Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 07:27:15 -0400 From: WW <[log in to unmask]> Subject: [WW] Causes of turmoil in Jamaica, part 2 Message-id: <00ef01c145b5$0b7998c0$0a01a8c0@station2> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- CAUSES OF TURMOIL IN JAMAICA, PART 2 By Pat Chin [Part I covered the recent upsurge of violence in Jamaica within the context of capitalist globalization.] The subjugation of Jamaica started when Christopher Columbus landed and took possession of the island for the Spanish crown on May 5, 1494. It was just two years after the rapacious explorer had sailed west from Europe in search of shorter trade routes to Asia in voyages that would lay the foundation for the trans-Atlantic slave trade in human cargo stolen from Africa. When Columbus arrived, the Caribbean island was home to the Arawaks, who belonged to the linguistic stock of North American indigenous peoples. They called their home "Xaymaca"--land of wood and springs. Jamaica was formally declared a colony in 1509 and partially settled by the Spanish adventurer Juan de Esquival. Only sparsely populated by settlers, it remained Spain's possession for the next 161 years. Since no gold was found, the island was used as a way station for Spanish galleons sailing between the Western Hemisphere and Spain. European pirates and buccaneers fought each other in bloody battles on the Caribbean Sea. Centrally located, Jamaica was the epicenter of their clashes for supremacy, and competing forces murdered numerous Arawaks. In addition to this, deaths from overwork and European-borne diseases soon caused the extermination of the Arawaks. BITTER CANE AND SLAVERY Finding no gold in Jamaica and only small deposits elsewhere in the so-called West Indies, the colonialists turned to sugar. The sugarcane plant, introduced into the region by Columbus in 1493, became the new potential source of Caribbean wealth. But the Arawaks had been wiped out. Spain had a relatively small population and couldn't allow the migration of more settlers to the colony. As a result, African slaves were rounded up and shipped across the Atlantic to labor in the fields. Admirals Penn and Venable seized Jamaica for the British crown in 1655. The small bands of slaves left behind by the Spanish--called Maroons--fled to the mountains where they set up free communities that offered refuge to runaway slaves, while fighting off successive attempts by the British to recapture them. English settlers, who arrived in droves, established a thriving sugar industry. Britain also populated the island with white indentured servants and prisoners captured in battles for Irish and Scottish freedom from England's colonial domination. Based on slave labor, the new sugar industry boomed and Jamaica was soon regarded as one of the finest jewels in the British crown. But this wasn't primarily due to the huge profits being made from sugar; Jamaica had also become the biggest center for the re-exporting of slaves to other British and Spanish colonies. "Over a million slaves were brought to Jamaica during the period of slavery, of which 200,000 were re-exported," wrote author Horace Campbell in "Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney." "The very fierce slaves remained in Jamaica, and by the end of the slave period, there were only 323,000 slaves who survived. "As a center for re-export, Jamaica was the prize of the British possessions," continued Campbell, "and the planters in Jamaica were the darlings of the British aristocracy in the 18th century, when the wealth of the slaves supported Earldoms and safe parliamentary seats. The organization of the plantations, which supported the planter class, encompassed the highest form of capitalist organization at that time ... where the instrument of labor, the slave, was at the same time a commodity which could be replaced after being worked to death." The riches amassed from piracy on the high seas and the European plunder of Central America provided the financial basis for the establishment of sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. In turn, the experience and wealth derived from the plantation system, coupled with the massive spoils of the slave trade, laid the foundation for the European industrial revolution and gave rise to the world's first stock market in England. And for nearly 200 years Jamaica played its part as colonial subject. HISTORY OF SLAVE REVOLTS It is well documented that the most rebellious Black captives who passed through Jamaica's bustling re- exportation center were left on the island, the majority being from Africa's Gold Coast. The country's history of slave revolts is consistent with this fact, the pre- emancipation period of British colonial occupation being marked by successive uprisings. The populations of the small Maroon communities of runaway slaves, carved out after the British drove the Spanish from the island in 1655, increased sharply after major slave uprisings broke out against the new colonial regime in 1673 and 1685. "The survival of the Maroon communities depended on the mode of social organization of the villages," explains Campbell. "In order for the Maroons to survive they had to organize a system of production and exchange, superior to the plantation levels of cooperation, reminiscent of African communalism where they divided the tasks as they hunted, fished, and gathered wild fruits. Their scouts carried out intelligence activities on the white plantations to learn the military movements of the white people's army; they never confronted the whites on the plains and blew the Abeng horn to forewarn their villages of the impending attacks." One of the most famous Maroon leaders was Nanny, a fierce Ashanti warrior woman, whose army of former slaves successfully used guerrilla tactics against the British on countless occasions to defend their territory in the eastern mountains. The major Maroon War of 1729 to1739 was fought under the leadership of Cudjoe, who was also descended from the Ashantis of Africa's Gold Coast. His guerrilla army fought the British to a standstill, and in the end they begged him to sign a treaty recognizing all Maroons as free people. The victors also won autonomy over their territories on both sides of the island, but in return for a promise of no taxation, Cudjoe agreed to refuse asylum to new runaway slaves. Numerous slave revolts erupted after Cudjoe decimated the British Army, including another Maroon War in 1795, decades after the colonialists instigated Nanny's death. Sam Sharpe, a slave and Baptist deacon, led the biggest. Campbell describes the brilliant tactics that Sharpe executed in the Christmas Rebellion of 1831: "Local commanders, who had previously taken on the guise of deacons, proceeded to march from plantation to plantation freeing the slaves and burning to the ground the homes of the most vicious planters. The drum, conch shells and the blowing of horns called other slaves to the ranks, so that before the night was out, 20,000 supposedly docile slaves were precipitating the death-blow to slavery in the British domains. "As usual, capital was called upon to defend its own interests," Campbell continues, "and one of the most feared overseers, Grignon, assumed the rank of Colonel to command the Western Interior Regiment to defend the estates. But the determination of those who stood up for their rights was such that Grignon soon had to retreat to the sea, along with those whites who had already been put out to sea in the Montego Bay Harbor. This retreat left the countryside to the slaves, who pushed from Montego Bay to Savanna la Mar, freeing slaves and blowing the horns of freedom." Two weeks later--only after they were tricked into thinking that slavery had been abolished with an amnesty--did the slaves lay down their arms. Thousands were slaughtered and many others brutally whipped in the bloody reprisals that followed. Facing death, Sharpe was pressed to express regret for his actions. "I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery," he responded defiantly. (Quoted in Campbell) Although Jamaica's most powerful slave rebellion was crushed through trickery, the struggle for emancipation elevated the issue of abolition, and the British Parliament was forced to formally end chattel slavery in its colonial possessions effective Aug. 1, 1834. [Next: Emancipation's aftermath-- The emergence of the trade union movement, the struggle for independence and other forms of resistance.] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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