Slavery in Jamaica

Jamaica has been a land exploited and oppressed by white nations for much of its history. First colonized by the Spanish and then the British, it seems hard to imagine a time when it was just the native people living in peace and harmony with the land. Many years after the white man first jammed himself onto the beaches of Jamaica, reggae music was born. A continuing tradition, this easy-to-groove-to music style originated as a voice against this oppression; it was the peaceful islanders way of finally communicating their plighted history to all who would listen, or all who could appreciate a good beat. Much of this oppression came in the time of slavery; a period of nearly two hundred years where those of a dark skin were considered property of the light skinned ones, inferior in all ways. Most of their labor was on sugar plantations, an export that Jamaica was supplying much of the world with. Later in their history, it would be bananas that the British would learn to exploit.

Until the philosophy which holds One race superior and another inferior Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned That until there are no longer first class second class citizen Of any nation. Until the color of a man’s skin Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes That until their basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, Without regard to race.

That until that day, The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship And the rule of international morality Will remain but in a fleeting illusion To be pursued, but never attained… -Haile Selassie

Even as slavery was finally abolished at the beginning of the nineteenth century, these views and the oppression brought on by them continued. Without the thousands of hands wor...

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...o the plight of the Jamaican people; the methods employed by Parliament and local estate owners showed how far they were willing to go to ensure they stayed in power.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Holt, Thomas C. The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938.Johns Hopkins University Press; Baltimore. 1992

2) Ragatz, Lowell Joseph. The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean

Octagon Books, Inc; 1963.

3) Walvin, James. Black Ivory; A History of British Slavery. Howard University Press, Washington, D.C.; 1994.

4) Petras, Elizabeth McLean. Jamaican Labor Migration: White Capital and Black Labor, 1850-1930. Westview Press, London; 1988.

5) New International Magazine. ‘Battle of the Bananas’. http://193.128.6.150/ni/issue317/battle.htm; Oct., 1999.

6) Anadol, Sinan. ‘Caribbean Soul’. www.atlasturkey.com; May, 1998.