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The history of Jamaica is a rich and vibrant one, which inspires us to move forward as a nation. Our history speaks to experiences of hardships and prosperity; and the growth and determination of a people. Jamaica’s history has been poetically composed by Howard Pyle, who states:

Jamaica, like many another of the West Indian Islands, is like a woman with a history. She has had her experiences and has lived her life rapidly. She has enjoyed a fever of prosperity founded upon those incalculable treasures poured into her lap by the old time buccaneer pirates. She has suffered earthquake, famine, pestilence, fire and death: and she has been the home of cruel merciless slavery, hardly second to that practised by the Spaniards themselves. Other countries have taken centuries to grow from their primitive life through the flower and fruit of prosperity into the seed time of picturesque decrepitude. Jamaica has lived through it all in a few years.

by the site: http://jis.gov.jm/information/jamaican-history/

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By the mid-1700s planters were distributing small plots of marginal land to their slaves, both men and women, as a way to offset the cost of providing food. However, the slaves were expected to tend their own crops only during their limited free time. Although slaves 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 slaves throughout the island, creating what is referred to as a proto-peasantry.

In the British mind, slaves were no more than property and merchandise to be bought and sold. On this premise, the British enacted a whole system of slave laws aimed primarily at policing slaves. In general, the premise that slaves were no more than property allowed slave owners to treat them brutally. The severity of this brutality varied. Slaves on large sugar estates generally suffered the harshest punishments, while those on smaller estates and in towns received somewhat better treatment.

By Jamaica information service  :   http://jis.gov.jm/information/jamaican-history/

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The English encouraged permanent settlement through generous land grants. In 1664 Sir Thomas Modyford, a sugar plantation and slave owner in Barbados (a Caribbean island of the Lesser Antilles chain), was appointed governor of Jamaica. He brought 1,000 English settlers and black slaves 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 slaves 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 slave trade grew. Slaves 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 slaves 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 slaves in Africa, and the trade of slaves in the British Caribbean) financed the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

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“In 1831 there was a big slave revolt in Jamaica- which was one of the things that led the British to decide to give up slavery in their colonies : after some slave revolts, they basically said, “It’s not paying anymore.” So within a couple years the British wanted to move from a slave economy to a so-called “free” economy, but they still wanted the basic structure to remain exactly the same -and if you take a look back at the parliamentary debates in England at the time, they were talking very consciously about all this. They were saying : look, we’ve got to keep it the way it is, the masters have to become the owners, the slaves have to become the happy workers-somehow we’ve got to work it all out. »

« En 1831, il y avait en Jamaïque une grande révolte d’esclaves, qui fut l’une des raisons qui amenèrent l’Angleterre à décider d’abandonner l’esclavage dans ses colonies : après plusieurs révoltes d’esclaves, ils ont dit en somme « cela ne rapporte plus ». De sorte qu’après quelques années, les Anglais voulaient changer, de passer d’une économie esclavagiste vers une économie appelée « libre », mais ils voulaient toujours que la structure de base reste exactement la même – et si vous jetez un regard en arrière sur les débats parlementaires de l’époque en Angleterre, ils étaient parfaitement conscient de tout cela. Ils disaient : si nous voulons que tout reste pareil, il faut tout changer : que les maîtres d’éclaves deviennent les propriétaires des terres et les esclaves deviennent les heureux travailleurs – en quelque sorte que nous avons à travailler tout ça. »

by the site: https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4026