Jamaica

“ Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica land we love. Teach us true respect for all, Stir response to duty’s call, strengthen us the weak to cherish, Give us vision lest we perish. Knowledge send us Heavenly Father, Grant true wisdom from above. ”

“ While on the little island of Barbadoes, which is flat and comparatively destitute of natural beauty, the inhabitant is proud to the verge of the ludicrous of his home, the Jamaican, dwelling amid scenes of perpetual loveliness, despises his native soil. And not without reason. For Jamaica presents that saddest and least flattering sight, a land sinking into hopeless ruin. Her plantations are left uncultivated. Her cities look time-worn and crumbling. Her fields, which once blossomed like the rose, are relapsing into the wilderness. She does not feed her people. ”

“ For every class has its special complaint, every traveller his favorite theory, and every political economist his sufficient explanation. But let the cause be what it may, the fact stands out black and repulsive. Jamaica, which came from the hand of the Creator a fair and well-watered garden, has presented for more than half a century that melancholy spectacle, too common in Equatorial America, of a land rich in every natural advantage, and yet through the misfortune or folly of its people plunged in poverty and misery. ”

“ I have thought of it many a time since I came to Jamaica, for always the slave risings—and the risings were many—were headed by the Koromantyns. Even now, guarding nothing, for the courtyard is overgrown with tropical vegetation, its ruined walls rise up tall and steep and straight, and at their foot among the rubble and coarse grass, lie rusting the cannon that once made them formidable. ”

“ Let the experience of every family speak for the other numerous evils of our system, in the loss of health or fortunes, which every one has suffered in some one of its members. Let us now turn to Jamaica, where we shall find none of these horrors; where the eye is not shocked by the sad spectacle of female debasement, nor the soul harrowed by the dismal sound of preparation for the punishment of a crime, equally pitied and condemned. Is then the air of Jamaica so favourable to virtue, or does the warmth of the sun refine the manners? ”

“ Professor Haddon of Cambridge had told me before leaving England that the three most beautiful islands in the world were Java, Ceylon, and Jamaica. Having never been to the east, or nearer the tropics on land than Assouan in Egypt in the northern hemisphere, and Auckland in New Zealand in the southern, my first sight of the exuberance and prolific growth of tropical flora was like the opening of a new and attractive three-volume novel. ”

“ Jamaica was created by Providence to show mankind something of the meaning of beauty. It was to stand as an explanation of Eden—a glimpse of Paradise. Nature never intended that it should become a rum garden, or even a field for speculative agriculture. It is just a place that should be allowed to stand for ever as the garden of the world ”

“ Jamaica—Murray appointed to the Supplejack brig—Pull up to Kingston—Port Royal Jack—Johnny Ferong’s store—Visit to the Bradshaws—Kind reception—Return—The Supplejack sails for the southward.
Jamaica, a hundred and sixty miles long, by forty-five broad, is, as everybody knows, a very magnificent island; but, alas! its ancient glory has departed for a time, though it is to be hoped that one of the many panaceas proposed for its renovation may, ere long, restore it to its pristine state of prosperity. ”

“ From the swamps at the mouths of the Niger and the Gambia, from the surf-beaten Gold and Ivory and Slave Coasts had come the lumbering little square ships that took to the New World the dark people of the Old, hundreds and thousands of them, and in Jamaica there had grown up under the British Crown a people apart. ”

“ The people of Jamaica have a long glorious history. The Jamaican people have struggled to attain their independence and since independence the Jamaican people in an exemplary national unity have gone on to bring further abundance and progress to themselves. Because I know of the history of these wonderful people and because I know of the sentiments the people of Jamaica entertain for the Ethiopian people, I have always wished to come and visit Jamaica. ”

“ But, being still of a roving disposition, and desirous of seeing as many different parts of the world as I could, I shipped myself soon after, in the same year, as steward on board of a fine large ship, called the Jamaica, Captain David Watt; and we sailed from England in December 1771 for Nevis and Jamaica. I found Jamaica to be a very fine large island, well peopled, and the most considerable of the West India islands. There was a vast number of negroes here, whom I found as usual exceedingly imposed upon by the white people, and the slaves punished as in the other islands. ”

“ In British Guiana and Trinidad very special measures have been taken. Immigration of Coolies to a great extent has been brought about—to so great an extent that the tide of human beings across the two oceans will now run on in an increasing current. But in Jamaica little or nothing has yet been done. And in Jamaica, the fairest, the most extensive, the most attractive of them all; in Jamaica, of all the islands on God's earth the one most favoured by beauty, fertility, and natural gifts; in Jamaica the earth can hardly be made to yield its natural produce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The people of Jamaica, when that colony first formed part of the British empire, did not become subjects of England by conquest—they were by birth Englishmen, who, by the invitation and encouragement of their sovereign, retained possession of a country which its former inhabitants had abandoned. They carried with them to Jamaica all the rights and privileges of British-born subjects. ”

“ Jamaica may do as she is, but, as we look out across the scurrying waters, there’s a malicious twinkle to the top star in the Southern Cross and that makes us all the more determined to give it an opportunity to renew old acquaintance. ”

“ We were, therefore, obliged to drop anchor, and are now riding within a couple of miles of the shore, but with as utter an incapability of reaching it as if we were still at Gravesend. The north side of the island is said to be extremely beautiful and romantic; but the south, which we coasted to-day, is low, barren, and without any recommendation whatever. As yet I can only look at Jamaica as one does on a man who comes to pay money, and whom we are extremely well pleased to see, however little the fellow’s appearance may be in his favour. ”

“ All the large houses in Jamaica—and this was one of the largest of them—are like those in Barbadoes, with the type more completely developed, generally square, built of stone, standing on blocks, hollow underneath for circulation of air, and approached by a broad flight of steps. ”

“ In Jamaica, she found no people living in barbaric splendour, no stores of gold and silver and precious stones, only a lovely land, fruitful and fertile, valuable only to her because she did not dare let another nation settle so close to the rich possessions of which she was mistress. ”

“ The prospects of Jamaica, the prospects of all countries, depend not on sugar or on any form or degree of material wealth, but on the characters of the men and women whom they are breeding and rearing. ”

“ It is hard to tear one’s thoughts away from the [236] glorious scenes where the history of the great British race has been made. I cannot, however, draw my remarks to a close on the West Indies without referring to another way in which we add to the glory and stability of the Empire to which we are proud to belong. I am alluding to the education which in Jamaica is provided by government for the younger generation of this colony. ”

“ But Jamaica’s history is far from that of an Eden, for its past has been one of bloodshed, debauchery, and death. From both God and man it has suffered much, and, as the Vigilant passed the long, low sand spit known as the Palisados and dropped anchor off the quarantine station at Port Royal, we were floating above what was once notorious [258] as the wickedest city in the world; for beneath the placid waters here at the harbor mouth are the ruins of old Port Royal, the metropolis of the buccaneers. ”

“ It was no wonder Jamaica attracted all sorts and conditions of adventurers, for the climate, if one remembers it lies within the tropics, is lovely. It is hot in the middle of the day and the sun has naturally great power, but there is from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon a cooling breeze off the sea, and at night it is reversed, the cool breeze comes from the land. ”

“ MISS SARAH JACK, OF SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA.
There is nothing so melancholy as a country in its decadence, unless it be a people in their decadence. I am not aware that the latter misfortune can be attributed to the Anglo-Saxon race in any part of the world; but there is reason to fear that it has fallen on an English colony in the island of Jamaica. ”

“ You will discover little forests of every tree to be found in Jamaica, and pass by clumps of fruit-trees bending beneath the weight of their heavy harvest. Yes, the Hope Garden is well worth seeing, especially so if one has an interest in or a love for beautiful flowers.
One of the great charms of Jamaica as a tourists’ resort is the multiplicity of the places every one really ought to see. People arrive from Europe or America, and the first friendly Jamaican they meet provides them{233} with a programme of the places they really ought to visit. ”

“ Jamaica is a delightful island, endeared to me by many fond recollections; it is mountainous, extremely fertile, and abounding with springs (as its name signifies) of delicious water, a great luxury in a warm climate. The top of the highest mountain, Blue Mountain Peak, is 7800 feet above the level of the sea. Kingston is the chief place for trade. The island is 150 miles from east to west, and its breadth is 60 miles in its widest part. ”

“ Jamaica is the largest and most important island in the British West Indies. It contains an area of some two thousand odd square miles, and supports a population of three quarters of a million people, only two per cent of whom are white. The blacks claim the predominating proportion of seventy-seven per cent, the “coloured” people represent nearly twenty per cent, and the remainder of the population is made up of whites, Indian coolies, and Chinese. ”

“ Both the coast country and the interior of Jamaica are extremely fertile and populous. According to the report of their neighbours, the natives of this island have a keener intelligence and are cleverer in mechanical arts, as well as more warlike than others. ”

“ That matters had not much improved by the beginning of the nineteenth century is evident from “An Account of Jamaica and its Inhabitants,” published in 1808. “Literature,” the author says, “is little cultivated in Jamaica, nor is reading a very favorite amusement. ”

“ In brief, except a certain interest attached to the struggles of the barbarous Maroons to maintain their wild freedom in the woods and mountains, the human history of Jamaica, from the English conquest in 1655 to the abolition of slavery in 1834, is little more than a monotonous blank. ”

“ The penalty which Jamaica paid for being a large and mountainous island was, that it harboured in its forests and ravines a body of men who, throughout its history down to the present century, were a source of anxiety and danger. The original Maroons, or mountaineers, for that is the real meaning of the term, were ... the slaves of Spaniards who retreated into the interior when the English took the island, and sallied out from time to time to harass the invaders and cut off stragglers and detached parties. ”

“ From the standpoint of the race little or nothing has been gained by the English conquest and colonization of Jamaica. Jamaica has merely been turned into a negro island, with a future, seemingly, much like that of San Domingo. British Guiana, however well administered, is nothing but a colony where a few hundred or few thousand white men hold the superior positions, while the bulk of the population is composed of Indians, Negroes, and Asiatics. Looked at through the vista of the centuries, such a colony contains less promise of true growth than does a State like Venezuela or Ecuador. ”

“ I asked you what you know about Jamaica."
"No more'n everybody else does. It's a big island somewhere to the west of here, that the Spaniards hold. There's supposed to be a harbor and a fortress, and a little settlement they call Villa de la Vega, with maybe a couple of thousand planters. ”

“ The state in which he left Jamaica, contrasted with that in which he found the colony on the commencement of his administration, was his rich reward. He came to Jamaica at a time when her legislation was suspended, mutual feelings of distrust and jealousy disturbing not only the relation between the governor and the legislature, but all the social relations in the colony; when laws were required for the altered state of society, and when the tranquillity and existence of the colony were placed in the greatest jeopardy. ”