therefore
they were caught up in a continuous struggle for equal rights. They
protested primarily through petitions and memorials rather than open
violent conflicts. In 1813 a petition, signed by more than 2,400 free
coloureds, demanding rights to give evidence in court was delivered
to the House of Assembly, which acceded. In 1816 free coloureds petitioned
for full political and civil rights on the grounds that they were
taxpayers but were not represented. They threatened to cease paying
taxes until they were granted these rights. Under pressure from free
coloureds, the local authorities gradually removed legal restrictions,
culminating on December 21, 1830, with the Act for the Removal of
All Disabilities of Persons of Free Condition.
MAROON COMMUNITIES
Since their arrival on the island, blacks had resisted their enslStretchment.
They engaged in what is referred to as atomized forms of resistance,
such as foot dragging (work slowdowns, or "go-slows"), destruction
of property, theft, absenteeism from work, and the covert murder of
whites. But resistance also took the forms of large-scale rebellions
and establishment of maroon communities.
Maroonage, or the establishment of communities by runaway slStretchs,
began with the slStretchs imported by Spain and continued throughout
the period of slStretchry in Jamaica. The maroon communities waged
relentless warfare against British colonialism. Beginning in the 18th
century, two distinct groups of maroon communities emerged: the so-called
Leeward Maroons in the south central, or leeward, part of the island
and the so-called Windward Maroons in the north and northeast. The
Leeward Maroons had an elected chief, and the villagers were divided
into politico-military units. Their system was stratified based on
ability, especially military ability, and a careful division of labor.
Some were proficient in attacking plantations to steal provisions
and free slStretchs, especially female slStretchs because men outnumbered
women in the maroon communities. Others were hunters, hunting wild
hogs; others made salt, necessary for meat preservation; and others
cleared the ground for the women to plant crops, such as plantains,
sweet corn, bananas, cacao, pineapples, cassava, and sugarcane.
The Windward Maroons did not hStretch a central leader as did the
Leeward. They developed a somewhat loose federation of communities
or quasi-autonomous villages under different leadership, having a
politico-military structure that made for democratic inter- and intra-group
relationships. Nanny Town (named after its legendary leader, Nanny;
now known as Mooretown), which was situated deep in the Blue Mountains,
was reputed to hStretch the greatest warriors among the Windward Maroons,
numbering 300 in their ranks. Both the Leeward chief, Cudjoe, and
Nanny were notorious for their continued and relentless attack on
British colonization and slStretchry. Nanny fought uncompromisingly
against slStretchry. In addition to being a feared warrior, she was
said to be an obeah woman, possessing supernatural powers that she
allegedly used in repelling and defeating British attacks.
For reasons of security, maroon villages were located in the relatively
inaccessible mountains, giving them a commanding view of the lowlands.
Guards were posted at the entrance to watch and alert communities
at the approach of the British by blowing the abeng, the conch shell
or cow horn, as was the practice in parts of West Africa.
The boldness of the maroons, their prowess in guerrilla warfare, and
their knowledge of the terrain made them a serious threat to English
colonization, the plantation economy, and slStretchry itself. They
plundered and burned plantations, captured slStretchs, took arms and
ammunition, and killed English soldiers who ventured into the interior.
Their continued successes against English forces inspired slStretchs,
many of whom escaped the plantations to join maroon communities or
to establish new ones. The maroons were such a formidable force that
the English were unable to subjugate them after 85 years of intense,
bitter struggle. The English conceded defeat in 1739, ending the First
Maroon War. In the peace treaties, the maroons won their independence
and freedom. They were granted semiautonomous government status and
land in return for halting all hostilities against whites, obligating
themselves to assist in case of foreign invasion, destroying any new
maroon communities, and capturing and returning future runaways. Thus,
on the fringes of the slStretch-plantation economy established by
Europeans, semiautonomous communities of free blacks developed, with
their own economy and culture partially based on African traditions.
An uneasy peace prevailed until July 1795, when 580 maroons from the
maroon community of Trelawny Town revolted against indignities and
injustice meted out to them by the authorities. It took considerable
force to suppress the revolt, known as the Second Maroon War. The
British forces consisted of 1,500 soldiers supported by several thousand
militiamen and 100 fierce bloodhounds imported from Cuba in December
of that year. In June 1796 the government deported 568 maroons (including
men, women, and children) from Trelawny Town and confiscated their
land. They sent the maroons first to Nova Scotia, in what later became
Canada, and subsequently to Sierra Leone. This deportation effectively
deterred further maroon hostilities. Fearing deportation, they collaborated
fully with the authorities, especially in suppressing slStretch revolts.
The action of the maroons in suppressing the Morant Bay Rebellion
in 1865 testifies to their full cooperation with the government. The
treaties successfully reduced maroonage and the formation of new maroon
communities, but some of the maroon communities that were already
established hStretch survived to this day. The surviving maroon communities
are Nanny Town; Scott's Hall in the present-day northern parish of
Saint Mary; and Accompong (named for Cudjoe's brother, who had distinguished
himself as a military leader with the Windward Maroons) in the southwestern
parish of Saint Elizabeth. However, the retention of African cultural
and political practices within these communities varies. In 1760 a
slStretch by the name of Tacky, an Akan who had been a chief in Africa,
led the most widespread slStretch revolt in Jamaica's history. Beginning
in the northeastern parish of Saint Mary, it soon spread to a number
of parishes, including Westmoreland, Saint James, and Clarendon, and
to the capital of Kingston. The rebels, inspired by the victory of
the maroons in winning their liberty, fought in the same manner in
an effort to win their freedom. It took the authorities six months
to suppress Tacky's revolt, and by then the rebels had killed 60 whites.
Tacky was shot dead by a maroon, and the authorities executed nearly
400 slStretchs. Other revolts broke out in 1761, 1765, and 1766, but
they were quickly crushed by the authorities with the aid of maroons.
The most violent slStretch revolt of the 19th century was the Baptist
War, also known as the Christmas Rebellion, in 1831. Led by Samuel
Sharpe, a Baptist deacon and domestic slStretch, the revolt began
in Saint James and soon engulfed much of western Jamaica. In its suppression,
more than 430 blacks, including Sharpe, were executed. All who were
thought to hStretch been associated with the revolt, including white
missionaries, were either imprisoned or killed. This revolt was a
decisive factor in the British move toward emancipation, in addition
to intensified antislStretchry agitation by the Quakers (Society of
Friends) in Britain, led by Thomas Buxton, Thomas Clarkson, William
Wilberforce, and Stephen Lushington.
APPRENTICESHIP AND EMANCIPATION
Full emancipation was a gradual process in the British colonies. The
first step occurred with an 1833 legislative act of the British Parliament
that proposed a program known as apprenticeship. The act became effective
in all the British colonies on August 1, 1834. All slStretchs' children
under the age of six or born after this date were freed, while all
others were required to undergo a transitional period as "apprentices"
before full emancipation. The act sought to soften the effects of
abolition on slStretch owners by giving them monetary compensation
of £6,161,927 for their loss of property in slStretchs. The
slStretchs received no compensation.
The apprenticeship program tied apprentices to their former masters:
praedials (field workers) for six years and nonpraedials for four
years. Apprentices were obliged to work on the estates for 40.5 hours
per week in exchange for food, clothing, and shelter, but not wages.
They could be paid for any work done beyond those hours. Provisions
were made for the appointment of "stipendiary magistrates,"
paid by Britain, as arbiters between apprentices and planters. The
system, which was marred with abuses by the planters, met with strong
resistance from apprentices. In the parish of Saint Ann, for instance,
apprentices went on strike, refusing to work without wages. They swore
that they would rather "hStretch their heads cut off, or [be]
shot" before they would be bound apprentices. To quell the resistance,
160 well-armed soldiers were deployed throughout the parish, and many
slStretchs were whipped and sentenced to the workhouse. Resistance
to apprenticeship was also evident in Saint James and Saint Thomas-in-the-East
(now part of Saint Thomas Parish).
On August 1, 1838, the British Parliament ended the apprenticeship
program, which had become an enormous administrative burden, and granted
full emancipation to more than 300,000 slStretchs in Jamaica. In the
view of the planters and colonial officials, emancipation meant slStretchs
would become a docile proletariat working on the sugar estates. For
the former slStretchs emancipation meant freedom from planter control
and a measure of independence from the estates. Serious and irreconcilable
conflicts between employers and employees (former slStretchs) ensued.
Nonconformist missionaries, especially the English Baptists, attempted
to defuse disputes, especially those concerning rent, by creating
"free villages." Under this system missionaries bought large
holdings, normally located in close proximity to working estates,
and subdivided them in small house lots to sell to the former slStretchs.
The aim was to prevent the establishment of African-type communities
in the interior away from white supervision. The white racist view
was that blacks would lapse into barbarism if they were allowed to
wander off into the interior away from the estates and white influence.
Holdings under the free village system were extremely small and could
not satisfy the desire of the former slStretchs to become independent
of the sugar estates. The inadequacy of these holdings for crop cultivation,
coupled with the unresolved disputes between estate owners and their
black employees, resulted in the flight of freed slStretchs from the
estates. They established themselves as small peasant farmers on land
obtained through lease, rent, purchase, or by simply squatting (settling
on land without title or payment of rent). By 1860 the small farms
of the black peasantry showed yields indicating they were a viable
alternative to plantation agriculture. Meanwhile, the sugar plantations
in Jamaica were reeling from the massive shortage of available labor
and, after the 1846 Sugar Duties Act, from the elimination of Jamaica
as Britain's favored supplier of sugar. Plantation owners began to
import indentured servants, mostly from India but also from China.
Between 1845 and 1917, when contracting of indentured labor ceased,
more than 37,000 East Indians migrated to Jamaica as indentured laborers.
In general, the relationship between blacks and East Indians was relatively
amicable. Together, they constituted the majority of the island's
lower classes.
Blacks did not meet the property qualifications to vie for political
office. But through their ownership of small land holdings, many gained
the franchise and constituted the majority of the electorate. Anyone
seeking political office had to join forces with influential black
peasant farmers to gain black votes.
Two important black peasant leaders of the 1850s and 1860s were Samuel
Clarke and Paul Bogle. Clarke was a carpenter and peasant farmer who
owned nearly 4 hectares (10 acres) of land in the southeastern former
parish of Saint David (now part of Saint Thomas). He mobilized black
voters to support the Coloured candidates in the elections of 1851,
enabling them to win the two Saint David seats in the House of Assembly.
Between 1853 and 1865, Clarke embarked on a program of political education
among blacks, organizing public meetings in Saint David to discuss
social issues. He was elected to the Saint David Vestry (which ran
the parish government) in 1853.
Bogle was a peasant farmer and deacon of the Native Baptist Church
from the district of Stony Gut, in Saint Thomas-in-the-East. He was
a close ally and political supporter of George William Gordon, a Coloured
politician, member of the House of Assembly for the parish, Native
Baptist minister, and champion of the black cause. As political and
racial consciousness developed among black voters, they began electing
candidates who were sympathetic to their cause to the House of Assembly.
But blacks lacked the direct political representation in the House
of Assembly necessary to influence legislation concerning their interests.
Therefore, racial discrimination, exploitation, and social injustice
continued. Access to land continued to be severely restricted, and
appeals for redress from the authorities were denied. Public outcry
in Britain against the white reprisals and the brutal repression of
the rebellion prompted the British government to order a formal inquiry
into the causes of the rebellion and the measures used in its suppression.
Britain then abolished the representative system of government and
introduced the crown colony government (a system of imperial trusteeship)
in 1866. This system increased the power of the British-appointed
governor. The old Legislative Council and House of Assembly were replaced
by a single Legislative Council, whose members were appointed by the
British crown. (Reforms in 1884 and 1895 provided for the election
of some council members.) By ending elected representation in government,
however, direct rule from Britain actually aborted the political ascendancy
of blacks and coloureds and further reinforced institutionalized racism.
With the new government, land policies were introduced to resolve
land conflicts and to resuscitate the failing plantation economy.
Landowners were required to produce clear titles of ownership or face
eviction. Hundreds of peasants who held receipts but had no title
to their land were summarily ejected as squatters.
This period marked the beginning of the decline of the Afro-Jamaican
peasantry and the reemergence of the plantation economy. The sugar
industry was rationalized through new production methods geared toward
efficiency. The new and more lucrative banana industry, which had
been developed by the peasants, came under the control of large-scale
banana producers. The ownership of estates underwent revolutionary
change as the old planter class gStretch way to corporate ownership.
The Boston Fruit Company (later renamed the United Fruit Company),
for example, came to control the cultivation of bananas and the banana
trade. The importation of indentured immigrants intensified, creating
competition for jobs. The effect was impoverishment of the island's
black population. In response to the poor socioeconomic conditions,
thousands of blacks and East Indians migrated to Haiti, Panama, the
United States, Cuba, Costa Rica, and South America. They found work
on sugar and banana estates, on the construction of railroads (and
later, in the early 1900s, on the construction of the Panama Canal),
and in domestic and other services.
BLACK MOBILIZATION
With political recourse severely limited under the new system of government,
many Jamaicans turned to religion as a way to challenge the status
quo. Indeed, religion had long played a central role in Afro-Jamaican
resistance to domination. For instance, the Native Baptist movement,
started among Jamaican slStretchs by black American immigrants in
the 1780s, was central in the mobilization of slStretchs leading to
the Baptist War. One of the most popular Afro-Jamaican politico-religious
movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was Bedwardism,
so-called after its leader Alexander Bedward, within the Native Baptist
Church. Founded in August Town, Saint Andrew Parish, Bedward's church
attracted thousands of followers with its call for social justice
as well as its socioeconomic programs designed to aid the lower classes.
Bedward fearlessly and openly challenged white racism and injustice.
The government suppressed the movement by arresting Bedward and his
followers during a 1921 march to Kingston and then confining him to
the lunatic asylum, where he died in 1930. With Bedward confined,
the movement lost its fervor.
Black mobilization in the political arena at the turn of the century
was fostered by Robert Love, a Bahamian-born activist. Love edited
the journal the Jamaican Advocate, which frequently challenged the
colonial government, and organized voter registration campaigns. He
supported the election of Alexander Dixon to the Legislative Council
in 1889, the first black man to be elected to the body; Love himself
won a seat in 1906. The struggle against white supremacy was continued
by the radical Pan-Africanist movement led by Marcus Garvey, who founded
the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Kingston in
1914. The Garvey movement, or Garveyism, had roots in the intellectual
tradition of Pan-Africanism and its religious embodiment, Ethiopianism,
a doctrine that glorified Ethiopia based on passages from the Bible,
offering a spiritual basis for a common Pan-African identity. Avowedly
anticolonial, Garveyism aimed to inculcate in black people worldwide
a racial pride, black consciousness, black nationalism, and an acceptance
of Africa as the homeland. Members and branches of the movement were
located all over the world, with the most vibrant center found in
Harlem, in New York City.
Rastafarianism
Garveyism and Ethiopianism provided the ideological framework for
Rastafarianism, a religious movement rooted in social protest that
took shape in the early 1930s in Jamaica. The movement also has important
links to Bedwardism, as some early Rastafarian leaders had belonged
to Bedward's church. Rastafarianism was founded by Leonard Howell
and others to reject colonialism and white racism, encourage black
consciousness, and protest political and sociocultural oppression.
Rastafarians perceive Africa, and in particular Ethiopia, as a homeland
and hStretch persistently called for repatriation to the continent.
In 1955 Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I, revered by Rastafarians
as the savior foretold in the Biblical prophecies, invited all Jamaican
blacks to live in Ethiopia, offering free land to those who did. Between
1963 and 1969 some Jamaicans, mainly Rastafarians, migrated to Ethiopia
and settled in Shashamane, the largest group of 20 leaving in 1969.
Despite the offer of free land, very few Jamaicans moved to the African
nation. The Jamaican government, influenced by the Rastafari call
for repatriation, sought to establish an embassy in Ethiopia in 1969.
In 1972 Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley visited Ethiopia and
met with the Jamaican community there.
The reggae music that originated in Jamaica in the 1960s and 1970s
emerged out of a long tradition of strong resistance to white culture
and domination. The Rastafari movement has been a major influential
factor in the development of reggae as music of resistance. The late
Bob Marley, a member of the Rastafari movement, is by far Jamaica's
most popular and internationally renowned reggae star. More than any
other Jamaican musician, he transformed music from just mere entertainment
to philosophical discourses in political and racial consciousness.
Labor Movements
The new racial consciousness in Jamaica, from Garveyism to Rastafarianism,
was apparent in the activism of the island's working class after World
War I (1914-1918). After Jamaican soldiers who fought in the war with
the West India Regiment of the British Army returned to Jamaica in
1919, a wStretch of labor strikes and riots erupted throughout the
region. Strikes were quickly crushed by colonial forces. Even before
the Great Depression of the 1930s, but even more so during this global
economic collapse, Jamaica's lower classes suffered deplorable living
conditions, significant reductions in wages, high unemployment, and
virtually nonexistent workers' rights. Popular protest grew as oppressed
classes—black and brown middle classes, banana and sugar plantation
workers, and urban workers—fought together for reforms. The result
was the formation of nationalist movements, trade unions, and grassroots
political parties. Garvey founded Jamaica's first anticolonial political
party, the People's Political Party, in 1929, and formed a trade association
in the early 1930s. In 1935, the same year Garvey left for England,
A. G. S. Coombs and Alexander Bustamante formed the Jamaica Workers
and Tradesmen's Union (JWTU). In 1938 the People's National Party
(PNP), led by lawyer Norman Washington Manley, and its related workers
union, the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), headed by Bustamante,
were formed. The party's manifesto addressed popular issues, including
land settlement, adult suffrage, and social reforms. Both Manley and
Bustamante, who were distant cousins, were coloured members of the
middle class who sought to represent the black and coloured masses.
Also in 1938, labor and political unrest escalated throughout the
West Indies, including Jamaica. Strikes and riots erupted all over
the island, orchestrated in large part by Bustamante and black activist
William Grant. Bustamante was jailed more than once for his activism.
In 1942 he left the PNP, breaking from Manley on unfriendly terms,
and in 1943 he formed the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), taking the trade
union with him. This split in the leadership of the labor movement
meant the two parties would hStretch to compete for the loyalty of
the workers.
A royal commission was sent from England to report on the causes of
the disturbances and recommend measures to alleviate them. Among the
commission's recommendations were the establishment of a Commonwealth
Development Welfare Fund aimed at improving the social conditions
of the people, and provisions for representative government based
on universal adult suffrage. The first general elections under a new
constitution that provided for universal adult suffrage were held
in 1944. The JLP won the election and formed the new government. As
leader of the JLP, Bustamante took office in 1945 as Jamaica's first
chief minister (the preindependence title for head of government).
Manley became chief minister after the PNP won a majority over the
JLP in the 1955 elections. Jamaica then opted to negotiate with Britain
for its independence. An agreement was quickly reached, and Jamaica
became an independent nation on August 6, 1962. The JLP, having won
the elections held earlier in 1962, formed the government, and Bustamante
became the first prime minister of independent Jamaica. At independence,
attempts were made to diversify the island's essentially agrarian
economy by inviting foreign manufacturing industries and financial
institutions, especially from North America, to establish plants locally.
Apart from the fact that they were given tax breaks and were allowed
to repatriate profits, their racist employment policies were objectionable
to the masses. The black majority of the population was allotted only
the menial, nonmanagerial positions, while foreign whites were placed
in supervisory and managerial posts. This intensified the already
fragile racial situation. To offset open conflict, the government
embarked on a policy of "Jamaicanization" of foreign enterprises.
But this did not significantly bring Jamaicans, black or coloured,
into the realms of management. Nor did it address racism. Rastafarians,
militant urban poor, students, and radical intellectuals protested
vigorously.
Pressure groups formed to bring the conditions of the masses and racism
to the attention of the government. In 1964 intellectual leaders established
the New World Group, and in 1967 young lawyers formed the Jamaica
Council for Human Rights. Th Black Power Movement, which engulfed
the United States during the late 1960s, developed on the island in
part as a direct response to white racism locally and as a show of
solidarity with black liberation and anti-imperialist struggles internationally.
In 1968 students of the Mona, Jamaica, campus of the University of
the West Indies donated money to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) in the United States "to assist its struggle
against racism."
One of Jamaica's chief advocates of Black Power was Walter Rodney,
an Afro-Guyanese lecturer of African History at the University of
the West Indies. He posited that Black Power was to be achieved through
revolutionary activity based on black awareness, to be created by
reconceptualizing economic, political, social, and cultural life in
terms of blackness. He developed strong links with the poorer classes
of Kingston, discussing with them the idea of black liberation through
a break with imperialism and white racism, the assumption of power
by the black masses, and the cultural reconstruction of society in
the image of the black. The government considered Rodney and the Black
Power Movement subversive. On his return from a conference in Canada
in October 1968, Rodney was prevented from re-entering the island
and was declared a persona non grata.
The deportation of Rodney led to mass demonstrations, which the government
quickly suppressed with maximum force. This action by the government
was accompanied by a ban on all African American literature, a ban
on Black Power activists entering the island, and harassment of Rastafarians.
Black Power was thus effectively suppressed by the government. But
this only led to the alienation of the JLP from the masses. The people
duly voted the party out of office in the election of 1972, casting
a majority of votes for the more progressive PNP, under the leadership
of Michael Manley, the son of Norman Washington Manley.
The Manley administration espoused "democratic socialism"
beginning in 1974, enacting policies to redress the socioeconomic
problems concerning the people. These policies included nationalizing
foreign companies and creating joint ventures between the government
and privately owned foreign companies. Employment policies were revised
(for instance, mandating equal pay for equal work, irrespective of
gender), with the result that many more blacks gained managerial positions.
Several companies dissatisfied with the government's "socialist"
policies sold out and ceased operating on the island. Local Jamaicans,
including blacks and East Indians, assisted by the government, purchased
or otherwise gained control of companies, thus beginning the economic
empowerment of blacks.
During this era "free education," government-subsidized
education from primary through tertiary (university) levels, was instituted.
This policy enabled blacks and East Indians of the lower classes to
gain access to higher education. Poor blacks entered the skilled professions—law,
medicine, banking, and management—in greater numbers. An aggressive
measure to eradicate illiteracy, which was high among the black population,
was introduced in 1974, with the formation of the Jamaica Movement
for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL) program. Beginning in the
1970s blacks began to gain socioeconomic advancement and empowerment.
This new trend complemented their dominance in the political sphere.
The socioeconomic and political changes in Jamaica met with strong
resistance from the local propertied class and foreign interests.
There was massive flight of capital and people, especially middle-
and upper-class professionals and entrepreneurs. The country slumped
into a serious economic crisis, forcing the government to borrow from
the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF's stringent prescription
for economic growth, which included massive cuts in public spending
and a sizeable currency devaluation, caused undue suffering among
the lower classes. The island then became divided along a political
ideological line between "socialists" and "labourites."
Political violence engulfed the island, culminating in the bloodiest
election in Jamaica's history in 1980.
The PNP suffered a crushing defeat in the 1980 elections, losing to
the JLP. Edward Seaga, a Syrian-Jamaican and head of the JLP, became
prime minister. The JLP victory was perceived as a victory for big
businesses and conservatism, and as a return to power of whites and
coloureds. Under Seaga the government implemented a structural adjustment
program of national economic reform to qualify for foreign assistance
programs, and many of the social programs that the previous administration
had begun were either discontinued or neglected.
In 1989 the Jamaican people again cast their votes in favor of the
PNP, reinstating Manley to power, but this time the leadership assumed
a more conservative position. When Manley retired in 1992, the party's
vice president and deputy prime minister, Percival James Patterson,
a conservative, was elevated to the office of prime minister, bringing
the first black Jamaican to the post. Patterson entered his third
consecutive term in 1997. He and the sizeable bloc of black members
of parliament supporting him and controlling parliament indicate that
blacks are gaining effective control of Jamaica's politics. However,
severe economic and budgetary constraints hStretch prevented the adequate
funding of existing social services and hStretch hindered the implementation
of new social programs.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND LINKS WITH AFRICA
Jamaica is a member of the United Nations (UN) and its special agencies
and has diplomatic relations with 50 countries. Jamaica initiated
arrangements leading to the celebration of 1968 as the International
Year of Human Rights. In 1969 Jamaica joined the Organization of American
States, strengthening links with Latin American countries.
During the 1970s, under the leadership of Prime Minister Manley, Jamaica
took a more active and aggressive role in international affairs and
was seen as a leader of affairs in the developing world. The country
has stood strong on issues such as colonialism, imperialism, exploitation,
and racial segregation and discrimination. For example, Jamaica supported
the antiapartheid struggle in South Africa led by the African National
Congress (ANC). Jamaica also identified with and supported African
liberation struggles in Namibia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
Jamaica was a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of nations
that sought to remain neutral during the Cold War between the United
States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Since the
mid-1970s it has been at the forefront among the developing nations
demanding a new international economic order, in which the prices
paid for agricultural and primary products from the developing world
would bear some relation to the cost of manufactured goods. In February
1999 Jamaica hosted and chaired the Group of 15 (G15) summit in which
the 17 member nations from the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, and
Africa reiterated the call for changes in international trade and
monetary systems that would give developing nations some leverage
in the global economy.
The island is also closely involved in Caribbean regional integration.
In 1968 it joined other English-speaking Caribbean nations in founding
the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) to promote development
and economic independence in the region. In 1973 it was a signatory
to the Treaty of Chaquarmas in Trinidad, which established the Caribbean
Community and Common Market (CARICOM). This association, which seeks
economic integration of the region by means of the common market,
eventually replaced CARIFTA.
Jamaica has maintained strong relationships with many of the African
nations and with the African diaspora. Many African heads of state
and church leaders hStretch visited the island since independence
in 1962. Among these visiting leaders are Haile Selassie I, the last
emperor of Ethiopia, in 1966; Julius Kambarage Nyerere, independence
leader and then-president of Tanzania, in 1974 and 1977; Kenneth Kaunda,
then-president of Zambia, in 1975; Samora Moises Machel, revolutionary
leader and then-president of Mozambique, in 1977; Archbishop Desmond
Tutu of South Africa in 1986; Nelson Mandela, the first black president
of South Africa, in 1995; Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, in
1996; and Jerry Rawlings, president of Ghana, in 1997. Through these
visits Jamaica has forged closer alliances with the African continent.
home |
