Jamaica Research Paper

The country that I chose to conduct a culture analysis on is Jamaica. Jamaica is a third world country located in North America and the 3rd largest island in the Caribbean Sea. There is a 2.5 million population, which equally divided between urban and rural areas. The country runs approximately 146 miles long and varies between 21- 52 miles wide. The climate is tropical and its main tourist attraction is their beautiful beaches. The capital of Jamaica is Kingston, which has a population of more than 645,000. Kingston is the chief port of Jamaica and is along the southeastern coast of the island. It is covered by the “Blue Mountains”, which is thickly covered which tree ferns. The Blue Mountains experiences an average of 200 inches of rain annually, resulting in topsoil erosion and an abundance of streams. Peasants nurture coffee, usually grown on large plantations, in the valleys of the mountains. It is amongst the most expensive coffees in the world and is exported mainly to Japan.

The economy of the country is based primarily on agriculture, tourism, and bauxite mining (Dechesnay 1986). Another legacy from slavery that has been passed on from generation to generation is that of agriculture. From slavery days the slaves worked assiduously in the fields to cultivate sugar cane. Today many Jamaicans work in the fields to provide food for their family and to make some form of revenue from it. Today the predominant crops in Jamaica are sugar cane, bananas, and

The triangular trade thereby gave a triple stimulus to British industry. The Africans were purchased with British manufactures; transported to the plantations, they produced sugar, cotton, indigo, molasses and other tropical products, the processing of which created new industries in England; while the maintenance of the Negroes and their owners on the plantations provided another market for British industry.

Because these people were being treated like property, they were accommodated with the barest necessities and were given little to no food. These slaves looked for a way to vent their frustrations. Through the Christian Religion, these slaves were able to unify under one belief. They grew confident and more unified knowing they outnumbered the whites of the island ten to one. Some slaves escaped their owners, and became what were known as Maroons. These escaped slaves lived in the mountains of Jamaica. These “rebels” laid down the foundations of a black resistance towards the slave owners and whites. They carried out plantation raids, the killing of white militiamen, and the freeing of slaves. These Maroons alone threatened the British prospect of the sugar and slave industry. Slavery is one of the most frowned upon act humans have ever done. Condemning humans to back breaking labor with no pay at all with constant abuse is surely going to meet some kind of resistance

One day waking up thinking this was a normal day at my birth home, Jamaica, I walked to my grandparents’ house, stayed there for a couple of hours, then I saw this pretty, shiny, new Nissan Altima pulled up, and stopped. Moments later a tall dark-skinned guy stepped out the vehicle, fixed his hat, and walked to the door. When the doors open he burst into tears and said to me, “Hey son”, at first my siblings and I was in shock because we have not seen our father since 2004, I did not know what he looked like until I saw pictures of me and him together. Later that night we party and have fun together. The next morning, he drove in and we took pictures, then, we went to dunns-river falls, also we went and eat.

Europeans to enslave them. The British West Indies and the French thrived off of the sale of

There are a lot of different countries in the world. Some have many similarities and some have few similarities. English is the international language and everyone should try and learn this language if they want to communicate with the rest of the world. Most people think of the United Kingdom and the United States of America, as the english speaking countries. This is not the only English-speaking countries, with English as the national language. In this text I will take a closer look at a country that has english as the national language. I will look at the differences and similarities that this country has with The United Kingdom. The country is surprisingly small and has a population of approximately 3 million people. It is a small island and the largest English-speaking country in the Caribbean. It was a British colony from 1665 to 1962 and that is probably one of the reasons why most of the people there speak english. The country i am talking about is obviously Jamaica.

The Ottoman Empires blockage of the once popular trade route to the east, led to the exploration of the America’s. In the late 15th century, with the European’s goal to find a new trading route, the Portuguese, with their strong maritime power, were the first to venture out. Not only was the establishment of a new trade route crucial, but so was the discovery of resources to exploit for European gain. Land empires formed, bringing about the enslavement of native populations, and control of production and labor. No more was this evident than in the Caribbean Islands. Small but crucial assets to Europe, why did the Caribbean islands have such a big impact on the slave trade? Many European countries had colonized several regions in North and South America, yet there was something about the Caribbean’s that made them indispensable to their respective economies. The politics in Europe, the Caribbean’s fertile soil, and its demographics were key factors in the Caribbean’s importance. All three factors were essential in the Caribbean becoming a staple in the slave trade.

The Arawak Indians of South America were the first people to settle in Jamaica the named the island Xaymaca meaning land of wood and water. Christopher Columbus’ first arrival was in 1494. Christopher Columbus’ son settled in Jamaica in 1509. During Spain’s occupation on the island beginning in 1510 the Arawaks were killed off by disease, war and slavery. Seven short years later the Spaniards brought the first African slaves to Jamaica. The king of Spain deeded the island to Columbus’ family in 1536 until the 1620’s

Jamaica is a land of diverse cultures. It has a number of different racial ethnic groups .The largest group however is the blacks or Africans so 'Jamaica’s culture' is predominantly black. Interwoven is also the European culture which these blacks learnt from their former white slaves masters. You will find Indians living in Jamaica also. Many Indians came to Jamaica as indentured servants and stayed, they too have an input in the Jamaica’s culture.

     Things changed with the British Parliament’s abolishment of the slave trade in 1833. Freed slaves became independent farmers or employees of surviving sugar plantations. The government also changed from an elected British assembly to a governor–controlled crown colony enacted in 1866 and run for 75 years. During this political change, sugar industry slowed and the emergence of the banana industry became Jamaica’s main export (Encyclopedia Americana, 2001, P 673). Jamaica formed a two party system in its changes. The People’s National Party (PNP) and Jamaican Labor Party (JLP) would alternate rule for the 40 years. In 1953, Jamaica inaugurated a ministerial system of government. Within this system the Federation of the West Indies was created in 1958, with Jamaica as its largest member. Jamaica’s true independence came four years later with its withdrawal from the federation.

We know that in the centuries following Columbus's "discovery" of the New World (of which Jamaica was a part), a monstrous new networking of power and trade developed between Europe, Africa and the America's. Originally motivated by '; evangelical' missions of proselytization and the search for resources, European travelers traversed the Atlantic and often enslaved and killed the people they discovered on the other side. The explorers regarded both the indigenous people and their natural environment as commodities to be utilized for their own advancement. Although we believe that we have moved beyond these practices today, we continue to benefit from the seeds that these practices have sown. The sheer belief that a person or a resource can be bought and sold, owned and discovered has not left us. It continues to infect our current global systems from those of international corporate relations and trade to the conduct of pleasure seeking tourists.

Today Spanish names still exist in the form of rivers, family names, and towns(JNHT 2). The Spanish implemented a new form of economy on the island based on shipbuilding and repairs in order to maintain the trading post in the Caribbean. Jamaica relied heavily on the trade of fruits and animal skins in order to produce revenues for the Spanish Empire. Jamaica proved to be an unworthy colony for the Spanish because of the lack of prosperity of agriculture.

The slave trade was the largest contributor to the British economy during the 18th century. Tomas Butler stated “The profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of our country's industrial development. Many people and institutions in every part of the country were complicit in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” In the early Americas, Britain supplied a vast majority of the slaves to the new world to be sold to the highest bidder. During the slave trade British ships made over ten thousand voyages and enslaved approximately 3.4 billion Africans. Some of these ships would make a profit of twenty to fifty percent. Back in England the king and the ship owners were not the only people benefiting from the slave trade. Everyone from the factory owners to the factory workers were benefited as an effect of the slave trade. The upper-class citizens were definitely making the big dollars. These people included the owners of the slave ships, the factory owners, who were able to produce and sell the products that the Africans and Americans needed and wanted, bankers who made money from the interest they earned on loans from people who borrowed money for the long voyage, and

1) Beckles, M.H., & Shepherd, V. (2000) Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World. Jamaica, Ian Rhandle Publishers Limited.