Jamaicas past

        
        The history of jamaica may be divided into six periods. the first period has to do more with the arrival of christopher columbus to the island and the destruction of port royal    


Columbus first arrived on the islan of jamaica in 1494 when it was being inhabited by arwaks. they lived on fishing, hunting, and cultivation. the imact of the spanish was traumatic and the arwaks eventually disappeareds in about 70-80 years.
        
          The spanish used jamaica as a base for supporting the conquest of the americas. the population of the settlement of the spanish wasnt that large. the economic activity consisted primarily of production for domestic consumption and the supply of spanish ships. the spanish colonial architectural styles, names of places, is evidence that the spanish arrived on the island of jamaica. After a while the british conquered.The english made port royal their capital.


Port royal was located in the southeast of jamaica. it was the center of shipping commerece in the carribean sea. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692 and fires, hurricanes flooding and another earthquake.


In 1692 jamaica was hit by one of the deadliest earthqakes. the earthquake caused the whole capital of port royal to go below sea level as a result of a tsunami also.Many people died aftewards due to injuries and diseases. after a while jamaica made kingston their new capital.

The second period has more to do with the continuance of port royal and the abolition of the slave trade. during this time jamaica flourished as an agricultural colony an became very rich. It reached the height of prosperity just before the slave trade was abolished.


The third period has to do more with the slave trade abolition and the morant bay rebellion. The morant bay was a protest led by a man called paul bogle.this man led 200- 300 black men and women in a protest to the morant bay. This was a major turning point in jamaicas history.

slavery ended in january which led to the emancipation in august, the date on which former slaves became free to choose their employment or employer. they also gained the right to vote however most blacks most blacks remained desperately poor, and a high poll tax effectively excluded them from the franchise. During the elections of 1864, fewer than 2,000 black Jamaicans were eligible to vote out of a total population.





Dr. Edward Underhill, Secretary of the Baptist missionary society of Great Britain, wrote a letter to the colonial office in order to express Jamaica's current poor state of affairs. This letter was later shown to Jamaica's Governor edward eyre, who immediately tried to deny the truth of its statements.


On October 7, 1865, a black man was put on trial and imprisoned for trespassing on a long-abandoned plantaition, creating anger among black Jamaicans. When one member of a group of black protesters was arrested, the protesters became unruly and broke the accused man from prison. When he returned to his home, Bogle learned that he and 27 of his men had warrants issued for their arrest for rioting, resisting arrest, and assaulting the police.
Further on paul bogle decides to protes. eventually being arrested with other few men and being excecuted.


the fourth period dates from 1865 to the end of July, 1914
the fith period began with the outbreak of the First World War on August 1, 1914 and ended on August 1962.

The sixth period began on August 6, 1962, and records the history of Jamaica as an independent country.

The health issues that are affecting our island today is the water quality and sanitation. This situation affects especially the poor, including the urban poor many of which live in the country's over 595 unplanned squatter settlements in unhealthy and unsanitary environments with a high risk of waterborne disease. Despite a number of policy papers that were mainly focused on water supply and despite various projects funded by external donors, increases in access have remained limited.