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 Jamaica
is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 240 kilometers
in length and as much as 80 kilometers in width situated in
the Caribbean Sea. It is 630 kilometers from the Central American
mainland, 150 kilometers from Cuba on the north, and 180 kilometers
from the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican
Republic are situated, on the east. Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking
Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning
either the "land of springs," or the "Land
of wood and water." Formerly a Spanish possession known
as Santiago, then the British West Indies Crown colony of
Jamaica, the country's population is composed mainly of the
descendants of former African slaves. It is the third most
populous Anglophone country in the Americas, after the United
States and Canada.
The original Arawak or Taino people from South America, first
settled on the island between 1000 and 400 BC. They became
virtually extinct following contact with Europeans.
Jamaica was claimed for Spain after Christopher Columbus first landed there
in 1494. Columbus used it as his family's private estate. The English Admiral
William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Venables seized
the island in 1655. During its first 200 years of British rule, Jamaica became
the world's largest sugar exporting nation and produced over 77,000 tons of sugar
annually between 1820 - 1824, which was achieved through the massive use of imported
African slave labor.
 By
the beginning of the 19th century, Britain's heavy reliance
on slavery resulted in blacks outnumbering whites by a ratio
of almost 20 to one, leading to constant threat of revolt.
Following a series of rebellions, slavery was formally abolished
in 1834, with full emancipation from chattel slavery declared
in 1838.
Jamaica slowly gained increasing independence from the United
Kingdom, and in 1958 Jamaica became a province in the Federation
of the West Indies, a federation between all the British West
Indies. Jamaica attained full independence by leaving the
federation in 1962.
However, the initial optimism following Jamaican independence
for the next decade or so vanished as Jamaica became a victim
of the international economic system. Rising foreign debt
under the government of Michael Manley, who was determined
to alleviate Jamaica's severe economic inequality, led to
the imposition of IMF austerity measures. Deteriorating economic
conditions led to a desperately fraught re-election campaign
between Manley's People's National Party and the main opposition,
the Jamaican Labour Party. Both political parties became linked
with rival gangs in Kingston which were duly armed. This policy,
along with the increasing emergence of Jamaica as a smuggling
point for cocaine during the 1980s, led to recurrent violence
and only served to increase the impoverishment of a large
section of the Jamaican populace. The ultimate result of this
cycle of violence, drugs and poverty has been the brutal gun
warfare seen on Kingston's streets from the mid-1990s onwards.
The Jamaican police force has also been accused of complicity
in this murderous side of the island. It must be noted however
that the rural sections of the island, especially in and around
the resort towns of Negril, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, remain
quite safe.
Former capitals of Jamaica include Port Royal, where the
pirate Governor Morgan held sway, and which was destroyed
by a storm and earthquake, and Spanish Town, in St. Catherine
parish, the site of the old Spanish colonial capital and the
English capital during the 18th and 19th century.
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