Jamaica

The largest of the English-speaking islands, taken by accident and never fully controlled. Cromwell's Western Design of 1655 was aimed at Hispaniola, failed there, and settled for Jamaica as a consolation prize; Spain had already reduced the Taino population to almost nothing. The English then made it the wealthiest sugar colony in the empire and, for decades, its main slave market, importing far more Africans than survived on the island. Mountainous interior terrain gave the enslaved somewhere to go, and the Maroons - communities of escapees, some descended from people freed when the Spanish left - fought the British to a standstill and won treaties in 1739 and 1740 recognising their land and autonomy. Revolt was close to continuous: Tacky's War in 1760, the Baptist War of 1831 under Samuel Sharpe, which hastened emancipation, and the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865, whose ferocious suppression by Governor Eyre ended the island's own assembly and made it a Crown colony. Port Royal, the pirate capital, fell into the sea in the earthquake of 1692. Marcus Garvey was born here and built the largest Black mass movement of the twentieth century; Rastafari, reggae and Bob Marley followed from the same ground. Independence came on 6 August 1962, ending the short-lived West Indies Federation. Bauxite and tourism replaced sugar. Kingston is the capital, and the old capital at Spanish Town keeps its Spanish name. The Blue Mountains rise above two thousand metres. Jamaica has produced more sprint world records than any country of its size. The Maroon communities at Accompong still mark the 1739 treaty each January.

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