Jamaica and the Consequences of its Colonization

Since I had previously studied Jamaica and the effects that Globalization had on it, I decided to look into its colonial roots and how they might have influenced their involvement in globalization. Browsing google for something to aide me in this post, I came across an essay titled Jamaica, by a Veront Satchell originally from Africana.com (1999). The link is here.

Jamaica was first colonized by Spain in 1509, which eventually regarded the island as uninteresting and it quickly "became a backwater" venture to the Spanish. After its conquering from the English in 1655, there was a revitalization in the socio-economical conditions in Jamaica as the English were very much determined to turn the island into a profitable item. (During the Spanish conquering of Jamaica the native Taino were nearly wiped out in the 1600's). With the introduction of plantations, and consequently slavery, into the new economy of Jamaica, both the system of plantations and the system of slave trade aided in the 'prosperity' of Jamaica. I put prosperity in quotes since those prosperous were not the native Jamaicans, but the British colonizers and Whites. The essay mentioned a very interesting fact: "It has been postulated that the profit generated by the 'triangular trade' [referring to the trade between the British Caribbean, Africa, and again the British Caribbean]...financed the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

Skipping forward the extremely recent Independence of Jamaica from Britain, which was on August 6th of 1962, due to the constant suppression by some outside population since the 1500's, Jamaica has been in a slump economically, politically, and socially for quite some time now. Firstly, when the Spanish conquered, they brought European diseases with them and combined with the harsh treatment of the enslaved natives, led to the near-eradication of the Taino. Then, and for the most part, the British came in and revitalized the economy, but once again it was for the benefit of an outside person, not the people of the nation. Even in the 1800's, though slavery was abolished in 1807 by Britain, the racism still existed despite Jamaica having a slave population almost 18 times that of whites, which is comparable to the situations in America after the abolishing of slavery.

Jamaica's current issue is that of being in a great amount of debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after a noble attempt to, "diversify the island's essentially agrarian economy by inviting foreign manufacturing industries and financial institutions..." and as a result, "The black majority of the population was allotted only the menial, non managerial positions...this intensified the already fragile racial situation." After a series of resistances in the 1970's, many of Jamaica's outside investors left, leaving Jamaica in an even tougher situation, leading to the economic crisis which forced Jamaica to borrow from the IMF.

What it comes down to really is that due to an early history of having had their established system of living originally with the Native Taino, Jamaica has always had outside hands working within their community shaping it towards the means of their industrial gain and not towards the bettering of the Jamaican people.