Prologue
At the time of her birth the island had been gentle
and kind, populated by a nation of peace-loving
people who knew little of wars and violence. They
were simple fisher-folk who spent their days
raising gentle-spirited children with flattened
foreheads. Every day the small-bodied men would
take their narrow canoes out to sea while the
boys snared wild birds and the women cleared
the land and planted sweet potatoes and maize.
In the evenings they would gather together to
eat roasted fish and cassava cakes. The
women were well practised in the proper preparation of their staple food, cassava, which was
poisonous in its natural state and required great care before the flour into which it was pounded
could be formed into flat cakes and baked. They were experts in communal living. Everyone
shared in the work to provide for the tribe's needs and at the end of the day they retired to large
thatch houses, each of which was shared by several families. Under the leadership of the
Cacique the people fished and farmed by day, and relaxed and smoked tobacco by night.
Although the island had been home to these Arawak Indians for over one hundred years,
imperial documents would state that the official year of her birth was 1494, the year Christopher
Columbus landed on her northern shores. He had been told that she was rich in gold but her
riches lay in her lush, green beauty and her peaceful nature. In the east the invaders found
rolling green hills and a mountain reaching to the clouds. In the west were open plains bordered
by white sand and a translucent blue sea. The visitors were unimpressed by the island's serenity
and beauty. Instead of embracing her children they raped and tortured them, infected them
with diseases, and attacked them with dogs - for sport.
Within eighty years of the Spaniards' discovery of Xaymaca all her gentle inhabitants were
dead. The brown-skinned Arawaks made way for white Spaniards and black Africans. The black
slaves were rebellious. Some ran off and sought refuge in the island's bosom where they
established their own settlements - the Spanish called them Maroons. By 1655 the poorly
protected island was captured by the British and became a jewel in the English crown. More
slaves were brought in from Africa, sugar plantations flourished, and tobacco and rum were in
good supply. The islands' nature changed over the years from peaceful, to violent, to wicked.
She became the harlot of the Caribbean. With the British came the buccaneers who settled in
the small sea town of Port Royal. They drank rum, ate smoked wild pig, and pirated Spanish
ships. Within a decade and a half of the arrival of the British, Port Royal was known as the
wealthiest and wickedest city in the world. Henry Morgan, the greatest pirate and buccaneer
captain, was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the island in 1673. Port Royal's wickedness was
finally swallowed up by the sea when most of the town was destroyed by earthquake in 1692.
Despite several slave rebellions the number of sugar plantations grew so that by 1739 the island
housed almost four hundred and thirty of them. By 1808 when the trading of African slaves was
abolished the island was teeming with black people. The slaves were emancipated in 1834 but
continued to serve their masters under an apprenticeship system for four more years until
slavery was finally abolished in 1838. For the next one hundred years the black people toiled on
the land, surviving for the most part as small farmers. They were joined by the brown ones
from India who came in from 1845 - 1871 as indentured labourers, then by the yellow ones from
China and the pale-skinned Syrians who came in as traders and merchants.
Now over five centuries old, the island has seen peace and violence, bondage and freedom,
struggle and triumph. She has been mother to the children of the world; their customs and
creeds have blended to form a rich melange of culture, music and cuisine. This island, so rich in
physical beauty, so complex in personality, is not child but a woman who smiles at the world
through eyes misted with tears, seducing onlookers with promises of pleasure, paradise, no
problem - hiding her diamond heart, so hardened by the tears of her offspring.
This is Jamaica's story.
