Editing History of Jamaica (section)

=== 17th century ===
====English conquest====
{{Main|Invasion of Jamaica}}
[[File:Old Port Royal - Project Gutenberg eText 19396.png|thumb|right|An illustration of pre-1692 Port Royal]]

In late 1654, English leader [[Oliver Cromwell]] launched the ''Western Design'' armada against [[Spanish West Indies|Spain's colonies in the Caribbean]]. In April 1655, [[Robert Venables|General Robert Venables]] led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at [[Santo Domingo]], [[Hispaniola]]. After the Spanish repelled this poorly executed attack, the English force then sailed for Jamaica, the only Spanish West Indies island that did not have new defensive works. In May 1655, around 7,000 English soldiers landed near Jamaica's capital, named [[Spanish Town]] and soon overwhelmed the small number of Spanish troops (at the time, Jamaica's entire population only numbered around 2,500).<ref>{{cite book |last=Parker |first=Matthew |date=2011 |title=The Sugar Barons}}{{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=February 2025}}</ref>

Spain never recaptured Jamaica, losing the [[Battle of Ocho Rios (1657)|Battle of Ocho Rios]] in 1657 and the [[Battle of Rio Nuevo (1658)|Battle of Rio Nuevo]] in 1658. In 1660, a group of maroons, under the leadership of [[Juan de Bolas]], broke their alliance with the Spanish and allied themselves with the English, which served as a turning point in the English domination of the island.<ref>C.V. Black, ''History of Jamaica'' (London: Collins, 1975), p. 54.</ref> For England, Jamaica was to be the "dagger pointed at the heart of the Spanish Empire," but in fact, it was a possession of little economic value then.{{sfn|Coward|2002|p=134}} England gained formal possession of Jamaica from [[Spanish Empire|Spain]] in 1670 through the [[Treaty of Madrid (1670)|Treaty of Madrid]]. Removing the pressing need for constant defence against a Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to [[Plantation economy|planting]].

====British colonization====
[[File:Jamaica1671ogilby.jpg|thumb|English map from the 1600s<ref>{{cite web|url=http://prestwidge.com/river/jamaica1671ogilby.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-05-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222101724/http://prestwidge.com/river/jamaica1671ogilby.html |archive-date=2012-02-22 }}</ref>]]
Cromwell increased the island's European population by sending indentured servants and prisoners to Jamaica. Due to Irish emigration resulting from the wars in Ireland at this time two-thirds of this 17th-century European population was Irish. But [[tropical diseases]] kept the number of Europeans under 10,000 until about 1740. Although the African slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded 10,000, by the end of the 17th century [[Atlantic slave trade|imports]] of [[slave]]s increased the [[Jamaicans of African ancestry|black population]] to at least five times greater than the white population. Thereafter, Jamaica's African population did not increase significantly in number until well into the 18th century, in part because ships coming from the west coast of [[Africa]] preferred to unload at the islands of the Eastern Caribbean.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} At the beginning of the 18th century, the number of slaves in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000, but by 1800 it had increased to over 300,000.

====Maroons====
{{Main|Jamaican Maroons#History}}

When the English captured [[Jamaica]] in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled, leaving a large number of African slaves. These former Spanish slaves organised under the leadership of rival captains [[Juan de Serras]] and [[Juan de Bolas]]. These [[Jamaican Maroons]] intermarried with the [[Arawak]] people, and established distinct independent communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica. They survived by subsistence farming and periodic raids of plantations. Over time, the Maroons came to control large areas of the Jamaican interior.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sainsbury|first1=W. Noel|title=America and West Indies|journal=Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies|volume=1, 5|issue=1574–1660, 1661–1668}}</ref>

In the second half of the seventeenth century, de Serras fought regular campaigns against English colonial forces, even attacking the capital of [[Spanish Town]], and he was never defeated by the English. Throughout the seventeenth century, and in the first few decades of the eighteenth century, Maroon forces frequently defeated the British in small-scale skirmishes. The British colonial authorities dispatched numerous expeditions in an attempt to subdue them, but the Maroons successfully fought a guerrilla campaign against the British in the mountainous interior, and forced the British government to seek peace terms to end the expensive conflict.<ref>Mavis Campbell, ''The Maroons of Jamaica 1655–1796: a History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal'' (Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988), pp. 14–35.</ref>

In the early eighteenth century, English-speaking escaped [[Asante people|Ashanti]] slaves were at the forefront of the Maroon fighting against the British.

====The House of Assembly====
{{Main|House of Assembly of Jamaica}}
Beginning with the [[House of Stuart|Stuart monarchy]]'s appointment of a civil [[Governor of Jamaica|governor to Jamaica]] in 1661, political patterns were established that lasted well into the 20th century. The second governor, [[Thomas Hickman-Windsor, 1st Earl of Plymouth|Lord Windsor]], brought with him in 1662 a proclamation from the king giving Jamaica's non-slave populace the same rights as those of English citizens, including the right to make their own laws. Although he spent only ten weeks in Jamaica, Lord Windsor laid the foundations of a governing system that was to last for two centuries – a crown-appointed governor acting with the advice of a nominated council in the legislature. The legislature consisted of the governor and an elected but highly unrepresentative [[House of Assembly of Jamaica|House of Assembly]]. For years, the planter-dominated Assembly was in continual conflict with the various governors and the Stuart kings; there were also contentious factions within the assembly itself. For much of the 1670s and 1680s, Charles II and [[James II of England|James II]] and the assembly feuded over such matters as the purchase of slaves from ships not run by the royal English trading company. The last Stuart governor, [[Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle]], who was more interested in [[treasure hunting]] than in planting, turned the planter oligarchy out of office. After the duke's death in 1688, the planters, who had fled Jamaica to London, succeeded in lobbying James II to order a return to the pre-Albemarle political arrangement (the local control of Jamaican planters belonging to the assembly).

====Jamaica's pirates====
{{Main|Port Royal|1692 Jamaica earthquake}}

Following the 1655 conquest, Spain repeatedly attempted to recapture Jamaica. In response, in 1657, Governor [[Edward D'Oyley]] invited the [[Brethren of the Coast]] to come to Port Royal and make it their home port. The Brethren was made up of a group of pirates who were descendants of cattle-hunting ''boucaniers'' (later Anglicised to buccaneers), who had turned to piracy after being robbed by the Spanish (and subsequently thrown out of Hispaniola).<ref name="autogenerated2006">Donny L. Hamilton, "Pirates and Merchants: Port Royal, Jamaica," in ''X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy,'' ed. Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen, 13–30 (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2006).</ref> These pirates concentrated their attacks on Spanish shipping, whose interests were considered the major threat to the town. These pirates later became legal English [[privateers]] who were given [[letters of marque]] by Jamaica's governor. Around the same time that pirates were invited to Port Royal, England launched a series of attacks against Spanish shipping vessels and coastal towns. By sending the newly appointed privateers after Spanish ships and settlements, England had successfully set up a system of defense for Port Royal.<ref name="autogenerated2006"/> Jamaica became a haven of privateers, buccaneers, and occasionally outright pirates: [[Christopher Myngs]], [[Edward Mansvelt]], and most famously, [[Henry Morgan]].

England gained formal possession of Jamaica from [[Spanish Empire|Spain]] in 1670 through the [[Treaty of Madrid (1670)|Treaty of Madrid]]. Removing the pressing need for constant defense against a Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to [[Plantation economy|planting]]. This settlement also improved the supply of slaves and resulted in more protection, including military support, for the planters against foreign competition. As a result, the sugar monoculture and slave-worked plantation society spread across Jamaica throughout the 18th century, decreasing Jamaica's dependence on privateers for protection and funds.

However, the English colonial authorities continued to have difficulties suppressing the Spanish Maroons, who made their homes in the mountainous interior and mounted periodic raids on estates and towns, such as [[Spanish Town]]. The Karmahaly Maroons, led by Juan de Serras, continued to stay in the forested mountains, and periodically fought the English. In the 1670s and 1680s, in his capacity as an owner of a large slave plantation, Morgan led three campaigns against the Jamaican Maroons of Juan de Serras. Morgan achieved some success against the Maroons, who withdrew further into the Blue Mountains, where they were able to stay out of the reach of Morgan and his forces.<ref>Mavis Campbell, ''The Maroons of Jamaica 1655–1796: a History of Resistance, Collaboration & Betrayal'' (Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988), pp. 14–15, 23, 32–33.</ref>

Another blow to Jamaica's partnership with privateers was the violent [[1692 Jamaica earthquake|earthquake]] which destroyed much of Port Royal on 7 June 1692. Two-thirds of the town sank into the sea immediately after the main shock.<ref name="USGS">{{cite web|url=https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1692_06_07.php|title=Historic Earthquakes: Jamaica 1692 June 07 UTC|last=USGS|date=October 21, 2009|access-date=6 December 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120408181146/http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1692_06_07.php|archive-date=8 April 2012}}</ref> After the earthquake, the town was partially rebuilt but the colonial government was relocated to Spanish Town, which had been the capital under [[Colony of Santiago|Spanish rule]]. Port Royal was further devastated by a fire in 1703 and a [[hurricane]] in 1722. Most of the sea trade moved to Kingston. By the late 18th century, Port Royal was largely abandoned.<ref name="Tortello">{{cite web|url=http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story001.html|title=1692:Earthquake of Port Royal|last=Tortello|first=Rebecca|access-date=22 December 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100309071447/http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story001.html|archive-date=9 March 2010}}</ref>