Jamaica is a beautiful island country in the Caribbean, near Cuba and Haiti. It is full of culture and history, as well as gorgeous physical features. It has an area of 4,213 miles, with a population of 2.715 people. Jamaica has a GDP per capita of about 5,289 USD.
History Overview
Jamaica has a detailed history stretching back to the times before Columbus. The native people known as the Taino had agriculture and traded goods. Sadly, when Columbus arrived and conquered Jamaica in 1494, nearly all of the Taino were killed. Jamaica was then a very neglected colony of Spain for nearly 200 years. The Spanish were fought off by the British in 1655. The island was ceded from Spain to England in 1670. Jamaica then became a base for British pirates who raided neighboring Spanish islands. In the 1700’s British developed a flourishing sugar plantation with slaves brought from Africa. That was legal until 1832, when the British Parliament passed the Emancipation Act, ending slavery in all British possessions, but allowing plantation owners a five-year transition period from slavery to freedom. By 1845, plantation owners had begun to replace slave laborers with indentured workers. 117 years later, on August 6, 1962, Jamaica became the first British colony in the Caribbean to gain independence.