Caribbean Community Information

Jamaica:

Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ Jamaica on May 4th 1494 and claimed it in the name of the King and Queen of Spain. It was not occupied until Juan de Esquivel came from Santo Domingo in 1509, and for almost 150 years Jamaica remained a Spanish colony until the British seized control in 1655. In 1670 Jamaica was formally handed over to the British by the Treaty of Madrid. Jamaica was then inhabited by a gentle race of people called the Arawaks or Tainos totaling roughly 60,000 in population. It is believed that the arawaks probably came from the country now known as Guyana, where Arawak Indians currently reside. As the sole inhabitants on the island at that time, the Spaniards enslaved the arawaks and made them perform backbreaking tasks. The Spaniards treated the Arawaks so harshly that in roughly fifty years all of the natives were dead. By 1517 the Spaniards were forced to ‘import’ the first shipment of slaves from Africa to take their place.

It is estimated that from the time Jamaica passed into the hands of the English, until the abolition of the slave trade, over one million slaves were forcibly brought to Jamaica from Africa. When slavery was abolished in August 1834 there were less than 320,000 slaves on the island. After abolition the plantation owners were faced with a labor shortage and were forced to look elsewhere for laborers. The plantation owners ‘recruited’ indentured immigrants from India and later China. The first batch of East Indians arrived on the Island in 1845 and the Chinese in 1854. Some Chinese later came from Panama, Trinidad and British Guiana. Sugar made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions of the British Empire for more than 150 years.

After a long period of British colonial rule, Jamaica gained a degree of local political control in the late 1930s, and held its first election under full universal adult suffrage in 1944. Jamaica joined nine other British territories in the West Indies Federation in 1958 with the creation of the West Indies Federation (WIF) but withdrew after Jamaican voters rejected membership in 1961. Jamaica gained independence in 1962 and is a member of the Commonwealth. Although Jamaica's political system has been stable, political violence erupted during all of the elections in the 1990s. The current Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller took office in March 2006, amid very little violence.

Despite political stability in Jamaica, more than 1,300 reported murders were reported in 2006. Violent crimes have been a serious problem for the citizens, politicians and law enforcement officers, particularly in Kingston, compounded by accusations of extrajudicial killings by law enforcement officers. Also, corruption, money laundering, and increasing drug-related violence is threatening public security. Jamaica has always been considered a major drug transit country in the region and it is the Caribbean’s largest producer of marijuana and marijuana derivative products. In 2007, cooperation between the Government of Jamaica and the US law enforcement agencies remained strong resulting in drug seizures, arrest of drug-traffickers, and disruption of the drug baron's’ organizations.

The country's declining economic problems have exacerbated social problems; adding to the growing foreign debts and high interest rates which have all compounded the country’s economic woes even further. Once a major sugar producer, Jamaica is now a net sugar importer, however, the growing use of ethanol blends in gasoline could lead to a revival of Jamaica's sugar industry. Most foreign exchange comes from remittances (totaling approximately US$1.8 billion in 2006), tourism, and bauxite. Growing competition from Mexico, Central America, and Asia has led to factory closures, resulting in an unemployment rate in excess of 11.3 percent in 2005, yielding Jamaica one of the highest unemployment rates in the region. For several recent years, GDP growth rate has been relatively minimal.

Among the 13 CARICOM member states surveyed by Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption group has ranked Jamaica at number nine, and at number 84 among 179 countries (with number 1 being the least corrupt and number 179 the most corrupt country). The Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal’s 2008 report on Index of Economic Freedom has stated Jamaica's economy is 66.2 percent free, ranking it the world's 45th freest economy (the same rank as 2007). Its overall score is 0.2 percentage point higher than last year, which is due to an improvement in monetary freedom. Jamaica is ranked 10th out of 29 countries in the Americas. Jamaica scores very well in investment and business freedoms. Starting and closing a business are relatively easy despite bureaucratic inefficiencies. Foreign investment is welcomed in almost all areas, including the purchase of privatized state enterprises.

For basic facts and figures (CLICK THE ABOVE IMAGE)