JAMAICA1

BY FRANK CUNDALL

I. GEOGRAPHY

JAMAICA is an island situated towards the north of the Caribbean Sea, and in the centre of what Americans call the American Mediterranean, i.e. the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea conjoined. It is the third in size (Cuba and Haiti being larger and Puerto Rico smaller) of the four Greater Antilles, which probably once formed one island, but were never connected with the inainland. They consist of a disconnected chain of mountains, of which about two-thirds of their altitude are now beneath the sea. Considered from the plain from which they rise, they exceed any heights in Europe or North America; and if their submerged slopes be added, they must be classed amongst the most lofty mountains of the world. They differ from most of the great ranges of the world in that they are not composed of barren rock, but have cultivable soil up to their very summits. The latitude of Kingston is 17° 57′ north, and the longitude is 5 hours 7 min. west of Greenwich. Kingston harbour, the finest in the West Indies, has a total area of about sixteen square miles, of which about seven square miles have a depth of from seven to ten fathoms. Should a ship canal ever unite the Atlantic with the Pacific, the island would undoubtedly be considerably increased in importance.

Written in 1895; revised in 1899.

The island of Cuba, now under the control of the United States, is 90 miles to the north; and Cape Gracios à Dios, in the Mosquito Territory, 400 miles south-west of the west end of the island, is the nearest part of the continent of America. Jamaica is 4207 square miles in extent, having an extreme length of 144 miles, and an extreme width of 49 miles. In its general geological formation, the foundation of the island is composed of igneous and metamorphic rocks, overlying which are several distinct formations -white and yellow limestone and carbonaceous shales; some being mineral-bearing.

Iron and copper exist in many parts. Lead, zinc, manganese, and gold are found in small quantities. Mining operations have been carried on from time to time, but with no great success. Throughout the interior there is a great abundance of good clay suitable for brick-making and ordinary pottery; and there is a good supply of lime and ochres, the latter of which might be made of considerable commercial importance.

The island is very mountainous, especially in the eastern part. The Blue Mountain Peak, 7360 feet high, is the highest point in Jamaica, and indeed in the British West Indies. It is only 200 feet lower than the Pico de Tarquino, the highest point in Cuba; but more than one mountain range in the neighbouring island of Haiti overtops it by upwards of 1000 feet; Monte Tina, the highest point in the Antilles, rising to 10,300 feet high.

There are numerous savannas or plains on the sea-board, and also a few inland shut in by hills on all sides.

Jamaica is divided into three counties, Surrey, Middlesex, and Cornwall, and exceeds in area the English counties of the same names by about the extent of Hampshire; but its population is less than

a third of that of those four English counties, omitting London.

The population was, according to the census in 1891, as follows:

The total estimated population on the 31st March 1899 was 730,725, giving a population of 173 to the square mile. Jamaica is thus more populous in proportion to its size than Spain, Turkey, Russia, and other European countries. The population of Cuba was, previous to the late war, estimated to be 36 to the square mile. That of the republic of San Domingo is about 34.

The births for 1898-99 numbered 27,648, giving a rate of 38.13 per thousand on the estimated mean population. The deaths for the same period numbered 15,290. The rate, 21.08 per thousand of the mean population, compares favourably with that of many English towns.

Included in the government of Jamaica are the Turk's and Caicos Islands, which geographically form part of the Bahama Islands, to which they at one time belonged; the Cayman Islands, which lie from 110 to 150 miles north-west of the west end; the Morant Cays, about 33 miles south-east of the east end of the island; and the Pedro Cays, about 40 miles south-west of Portland Point, the most southerly point of the

island.

III

The inhabitants of the Turk's and Caicos Islands

2 A

(about 5000 in number) live almost entirely by the salt industry, the salt being made from the sea by evaporation in salt-ponds, which form a large part of the area of the islands; the bulk of it going to the United States: the sea around the Caicos Islands produces sponges, and the conch from which the pinkpearl comes. The Cayman Islanders, who are in the happy position of having no pauper roll, live chiefly by turtling and by the exportation of phosphates. The Morant and Pedro Cays, which are uninhabited, are leased for the purposes of collecting guano, boobies' eggs, and turtle. Turk's Islands are reached in two days by the steamers which go monthly from Jamaica to Halifax.

Jamaica and its dependencies comprise a little more than a third of the area, and contain nearly a half of the population of the British West India Islands. But Jamaica is only about a tenth of the size of Cuba, and a seventh of that of Haiti.

II. WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE COLONY PRIOR TO ITS INCORPORATION INTO THE BRITISH EMPIRE

When Columbus, in 1492 and the succeeding years, on his search for a western route to India-a search the memory of which ever lives in the title "West Indies "-discovered the New World and explored the Antillean Islands and a small part of the southern continent of America, he found them peopled by several tribes of natives, of which the most important were the Caribs and the Arawâks. The former, a fierce, man-eating people, who have given their name to the Caribbean Islands and Caribbean Sea, inhabited the mainland in the neighbourhood of Guiana, and the Lesser Antilles (the Windward and the Leeward Islands, as we now call them); and the latter, a quiet, inoffensive tribe, as their name (ineal-caters) signified,

resided in the Greater Antilles-Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba-whither they had probably come in prehistoric times from the southern continent of America.

The Caribs had, by the last decade of the fifteenth century, driven the Arawâks from the Lesser Antilles, and would probably, but for Spanish intervention, have forced them to leave also the larger islands.

On his first voyage, Columbus discovered several of the Bahama Islands, Cuba, and Haiti. On his second, starting in 1493, he discovered the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles (the present Leeward Islands), and, after revisiting Haiti and Cuba, struck south in search of an island which he was told possessed much gold, and discovered Jamaica on the 3rd of May in the following year. He said of it, "that there was no gold in it or any other metal, although the island was otherwise a paradise, and worth more than gold." On his landing at Dry Harbour, on the next day, the natives offered some slight resistance; but this was probably due rather to timidity, which had been accentuated by the persecutions of the Caribs, than to any active hostility to the strangers from the skies, as they considered the white men to be, when they found them unlike their cruel foes. They were bitterly undeceived by subsequent events; but for the moment they were easily pleased by gifts of beads, combs, knives, hawks'-bells, and other nicknacks, and freely brought fruits to the Spaniards, and gave them all the help they could.

On his fourth and last voyage, Columbus ran his weather-beaten and worm-eaten caravels aground in St. Ann's Bay; and, during an enforced residence of twelve months, he and those with him would, under ordinary circumstances, have had ample opportunity of studying the habits and customs of the natives. But he himself was racked by gout, worn out in mind.