Is Jamaica removing the British Queen as its head of state? How and why is Queen Elizabeth II still the ruling monarch of Jamaica? The original inhabitants of Jamaica were the Arawoks.
They came from South America and cultivated the land on the island and fished from the sea. But all that changed in 1494 when Christopher Columbus docked in Jamaica and in true colonial fashion claimed the island for Spain. A few years later, on his second return to Jamaica, his crew suffered a shipwreck and they spent a year on the island waiting to be rescued. By 1509, the Spanish built their first settlement there. They enslaved the indigenous population and by the early 17th century most of the Arawak people had died from the diseases that the Spanish had brought with them and from being overworked amid poor slave conditions.
A small number of African slaves were also brought to the island. In 1655, the English led a successful attack on the Spanish in Jamaica. The Spanish surrendered, freed their slaves and fled to Cuba. The free slaves would come to be known as the Maroons and took refuge in the highlands.
They cultivated the land, hunted across the region, and married with some of the remaining Arawaks. The Spanish never recaptured Jamaica and England took formal possession of the island in 1617. The English needed slaves to cultivate sugar, indigo and cacao, so they brought more African slaves to the island. Jamaica ended up becoming one of the busiest slave markets in the world.
In the 18th century, Jamaica's sugar production reached its peak before it was rivalled by coffee production. 300,000 slaves were living in Jamaica under terrible conditions. Between 1780 and 1787, an estimated 15,000 slaves starved to death. Slave revolts occurred frequently and some of the enslaved ran away to join the Maroons.
The British also destroyed many Maroon settlements which eventually led to what is known as the Maroon Wars. 600 Maroons were even deported to Nova Scotia by the British. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was abolished and by 1838, slaves in the colonies were freed.
Many former slaves moved off the plantations. Some governors brought thousands of plantation workers from India hoping to reduce their costs and avoid paying the former slaves high wages. But the plantation system collapsed, leading to widespread poverty and unemployment.
In 1866, the British Parliament declared Jamaica a crown colony and everything from the police force to the schooling system was reorganized. A lucrative banana trade was established. In the 1930s, in the wake of the Great Depression, Jamaica was hit hard.
A worldwide economic collapse ruined the banana trade and brought about mass unemployment and poverty. There was widespread violence and protest. Labour unions were formed and Jamaicans demanded independence.
By 1962, after more than 300 years of British rule, Jamaica gained full dominion or independence under the Commonwealth. The country set its own constitution but was to retain the British monarch as its head of state. In 2021, the Jamaican government announced that they would ask Britain for compensation for forcibly transporting hundreds of thousands of Africans to work on plantations.
That created fortune for British labourers. In March 2022, Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Hollness announced Jamaica's intention to be a republic, fully independent from the Crown. The position was strengthened by academics and protesters who have written letters that further insist on reparations and apologies. In the words of one of the protesters, Dr. Rosalia Hamilton, an economist and activist, there are historical wrongs and they need to be addressed.