The islands forming the Caribbean stretch in an arc from Venezuela to Florida, and are divided into two groups:

1. The Greater Antilles: Are composed of four northernmost large islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.

2. The Lesser Antilles: The smaller islands constituting the eastern portion

The growth of St. Jago was slow during the entire period of Spanish colonization; most of the structures built were for governmental or religious functions and reflected the “top-down” administration of the Spanish crown. Spanish expansion in the New World was centered on the extraction of precious metals, conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism and obtaining strategic positions to protect Spanish interests. Thus the Spanish crown discarded Jamaica quite quickly when it was apparent that it possessed few gold deposits, but the Catholic Church, with the support of the Spanish crown continued its mission of converting the Arawaks. Unfortunately, the policies of the Spanish government served to steadily reduce the Arawak population, and by the early 1600s it had virtually disappeared.

During the rule of Oliver Cromwell, Jamaica was kept under an inefficient and expensive system of martial law, compounded by the island’s use as a “dumping ground” for unwanted members of society. A system was established to encourage settlement by providing large land grants to upper-class Englishmen, but the absence of an economy required one’s establishment. Since little gold existed, the landowners began establishing an agriculturally intensive economy requiring a large labor force of indentured servants. The introduction of indentured servants, combined with the presence of discredited soldiers, convicts and Irish rebels to create an incredibly chaotic system. The indentured servants were frequent malingerers, and the best settlers introduced during the early period were some fifteen hundred colonists who sought an escape from the confining environment of Nevis and Barbados. By 1658, the English population had grown to 4500 Europeans, 1500 black slaves and an unknown number of Maroons. Unfortunately, these chaotic conditions also caused colonists to establish settlements on disease ridden and agriculturally poor land. The next fifteen years brought partial famine, epidemics and the death of several hundred settlers, forcing the military Governor, General Brayne, to appeal for an introduction of slaves to counter the high mortality of English indentured servants.

Prior to the arrival of Columbus, the islands of the West Indies were inhabited by two distinct races of Indians. The most warlike of these, the Caribbs, did not inhabit Jamaica, which was populated by the more peaceful Arawak tribe. Archeological records indicate that the Arawaks came to Jamaica about 650 CE, and displaced the earlier settlers of Jamaica, the Tainos. The Arawaks settled into small communities, and subsisted on fishing, hunting, and the cultivation of cassava root, and with Columbus’ first landing in 1494, is estimated that 60-100,000 Arawaks lived in hundreds of small, scattered villages.

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