Jamaica In The 1800's Essay

Jamaica in the 1800’s The beautiful island of Jamaica is known by people today as a tropical paradise, but this was not always the case. In the 1800’s also known as the Victorian era, Jamaica had a diverse and more distinguished culture than many other countries did during this time. Although Britain owned Jamaica, they kept a diverse culture way of life because of many of their African and Asian influences. During the early Victorian era, Jamaican life was much different than it is today. Many of the first settlers known as the Morians who migrated from Europe and Asia were Cattle ranchers and coal miners due to the mountainous terrain (Levy). This lifestyle, however, was interrupted constantly from large hurricanes and deadly earthquakes

Once slavery was abolished the Jamaican newspaper revealed how Jamaica did not want to partake in this, so the slaves there were not actually freed. As word passed around, the slaves were extremely angry which led to mass racism protests and revolts (Luscombe). One of the most famous and most extreme revolts was in St. Mary parish, the largest and richest parish, led by Sam Sharpe (History). This rebellion was named the Christmas rebellion because it was during Christmas which was the longest time slaves had off all year. This revolt turned more like a riot on the second day where many people were killed and martial law of the entire country went into affect crippling some of the economy (History). The irony of this is that Britain forced the slaves to be Christian causing them to read and write and be able to read the newspaper that told them about the lying government starting this revolt in the first place (Luscombe). Sam Sharpe along with 200 other slaves were publically hung in March two months after the revolt (History). This shows just how bad the relationship with Britain was in the Jamaican Government even though they were owned by them