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| Christopher Columbus first spotted
this mountainous Caribbean island from his vessel in May 1494. His first visit was
relatively uneventful, but during his second visit in 1503 a violent storm forced him and
his crew to St. Ann's Bay where they were stranded for a year. Following the death of his father, Diego, Christopher's son, sent Juan de Esquivel to set up a permanent Spanish settlement in Jamaica called New Seville, which is now near the city of Ocho Rios. Later, in 1655, 6,000 British troops were moved into Jamaica to counter Spain's claim of the land. After driving out the Spaniards, a privateering headquarters was established at Port Royal, across the harbor from what is now Kingston. After years of raiding Spanish colonies and eventually instituting England's claim to Jamaica, Port Royal was hit with a severe earthquake and more than half of the town slid into the harbor. Britain begin to focus on agriculture to re-build the newly claimed Jamaican Island and shipped over thousands of slaves from Africa to tend the sugar cane crops. When Britain abolished slavery in the late 1800s, the population of Jamaica consisted of roughly 300,000 African slaves and 20,000 whites. Jamaica gained its independence from Britain in 1962. With the growth of its banana and bauxite industries and the rise of tourism, Jamaica is now fully independent within the British Commonwealth. |
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