Chapter X: Introduction (1)

Studies in Jamaica archæology and history naturally fall into three main groups: Aboriginal, Spanish and English.

Though, owing to the high form of civilization there attained, research has in Egypt revealed very full information concerning the condition of life in the Nile valley thousands of years before the Christian era, it has hitherto told us very little about the aborigines who inhabited Jamaica a little more than 400 years ago. How long they had been here when Columbus discovered the island no one can say for certain, though the thickness and extent of their middens, some thirty of which have been opened from time to time, offer evidence of value.

ARAWÂK BOWL
]

As in Hispaniola, the natives of Jamaica were ruled over by caciques or chieftains. The estimates of historians of the number of inhabitants in the West Indian islands differ widely. Las Casas says that the islands abounded with inhabitants as an ant-hill with ants, and puts them down at 6,000,000. But Peter Martyr gives but 1,200,000 to Hispaniola and, taking this as a guide, there would probably have been about 600,000 in Jamaica—or, roughly speaking, three-quarters of its present population. Not many were left when the English took the island in 1655.

Judged by the English standard, Indians are short in stature. The Arawâks of Guiana to-day are described as being of a red cinnamon in colour. The hair on the scalp is thick, long, very straight and very black. The features of the face are strikingly like those familiarly known as Chinese (Mongolian), and the expression is decidedly gentle. Physically they are weak, and life hardly ever exceeds fifty years. The natives of Jamaica—as a few skulls found from time to time testify—possessed, in common with other West Indian tribes, the peculiarity of tying boards on to the foreheads of their children in such a way that the skulls assumed and permanently retained an extraordinarily flat shape.

Peter Martyr, who heard it spoken, said that the language in the Greater Antilles was “soft and not less liquid than the Latin,” and “rich in vowels and pleasant to the ear.” Of words of West Indian origin, those most frequently in use in the English language are avocado (aguacate) pear, barbecue, buccaneer, canoe, Carib and its derivative cannibal, guava, hammock, hurricane, iguana, maize, manatee, pirogue, potato and tobacco.

Columbus has told us of a cacique of Cuba who believed in a future state dependent on one’s actions in this world, but Sir Everard im Thurn found nothing of the kind amongst the Indians of Guiana, and it is probable that Columbus’s guide from Guanahani (Watling Island) only partially understood the cacique, or that Columbus only partially understood his guide. Their houses were primitive alike in shape and construction. In Jamaica, they were probably circular, and were provided with walls of wattle work plastered with mud, and with a high-pitched roof of palm leaves; they probably had no windows. The Indians slept in hammocks. The weapons of the Arawâks of Jamaica and the other large islands consisted of darts and war clubs; but they apparently did not possess bows and arrows, which were the form of weapons preferred by the Caribs, and the use of which gave them a great advantage over their more peaceful foes.

MEALING-STONE
]

Ornaments were more worn by the men than the women. Painting was the simplest form of ornamentation; the colours used being blue, black, carmine, white and yellow, derived from plants and earths. They wore necklets of hogs’ teeth and stone beads, crowns of feathers in their heads, aprons of palm-leaves or woven cotton, and bands round their arms and legs. Their chief occupations and means of living were hunting and fishing and agricultural pursuits with, in some cases, a certain amount of trading. As they required nothing more than canoes for travelling on the water, simple houses to live in, baskets for domestic purposes, hammocks for rest, rude weapons of the chase, and implements such as hatchets and chisels, earthen vessels, and a few ornaments and articles of dress, these, with a few crude rock-carvings, formed the sum total of their arts and manufactures.

In common with the other aborigines of the West Indies generally and with the natives of New Zealand and with all the nomad tribes of the new world from Patagonia to the Arctic circle, the Arawâks of Jamaica were, when discovered, without any knowledge of the metals as such. From their kitchen middens we know that they were great fish eaters.

ARAWÂK PESTLE
]

Until 1895, but few remains had been discovered to testify to the existence of a tribe which not so very long ago lived by gathering the fruits of the land and sea of Jamaica. During that and the following years several collections of Indian remains were found.[2] They are scattered fairly throughout the island, except curiously enough, the eastern end, and are thickly grouped in St. Andrew and Vere, in St. Ann, and in the west end of Westmoreland. They all supply objects similar in character and giving evidence of no very high advance in civilization or the arts; being considerably below those of Mexico and Peru. The objects consist for the most part of petaloid or almond-shaped polished celts of metamorphic or igneous rocks, found somewhat abundantly all over the island; circular or oval, shallow, unglazed bowls of baked pottery, with but crude ornamentation, used in the preparation of food, and some as mortuary vessels for the heads of their chiefs—found here and there in the caves and on the sites of dwellings; calcedony beads, hitherto found, curiously enough, only in Vere; stone and wooden images and rock-carvings and the rock-pictures; and a few shell and flint implements and mealing-stones rarely found.

Footnote 2:

For this subject consult “Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica. By J.
E. Duerden, A.R.C.Sc., Kingston, Ja., 1897.”

It is to be regretted that many of the objects shown at an exhibition of native remains held at the Institute of Jamaica in 1895, following on the discovery of the Halberstadt cave, as well as others discovered later, should have been allowed to leave the island. Such things once lost can rarely be regained.

Some of the early Spanish historians—putting as they frequently did X for J—wrote the name of the island _Xaymaca_, but it appears in its present form as early as 1511 in Peter Martyr’s “Decades.” He called it _Jamaica_ and _Jamica_. The island is unnamed in Juan de la Cosa’s map of 1500.

Its first appearance in cartography is on the map made by Bartolommeo Colombo, Columbus’s younger brother, to illustrate the admiral’s fourth voyage, where it is spelled _Jamaicha_. In Cantino’s map (1502–04) it appears as _Jamaiqua_: in Caneiro as _Jamaiqua_ and in Waldseemüller’s map of 1507 as _Jamaiana_. In the so-called Admiral’s map of 1507 it appears as _Jamaqua_: the name does not appear in Ruysch’s map of 1508, but in the Ptolemaeus edition, Strasburg 1513, it is given as _Jamaiqua_, and in the Waldseemüller map of 1516 it is also _Jamaiqua_.

In the Maggiolo map of 1519 it is _Jamaica_, but in the Maggiolo map of 1527 it is _Jamaicha_: in Ribero’s “Antilles” of 1529 and in Mercator’s map of 1541 it is _Jamaica_: but in Herrera’s map of 1601, it goes back to the old form _Xamaica_, and as late as 1734 in Charlevoix’s “L’isle Espagnole,” it appears as _Xamayca_. Amongst Englishmen who wrote of it from personal knowledge immediately after the British occupation, Commissioner Butler (1655) wrote it _Gemecoe_ and _Gemegoe_. Daniell (1655) calls it _Jamico_, Gwakin (1657) wrote it _Jammaca_, and General Fleetwood (1658) wrote it _Jamecah_.

Columbus on his return from his first journey was told by the natives when off Tortuga, that if he sailed in a certain direction two days he would arrive at Babeque, where he would find gold. Columbus mentions Babeque many times in his journals, but he never found it, at least under that name. The “Historie,” of 1571, identifies it with Hispaniola but this is doubted. Las Casas thought that it might refer to Jamaica.

In common with most other West Indian native names Jamaica has come to us through a Spanish source; and the native pronunciation was possibly something like Hâmîca. Several derivations have been given of the meaning of the word. The most extraordinary is that which seeks to connect it with James II. On Moll’s map of the island, published early in the eighteenth century, it is stated that it was first called St. Jago by Columbus, who discovered it, but that the name was afterwards changed to Jamaica, after James, Duke of York. In this connection it is somewhat sad to note that not one of the Greater Antilles retained the name given to it by Columbus. Española, Santiago and Juana, went back to their native Hayti, Jamaica and Cuba; and St. Juan Bautista became Porto Rico, but Hispaniola still survives to some extent and is the most convenient name for the island which contains two republics. Of the smaller islands, the names of Trinidad, Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat and Guadeloupe still remind us of their great discoverer.

James Knight, in the rough draft of his history of Jamaica (1742) in the British Museum, gives the following derivation of the word Jamaica: “In the original it was Jamajaco. Jamo in the Indian language is a country, and Jaco is water.”

John Atkins, in his “Voyage to the Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies” (1737), says that “Jamaica was altered by King James, it being a compound of his name and ‘_ca_’ an island.” He was possibly not far wrong in regard to the “island.” The West Indian word for an island, _cai_ (or the Biscayan word cay) is supposed to appear in Lucayos (Bahamas), “Men of the Island”; in the Caicos islands, and also in various cays or keys in the West Indies; albeit modern etymology makes cay or key the same word as the Welsh cae.

Long wrote in 1774 that “it is not improbable that Jamaica is a name of Indian extraction, perhaps derived from Jamacaru, the Brazilian name of the prickly pear, which overspreads the maritime parts of the south side, where the aboriginal Indian discoverers of this island might have first landed,” but this derivation has found no supporters among later writers.

Bryan Edwards, writing in 1793, says: “The early Spanish historians wrote the word _Xaymaca_. It is said to have signified in the language of the natives, a country abounding in springs.”

Bridges, who as a rule displays a more fertile imagination than Long without half his trustworthiness as a historian, says, writing in 1828: “In the speech of Florida, _Chaübaan_ signified water and _makia_ wood (Lescarbot, I.6, c.6). The compound sound would approach to Chab-makia; and, harmonized to the Spanish ear, would be Chamakia, or some such indistinct union of these two significant expressions, denoting a land covered with wood, and therefore watered by shaded rivulets, or, in other words, fertile.” This suggested origin has been usually adopted by later writers. Why Bridges sought in Florida the meaning of words of Jamaica, he does not explain. Carib and Arawâk are probably the only two languages which Columbus heard spoken in the Greater Antilles. Wood, in Arawâk, is _ada_; woods are in Arawâk _konoko_ and in Carib _eotch_; and water is in Arawâk _winiab_ (Hillhouse) or _comiaboo_ (im Thurn), and in Carib _tona_.

Bryan Edwards points out that Fernando Columbus’s “Historie” states that the Indian name of Antigua was Jamaica, and he adds: “It is a singular circumstance that this word which in the language of the larger islands signified a country abounding in springs, should in the dialect of the Charaibs have been applied to an island that has not a single spring or rivulet of fresh water in it.” Until further research proves the contrary Jamaica must remain, what it truly is, the land of woods and streams.

Apart from the name of the island itself, there are few names of native origin left. These will be referred to in the body of the work as they occur.

There is some difficulty in discriminating between the native Indian and Spanish origin of West Indian names: and too great a faith in the laws of philology are apt to lead one astray. Placenames are not infrequently rather evolved in accordance with the rule of phonetics.

On this subject Long wrote: “From the resemblance which the language of these islanders bears in some respects to the Spanish, I am apt to suspect that many of their words have been altered by the Spanish mode of pronunciation, and the difficulty which the discoverers found in articulating and accenting them without some intermixture of their own patronymic. In some this is exceedingly obvious, where the letter _b_ is used indiscriminately for _v_, agreeably to their idiom. This perversion may easily lead us to ascribe a Spanish or Moorish origin to the names of places, such as rivers, mountains, headlands, &c., which in fact are of Indian derivation. Thus the article _gua_, so commonly met with both in these islands and on the Southern continent, was often prefixed or appended to the Indian names of places and things; and even of their provincial _caciques_. Of the latter were Gua-rionexius, Gua-canarillus, Gua-naboa, and others. Of the former a vast multitude occurs, as Gua-nama, Xa-gua, Gua-há-gua, Camayá-gua, Aicayazá-gua, Má-gua, Nicará-gua, Verá-gua, Xará-guo, Gua-ríco, Ni-gua (Chigger), etc., which may seem to confound them with derivatives from the Spanish or Moorish word _agua_ (water). So the terminations, _ao_, _ana_, _coa_, and _boa_ or _voa_, as Manabax-ao, Cib-ao, Gu-ana, Magu-ana, Yagu-ana, Ligu-ana, Zav-ana (Savannah), Furac-ana (Hurricane), Caym-ana, Guaiac-ana (Guiacum), Haba-coa, Cuana-boa, and so forth. The names therefore occurring in our island of Liguana, Cagua, Tilboa, Guanaboa, Guadibocoa, and others of similar finals are with more propriety to be traced from the Indian than the Spanish dialect.”

With regard to the Spanish occupation of the island both history and archæology are almost as scantily supplied as in the case of the Arawâks.

It is estimated that when Jamaica fell into the hands of the English the population of the capital was half Spanish and Portuguese or their descendants and half slaves; but it is a curious fact that a negro is mentioned as holding the position of priest of the Roman Catholic church.

The more important islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, to say nothing of the rich mines of South America, offered greater attractions to the Spaniards than did Jamaica, where—then, as now—the field had to be ploughed before the harvest could be reaped. They utilized for their _hatos_, or pastures, the low-lying lands on the sea-coast, which had formerly been used by the native Arawâks for the cultivation of Indian corn and cassava.

Of these hatos the principal were, going from east to west, Morante (the name of which still lives in Morant Bay), Ayala (Yallahs), Lezama (where Mona now is), Liguanea (Lower St. Andrew), Guanaboa (the name of which still exists), Guatabaco (about Old Harbour), Yama (in Vere), Pereda (Pedro Plains), El Eado (behind Bluefields) and Cabonico (near Savanna-la-Mar).

They had settlements at St. Jago de la Vega (the present Spanish town, established in 1520), Puerto de Esquivella (Old Harbour, named after the first governor about 1501), Parattee (still bearing the same name), Oristan (Bluefield, named after a town in Sardinia then subject to the crown of Spain), Savanna-la-Mar, Melilla (in the north-west corner of St. James, named after a town on the coast of Barbary, then in the possession of Spain), Sevilla Nueva (St. Ann’s Bay), Chireras (Ocho Rios), Rio Nuevo and Hibanal (somewhere near Buff Bay).

Roads ran from Puerto Antonio westerly along the coast to Punta Negrilla, connecting their townships of Santa Anna, Melilla and Manteca. From Manteca a road ran southerly to where Savanna-la-Mar now is, and thence easterly to Old Harbour, and thence northerly to Santa Anna.

There are but scanty remains of Spanish masonry in the island; none of great importance. The “Columbian Magazine” in 1796 recorded that an old Spanish tavern, with laths of bamboo, was taken down to make way for Rodney’s statue, and the adjacent buildings, but there is, of course, no certain proof that this was Spanish work. The only known relic of Spanish Jamaica is the church bell from Port Royal now in the Institute of Jamaica.

Of their buildings in general, Sir Hans Sloane, who was here in 1687–88, only thirty-three years after the conquest, says that they were “usually one storey high, having a porch, parlour, and at each end a room, with small ones behind. They built with posts put deep in the ground; on the sides their houses were plastered up with clay or reeds, or made of the split trunks of cabbage trees nailed close to one another and covered with tiles or palmetto thatch. The lowness, as well as fixing the posts deep in the earth, was for fear their houses should be ruined by earthquakes, as well as for coolness.” It seems strange, according to modern ideas, to build a house one storey only for coolness; although one might do so for fear of earthquakes.

Long tells us that “a certain number of posts of the hardest timber, generally _lignum vitæ_, brazilletto, or fustick, of about 18 feet in length and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, being first well-seasoned and hardened in smoke, were fixed at proper distances to the depth of 2 or 3 feet in the ground; then a wall of brick, enclosing these posts, was carried up with very strong mortar to the plate, which was pinned with wooden spikes to the tops of the posts. The main rafters were small, but being of the like hard wood, and perfectly well-seasoned, were sufficiently strong; these were likewise pinned upon each other, and at their angle of intersection at top formed a crutch to receive the ridge pole. The smaller rafters were of the lesser ebony trees, stripped of their bark, hardened in smoke, notched at bottom, and being placed at the distance of about 18 inches from each other, were pinned to the plate. Athwart these on all rafters a stratum of the wild cane (_Arundo Indica_, bamboo species), previously smoked, was tied on by way of wattling with straps made of the bark of mahoe or mangrove trees. Upon these wattles some mortar was laid, to the thickness of about 4 inches; and the whole covered with large pantiles, well bedded in. The thickness of these roofs, from the outward shell or tile-covering to the ceiling within, was about 8 or 10 inches. A canopy of so solid a texture was certainly well contrived to shelter the inhabitants from the disagreeable effects of a vertical sun,” and accordingly it is found by experience that these old Spanish houses are much cooler than our modern ones covered with shingles. After regretting the failure to establish a manufacture of tiles, and the importation of North American shingles, Long goes on to say: “The chief error the Spaniards committed in their buildings was the placing their ground floors too low; these were nearly on a level with the surface of the earth out of doors, or at most raised only a few inches higher.” In his time there were, he tells us, upwards of fifty Spanish houses remaining in Spanish Town “very little the worse for time or weather.”

Of Spanish names given to towns and villages, St. Jago de la Vega (St. James of the plain) still survives in custom, although supplanted officially by Spanish Town. So also do Ocho Rios, Savanna-la-Mar (the plain by the sea) and Oracabessa; Esquivel became Old Harbour soon after the British occupation.

Of the Spanish names of rivers, many survive; the principal being Rio Alto (deep river), Rio Cobre (copper river), Rio Grande, Rio Minho, Rio Bueno (the good river), Rio Magno (the great river), Rio Novo (new river), Rio d’oro (golden river), Rio Pedro (Peter’s river). It is thought that Rio Pedro may be a corruption of Rio Piedra (stony river). The Rio Minho is said to have been named after a river in Portugal or, as Long says in another place, after some mine in the neighbourhood. It is thought by some that it should be Rio Mina, (the river by the mine). Others are named after rivers in Spain.

Amongst districts we have Santa Cruz (Holy Cross); as well as Pedro both in St. Ann and in St. Elizabeth. The former is said to have been named after Pedro Esquivel, the Spanish governor.

The following derivations of Spanish names in Jamaica are given by Long. Notes by the present writer are added between square brackets:

_Auracabeza._ Aura, air or breeze; Cabeza, head or high land. [This is
now Ora Cabessa in St. Mary. Others derive it from Oro Cabeza, the
golden head.]

_Alta Mela._ Deep Gap. (Alta Mela, Savannah, St. James.)

_Agua Alta Bahia._ Deep water Bay, corruptly Wag-Water. [Still known
as Wag Water.]

_Los Angelos._ The Angels. [Angels in St. Catherine was the first
terminus of the railway.]

_Rio Bonito._ The Pretty River.

_Cabo Bonito._ The Pretty Cape. [In St. Catherine.]

_Cabarita Punta._ Kid or Goat Point. [In Westmoreland, where there is
a river of the same name; there is another Cabaritta Point in Old
Harbour Bay, and a Cabaritta Island in Port Maria Harbour.]

_Rio de Camarones._ Perhaps from Gambaro, a crab, from the abundance
of black crabs hereabouts.

_Cobre Rio._ Copper River, or Cobra Port, Snake River. [Still known as
Rio Cobre.]

_Caborido._ _Quasi_ Caba Arido, the dry or withered cape (part of
Healthshire highlands.)

_Carvil or Caravel Bahia._ Caravela signifies a light round kind of a
ship formerly used by the Spaniards.

_Diablo Monte._ Devil’s Mount. [Now called Mount Diavolo.]

_Escondido Puerto._ The hidden harbour. [In Portland; now called
Turtle Crawle Harbour.]

_Flora Ria._ Flower River.

_Fortaleza Punta._ Fort Point. [On Blome’s map there are two in St.
Ann.]

_Gallina Punta._ Hen Point. [Galina Point is in St. Mary.]

_Guada Bocca._ Guada, brook of water; boca, mouth.

_Hoja Rio._ River of leaves, now corruptly Riho Hoa. [Now called Rio
Hoe.]

_Jarisse Punta._ Cross-bow or arrow, probably refers to some action
with the Indians.

_Javareen._ Rustic expression, signifying a wild boar.

_Lacovia._ _Quasi_ Lago-via, or the way by the lake. [A village in St.
Elizabeth. Elsewhere Long suggests it may be a corruption of La agua
via, the watery way. It was once in the possession of the Gladstone
family.]

_Liguanea._ Lia-withe-guana, the name of an animal, probably one
frequent in that part of the island. [That part of Lower St. Andrew,
bordered by the Long Mountain, the St. Andrew Mountains and the Red
Hills.]

_Moneque or Monesca Savannah._ Savannah of monkeys. [Now confined to
the village of Moneague.]

_Mari bona._ Maria-buena, Mary the Good. [Maria Buena Bay is in
Trelawny.]

_Multi-bezon Rio._ Multi, many; buzon, conduit.

_Macari Bahia._ Macari, a tile, such as is made for floors, which the
Spaniards universally used here and probably manufactured them near
this bay, the soil being proper for that purpose.
[Long adds as a footnote to Macari: “Or perhaps it may derive more
properly from the Indian word Macarij (which signifies bitter), and
allude to the tree commonly called the Majoe, or Macary-bitter which
grows in great abundance along this part of the coast, and with
whose leaves, bark and root, which are all of them extremely bitter,
some very notable cures in cases of inveterate ulcers, the yaws, and
venereal distempers, were some years ago performed by an old negress
named Majoe, in commemoration of whom it took its name.” Macary Bay
is in Vere. Majoe Bitter, or Macary Bitter (_Picramnia Antidesnia
Sus._) is a shrub about 8 feet high, with small whitish green
flowers, and berries first scarlet, then black.]

_Mantica Bahia._ Butter (now Montego Bay). This part abounding
formerly with wild hogs, the Spaniards probably made here what they
called hog’s butter (lard) for exportation. [In a very old deed of
conveyance of land in St. James a road is marked as leading to Lard
Bay.]

_Ocho Rios_ said to mean eight rivers. [In St. Ann. It was more
commonly called Chareiras in Long’s time; and indeed as late as
1841, William Rob wrote “Ocho Rios, called to this day by the old
inhabitants ‘Cheireras,’ its early and appropriate name ‘the Bay of
the Water-Falls,’ but has now gone back to Ocho Rios.” It is not
unlikely that the present form Ocho Rios and the derivation from
eight rivers is wrong, and that the real name is Chorréra, a spout.
There is a Chorréra River in Cuba, near Havannah.]

_Perexil Insula._ Samphire Island.

_Sombrio Rio._ Shady river. [Now called the Sambre.]

_Yalos._ Frosts (whence, perhaps corruptly, Yallahs), the high white
cliffs having the appearance of a frosty covering. [Now called
Yallahs. Long was probably wrong in connecting Yallahs with Yalos.
The Hatô de Ayala extended from Bull Bay nearly to Morant Bay, and
the name is probably a personal one. Pedro Lopez de Ayala was a
celebrated poet and politician in the fourteenth century; Pedro de
Ayala was Spanish envoy to the Court of St. James in 1498; and,
curiously, a recent Spanish representative at Havana bore the name
de Ayala. There was a Captain Yhallahs, a privateer who flourished
in Jamaica in and about 1671, and the locality may have been named
after him.]

_Luidas._ Perhaps from Luzida; gay, fine. [Lluidas Vale is in St.
Catherine.]

_Martha Brea._ Martha, a woman’s name; Brea, tar; perhaps a nickname
of some Spanish sailor’s Dulcinea like the English vulgar
appellation _Jack Tar_. [Martha Brea village and river are in
Trelawny. The name is a corruption of Rio Matibereon.]

No traces are to be found to-day of the following: Alta Mela, Rio de Camarones, Caborida, Carvil Bahia, Guada Bocca, Jarisse Punta, Javareen, Multi Bezon Rio, Perexil Insula.

Of corruptions of Spanish names the best known are: Agualta (Agua Alta, the deep river); Bog Walk (Boca d’Agua, water’s mouth); and Mount Diablo. Cagua became with the English Caguay, then Cagway when it was renamed Port Royal.

Those who see in Porus a survival of the name of Columbus’s companion, Porras, are probably drawing on a fertile imagination. Columbus and his companions saw little of the interior of the island. It is more probably called after some well sunk there, or from the porous nature of the soil, “pitted with holes.” In the English edition of Ferdinand Columbus’s “Historie,” we read that the Morant Cays were called by Columbus _Los Poros_ because “not finding water in them they dug pits in the sand”; but in the Italian edition (Venice, 1571) they are called “le pozzi” (the pits), and in the Spanish edition of 1749 they are called “Las Poças” (the pits). It is possible that in the case of Porus, as in that of the Morant Cays, there has been a confusion between _Poros_ and _Pocas_; and that the town in Manchester should be called Poças. The Spaniards called the Black River, el Caovana (the Mahogany River).

In the English section of Jamaica history for the two centuries from 1655 to 1855, there is a wide field of exploration.

What with earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, the march of time, and rebuilding, the typical old-time planter’s houses are getting scarcer. Then, again, there are the monuments and gravestones which contribute to our knowledge of Jamaica genealogy and history. Captain Lawrence-Archer, in the middle of the last century, did much in his “Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies,” to put this information in a handy form, but his work, which is often inaccurate, by no means covers the whole field. Something of late years has been done in that direction by Mr. Oliver in “Caribbeana.”

Although Jamaica is probably no worse than other countries in its disregard for ancient monuments, that there is need for improvement cannot be denied by those who have looked into the matter. The Spanish invaders burned the Arawâk huts; the old-time English planters despoiled Spanish buildings to find material for their sugar works; and in our own day a ruined seventeenth-century building which withstood the recent earthquake was later pulled down by peasants for the sake of its stones. When Lawrence-Archer wrote less than fifty years ago, he recorded a statue by Bacon to Richard Batty in the cathedral. Only a fragment of it remains to-day. The author of his epitaph little thought that the literal truth of part of it would be so early established when he wrote in 1796:

“Yet vain the Record, which sculptured stone
Would raise to those pre-eminently known.”

The most strongly constructed building will wear out with time and, in the tropics especially, vegetation is apt to interfere with monuments and gravestones; but a little care without much expense should be all that is needed to render unnecessary an expensive restoration, which many individuals and bodies find themselves unprepared to meet and which, after all, can never take the place of preservation.

In 1672 Port Royal contained 800 well-built houses, “as dear rented,” Blome tells us, “as if they stood in well-traded streets in London.” Twenty years later, when it was at its zenith, the number was 2000, “the greatest number of which were of brick, several storeys in height.” In 1692, as is well known, a large part of the town perished by an earthquake, and from that event Kingston dates its origin, Port Royal being partially destroyed again, by fire, in 1703 and by hurricane in 1722.

Charles Leslie, writing in 1739, says of Jamaica: “One is not to look for the beauties of architecture here; the public buildings are neat but not fine. The churches in the town are generally in form of a cross, with a small cupola a-top, built high in the walls, paved within, and adorned with no manner of finery.” The churches, he says, except those at Spanish Town and Halfway-Tree, are “decent small houses, scarce to be known for such,” and he adds, “the clergy trouble them little, and their doors are seldom open,” in marked contrast to the present state of affairs. “The gentlemen’s houses,” he says, “are generally built low, of one storey, consisting of five or six handsome apartments, beautifully lined and floored with mahogany.... In the towns there are several houses which are two storeys, but that way of building is disapproved of because they seldom are known to stand the shock of an earthquake or the fury of a storm.”

On Craskell and Simpson’s large map of Surrey, of the year 1763, is shown a view of a presumably typical Jamaica house, two storeys high, with an open veranda in front only. It is evident from what Long says that, at all events for the first century of the island’s occupation by the British, not much attention was paid to domestic architecture by the planters of the island. “It is,” he says, “but of late that the planters have paid much attention to elegance in their habitations; their general rule was to build what they called a makeshift; so that it was not unusual to see a plantation adorned with a very expensive set of works, of brick or stone, well executed, and the owner residing in a miserable thatched hovel, hastily put together with wattles and plaster, damp, unwholesome, and infested with every species of vermin. But the houses in general, as well in the country parts as in the towns, have been greatly improved within these last twenty years.”

In this connection mention may be made of the aqueducts on some of the sugar estates, which are amongst the best pieces of architectural work in the island. They and some of the old stone bridges compare more than favourably with the modern bridges, many of which—excellent monuments of engineering skill as they may be—their best friends would never venture to call works of art. Moreover the stone bridges will probably be standing when the iron ones have perished by decay.

Peter Marsden, writing a little later (1788), says: “Except a few excellent houses which have lately been built of brick and two or three of stone, after the English fashion, by rich merchants, the houses are in general of wood, very often mahogany, which is plentiful in this island. They consist but of a room or two below stairs, with piazzas all round and a storey above.” Stewart, whose account of the island was published in 1808, gives much the same account of the domestic houses, but goes on to say: “As for bridges and other public structures of the kind, in this part of the world there are few that deserve mention, except a neat cast-iron bridge imported from Great Britain and some years ago thrown across the Rio Cobra. There is, indeed, often a marked deficiency here of public spirit in undertakings of this sort.”

Many of the houses on the sea-coast were, in the eighteenth century, made defensible with loopholes and fortified by guns, so as to guard against the attacks in war time of the enemy’s privateers. In other cases a like precaution was taken against the risings of slaves; houses in some instances being supplied with towers at the corners, each of which commanded two sides of the building.

Of direct records of slavery days there are not many prominent relics.

Here and there a punishment cell is found, with indications of the fixing of shackles; but of stocks and such-like implements no traces remain. A few examples of branding-irons exist. In this connection it may be of interest to quote Bryan Edwards’s account of the method adopted in branding slaves:

“A gentleman of my acquaintance, who had purchased at the same time ten Koromantyn boys and the like number of Eboes (the eldest of the whole apparently not more than thirteen years of age) caused them all to be collected and brought before him in my presence, to be marked on the breast. This operation is performed by heating a small silver brand composed of one or two letters, in the flame of spirits of wine, and applying it to the skin, which is previously anointed with sweet oil. The application is instantaneous and the pain momentary. Nevertheless, it may be easily supposed that the apparatus must have a frightful appearance to a child. Accordingly when the first boy, who happened to be one of the Eboes, and the stoutest of the whole, was led forward to receive the mark, he screamed dreadfully, while his companions of the same nation manifested strong emotions of sympathetic terror. The gentleman stopt his hand, but the Koromantyn boys, laughing aloud, and, immediately coming forward of their own accord, offered their bosoms undauntedly to the brand, and receiving its impression without flinching in the least, snapt their fingers in exultation over the poor Eboes.”

A branding-iron such as that mentioned above, in the Institute of Jamaica, is shown in the accompanying illustration. It is 6⅞ inches in length.

BRANDING-IRON
]

Doyley’s Council had been elected by the people, and so, in a sense, was a forerunner of the Assembly. But the first regular Assembly was summoned by Lyttelton and met at Spanish Town on January 20, 1664, and from that day until the Assembly of the time resigned its powers to the Crown on December 21, 1865, the political destiny of the colony is to be read in the pages of its Journal and its Votes.

The first Assembly chose as its speaker Robert Freeman, who represented Morant, one of the then twelve districts that returned members.

The troubles which Doyley, the first governor, had had in inducing adventure-loving soldiers to become planters had given place to a more settled state of affairs, and when the House rose on February 12, 1664, it “parted with all kindness and feastings, having passed as good a body of laws as could be expected from such young statesmen.” But this peaceful condition was not destined to last. Familiarity with legislative functions bred contempt for the opinions of others, and unreasonable demands on the part of these young statesmen were met by high-handed actions on the part of the Crown.

In his opening speech to the Assembly Carlisle said that the King looked on Jamaica as “his darling plantation, and has taken more pains to make this island happy than any other of his colonies.” These kind words were, however, nullified by the fact that the new governor had brought with him forty acts which Charles had had drawn up (and to which he had affixed the great seal of England) in lieu of the acts which the Assembly had passed under Vaughan, and that he was instructed to get the House to pass them. This plan had been suggested in a letter written in England by a Mr. Nevil (who was evidently acquainted with Jamaica) to Carlisle just before he started to take up his appointment, and had been adopted because—to quote the words of the Lords of Trade and Plantations to the King in Council—“of the irregular, violent and unwarrantable proceedings of the Assembly.”

The virtual point of difference was this, that under the original constitution the island (through the Governor, Council and Assembly) made its own laws in accordance with what it conceived to be its needs and sent them home for approval, they remaining in force for two years till the royal pleasure was known, while under the new arrangement (based on Poynings’s Law, or the Statutes of Drogheda, in use in Ireland), the laws were to be made in England (on the advice of the Governor and Council), and remitted for the approval of the Assembly. The style of enactment was altered from the “Governor, Council and Assembly, etc.” to the “King, by and with the advice, etc. of the Assembly.”

This proposed change, which had been decided on by the Lords of Trade and Plantations, in opposition to the advice of Lynch, who knew Jamaica well—the Assembly resisted with might and main, but though they were in a very great measure successful, it was not until 1728 that the complete legislative power for which Jamaica contended was granted.

Lynch, when he returned as governor, was able to tell the people of Jamaica, “His Majesty, upon the Assembly’s humble address, was pleased to restore us to our beloved form of making laws, wherein we enjoy beyond dispute all the deliberative powers in our Assembly that the House of Commons enjoy in their House.”

In return for the constitution now conceded the Assembly pledged itself to grant to the King a fixed revenue, which if not perpetual should at least last for seven years. The quarrel, however, with regard to the revenue bills lasted up till 1728; the Crown desiring a perpetual revenue, the Assembly persistently declining to do more than grant bills for a few years’ duration. The Crown on the other hand declined to approve many of their laws. In 1728 the Assembly gave way and settled a permanent revenue in return for the royal confirmation of various acts of importance to the island and a concession as to their past laws which they regarded as “the grand charter of their liberties.”

To return for a moment to the early struggles, we find that under the Duke of Albemarle, a very unwise governor, matters were far from satisfactory. He dissolved the House suddenly because one of the members, John Towers, in a debate repeated the old adage _salus populi suprema lex_, in protesting against the Speaker’s refusal to grant him permission to attend a race meeting. Albemarle had the offender taken in custody and fined £600. In his dispatch on the subject he wrote: “The Assembly have done very little, the major part having made it their business to wrangle and oppose all things that are for the King’s service and the good of the country.” The freedom of election was grossly violated by the duke, who admitted hosts of servants and discharged seamen to the poll at the election, and actually imprisoned many legal voters of wealth and consideration. He imposed fines on the latter to a large amount, and threatened to whip two gentlemen for requesting a habeas corpus for their friends. In spite of this he had the effrontery to write home to the Board of Trade and Plantations: “While the elections were going forward there were unwarrantable oppositions made in most parishes as well as malicious practices to prevent fair election!”

His successor, Inchiquin, met with considerable opposition from a section of the Assembly whose temper had been ruffled by Albemarle’s arbitrary government, and whom he treated in a somewhat tactless manner. That they would not do what he wanted he considered “an indignity and affront to himself and the board.” He finally rejected their address of congratulation, and “then it was thrown to them with some contempt.”

The franchise established by the law of 1681 for appointing the members of the Assembly was still in force in 1812: “Freeholders in the same parish where the election is to be made.” At a by-election in 1804, in St. Andrew, seventy-nine freeholders voted, forty-six for the successful candidate.

The House met usually from October to Christmas, the time of the year when the planters could be absent from their estates with least inconvenience.

The closing scene in the life of the Assembly was acted on December 21, 1865, around amendments to the “Act to alter and amend the Political Constitution of the Island,” and especially to that to the second clause, which ran:

“It shall be lawful for Her Majesty’s Imperial Government to assume
the entire management and control of the affairs of this island, and
by orders in Council or otherwise, as Her Majesty may be advised, to
conduct the affairs of this island as Her Majesty may think fit: and
such orders shall have the effect and force of law.”

The Council’s amendment was as follows:

“It shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen to create and constitute
a Government in this island, in such form and with such power as to
Her Majesty shall seem fit, and from time to time to alter and amend
such Government.”

The Legislative Council had adjourned while their amendments to the Constitution Bill were being discussed by the Assembly, and some of them were in the House during the discussion. So soon as they saw that the amendments had passed, they retired and formed a board, which passed the bill in almost ten minutes after it left the Assembly.

In proroguing the assembly on the following day Governor Eyre said:

“In releasing you from further attendance upon your legislative
duties, I cannot lose sight of the probability that you may never be
called upon to exercise these duties again, under the existing form of
constitution, and that this general sacrifice has been consummated by
yourselves from an earnest and sincere desire, regardless of all
personal considerations, to benefit the colony.

“On behalf of the colony and of the many interests associated with it,
I return you the thanks which are so justly your due. History will
record the heroic act, and I trust that history will show from the
ameliorated state of the country, and a renewed prosperity, that your
noble self devotion has not been in vain.”

In concluding, he said, with reference to the Morant Bay outbreak:

“The session which is now about to terminate has been the most
important that has ever taken place since Jamaica became a dependency
of the British Crown.

“It is impossible to help regretting the necessity which has enforced
the abandonment of institutions so deservedly dear to every British
heart, and which, even in this colony, have remained unchanged for a
period of 200 years; but it is wiser and better, circumstanced as we
are, to give up institutions which are valued rather for the
associations which are connected with them, than for any advantages
which have resulted to the colony from their existence in Jamaica, and
to substitute in their place a perhaps less showy and less
time-honoured form of Government, but which is certainly more
practicable and better suited to the altered circumstances of our
position.

“Well, I think, it is that we have taken warning by the terrible
circumstances which have forced upon us the conviction that a
Government, to be effective, in times of difficulty and danger, must
be a strong and united one; and well will it be if by a voluntary
reconstruction, the community may receive some compensation in future
good government, for the dreadful calamity with which it has just been
afflicted.”

The House took a deep interest from time to time in the barracks for which they voted funds. In 1702 orders were received from home to build barracks to receive 3000 men. Handasyd, the Lieutenant-governor, said that it would cost more than £40,000 “where such buildings are unreasonably dear” to build such as were built in Ireland, but that suitable barracks could be built of wood for £3000.

The following account of the state of the forts and barracks in the island in May 1745, taken from the “Journals of the House of Assembly,” may be fittingly quoted here.

“Then the House resolved itself into a Committee of the whole House,
upon the report made on Friday last, of the number and condition of
the barracks already built, and of such others as were necessary to be
provided; and the plans laid before the House, and the said report,
being read, is in the words following:

MR. SPEAKER,—Your Committee, appointed to make enquiry into the number
and condition of the barracks already built, and what more shall be
necessary to be provided, have accordingly done the same; and, by the
best information they have been able to get, find to be as follows:

_Port-Morant._ A complete barrack, newly built by the Parish of
St.-Thomas-in-the-East, framed, boarded, and shingled, in good order,
which will contain about sixty men.

_Manchioneal._ A barrack, formerly built by the said parish of
St.-Thomas-in-the-East, which will contain thirty men; the body built
with stone, a framed roof, wants new shingling, and already ordered to
be forthwith done, and to be put in good repair.

_Morant-Bay._ A new barrack now building at the expense of the
aforesaid parish of St.-Thomas-in-the-East for twenty-five men.

_Yallahs Bay._ A large house with proper conveniencies belonging to
Mr. Donaldson, already hired for a barrack, to receive twenty-five
men.

_Cow-Bay._ A barrack for twenty men going to be built, by Mr. Vallete,
in the room of the former barrack destroyed by the hurricane.

_Westmoreland._ A barrack already built, capable of receiving a whole
company, situate at Savanna-la-Mar, as informed by Mr. Hall.

_St. Ann’s._ A barrack now building at St. Ann’s Bay, and is
calculated to be a crutched house, wattled and plastered, and capable
to receive fifty men, as informed by Mr. Whitehorne.

_Moneague._ A barrack which now lodges twenty men, and capable of
holding thirty; is at present water-tight, but will soon want new
shingling, as informed by lieutenant Troah.

_Vere._ The barrack was blown down in the late hurricane but the
parish has agreed with Mr. Pusey for his storehouse in Carlisle Bay,
which is boarded, shingled and in good order and capable to receive
one hundred men.

_St. Elizabeth._ A barrack situate at Black-River; it being a crutched
house, wattled and plastered, injured by the storm, but is now ordered
by the parish to be repaired.

_St. James._ A barrack at St. James, of a hundred feet long and twenty
feet wide, with a stone wall, a framed roof, well shingled, in good
order, which will completely contain fifty men as informed by Mr.
Hall.

_Hanover._ A barrack situate at Lusea-Fort, which will be capable of
receiving fifty men; a crutched house, wattled, plastered and
thatched, in good order; and a convenient house for the reception of
four officers, well shingled and floored.

_Port Antonio._ A barrack in good order, which now lodges one company,
and will soon be in a condition to receive another, by the information
of lieutenant Bailey.

_St. Mary’s._ No barrack built in said parish, but as the Committee
are informed his excellency intends to send some soldiers for their
protection, a barrack is necessary to be forthwith built.

_Old Harbour._ No barrack built, but the parish of St. Dorothy have
hired a house for a detachment of thirty soldiers, as informed by Mr.
Edmund Pusey.

_Spanish Town._ The barrack-house is in good order, the officers’
cook-room wants repairing, the cook-room for the private men is
entirely down, and the palisado enclosure, on the back part of the
out-houses, carried away by the late storm; said barrack contains
sixty men.

The Committee are informed that his excellency intends four companies
of soldiers to be in this town, if proper lodgements were provided for
them; and, as the barrack contains so few, it will be necessary either
to enlarge the present barrack or to buy such house or houses as may
be convenient and sufficient to lodge the aforesaid four companies, as
are intended for this town; but as we are informed that the house
belonging to the estate of the late Colonel Heywood is as proper and
convenient for the purpose aforesaid as any building in this town, and
to be sold, we think proper to lay before the house a plan relating
thereto, as also a plan of a barrack to be built adjoining to the
present barrack, or such other place as shall be judged most
convenient; all which is submitted to the consideration of the house.

_Kingston._ No barracks built, and his excellency is willing to let
this town have one or more companies of His Majesty’s troops was there
proper lodgement to receive them.

_Port Royal._ The barracks in that town being too small for receiving
the number of men intended to be quartered there, your Committee are
informed that said barracks are to be enlarged for that purpose.

And, after some time spent in the Committee, Mr. Speaker resumed the
chair, and Mr. Chief Justice, from a Committee, reported that they had
gone through the matter to them referred, and come to several
resolutions, which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered them
in at the table; where they being again read were agreed unto by the
House, and are as follows:

1. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee, that it be
recommended to the House, to appoint a Committee to bring in a bill
for obliging the several parishes to repair and keep up the respective
barracks already built.

_Ordered._ That Mr. Fuller, Mr. Fearon and Mr. March be a committee
for that purpose.

2. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee, that it be
recommended to the House, to appoint a committee to treat with the
attornies of Abraham Elton and Mary Heywood for the purchase of a
house and footland, late of James Heywood, deceased, for a barrack for
the service of the public.

_Ordered._ That Mr. Arcedeckne, Mr. R. Beckford and Mr. Fuller be a
committee for that purpose.

3. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee that a barrack be
built at Kingston, at the expense of the parish of Kingston.

4. _Resolved._ It is the opinion of this Committee that the barrack at
Port-Royal be enlarged.

_Ordered._ That it be an instruction to the committee appointed to
bring in the bill for obliging the several parishes to repair and keep
up the respective barracks already built, to insert a clause therein
to oblige the parish of Kingston to build a barrack at the expense of
the parish.”

We learn from Foster’s “Alumini Oxonienses” that William Dennys, of New College, a chaplain who took his B.A. degree in 1652, obtained leave of absence from the parliamentary visitors, for special service at sea in 1654, and died at Jamaica in 1655. He probably came out with Penn and Venables, and predeceased Thomas Gage who was chaplain to the expedition.

In 1655, the very year in which the English took the island, Admiral William Goodson, one of the Commissioners charged with the conduct of Penn and Venables’s expedition, requested that “some godly ministers with monies for their maintenance” should be sent out. Two years later the want of ministers in Jamaica was referred by the Council of State to the Committee for America for suggestions. It was one of the instructions to Doyley, when he was made governor in 1661, that he should give the best encouragement to ministers “that Christianity and the Protestant religion, according to the profession of the Church of England, may have due reverence amongst them”; and later in the year it was resolved that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London should choose five able ministers to be maintained in Jamaica at the King’s expense for one year, the governor to provide for their maintenance afterwards.

In 1664 Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor, stated that there was “but one church (in the whole island) at St. Katherine’s [at Spanish Town], being a fair Spanish Church ruined by the old soldiers, but lately in some measure repaired by Sir Charles Lyttelton; but they are now levying contributions to raise churches in some of the richest parishes.” There were then five ministers in the island, Henry Howser (a Switzer) being at St. Catherine’s.