History of Jamaica

On the island of Jamaica, there have been humans since around 4000 BC. Although, little is known about those first inhabitants. At around 600 AD, the “Redware people” arrived, named after their pottery. 200 years after that, the tainos moved up from South America and they remained chief on the island until colonization. The Spaniards took the island in 1509 and started enslaving the natives. After roughly 25 years the taino population started decreasing rapidly, at that point, the spanish started taking african slaves to the island. Luckily, many slaves and tainos escaped their captors and moved inland to more remote and easily defensible parts of the island. Those communities were dubbed Maroons. Many Jews fled to those Maroons to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Nearly a century later, the English began taking interest in the island, and after a failed attempt to take Santo Domingo on Hispañola, their army led an invasion on Jamaica in 1655. Battles at Ocho Rios and Rio Nuevo resulted in Spanish defeats, and in 1660, when the Maroon community switched sides, and began supporting the English, the defeat of the Spaniards was secured. At that time the population of the island was about 4500 Whites and 1500 Blacks. Due to the need for agricultural workers, by the 1670’s,  the Brits imported more African slaves and the Black population swiftly surpassed the Whites. Over the next couple centuries, several rebellions occurred including the Baptist War, a massive slave rebellion. As a result of it, and several related rebellions, not limited to Jamaica, Britain abolished slavery in 1838. Britain and Jamaica slowly drifted apart through the 1900s and Jamaica gradually gained autonomy. In 1958 Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom. The population ratio being above 20 Blacks for every 1 White.