Novel: A Life of an enslaved woman in Jamaica

       My name is Nanny Jones and I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1789. My first master Mr Williams was a excellent lawyer and he was kind to his slaves. My mother was born in Barbados and she was sold to Mr Williams when she was at the age of fourteen. She had worked as a domestic servant for about thirty years when she died of tuberculosis. According to my mother's narration, my father was a slave of another planter and he used to behired by Mr Williams as a cooper. I have never seen him when I was sensible, because the marriage between him and my mother was illegal and he was sold to Antigua soon after my birth.

        I lived with my mother and became a player of my little master Anne, the daughter of Mr Williams. That time was one of my happiest time in my life and I doesn't know the distinction between Anne and I. When I was twelve years old, however, the misfortune came down on me. Mr Williams died and Mrs Williams had to sell me and several other slaves to pay for the fees of funeral. I remembered that how I wept for parting with my mother and Anne.

         I was sold to a sugar planter and began to suffer a great number of adversity. I worked as a field worker, which was considered the most terrible work to slaves. The most field workers were women and they were divided into four gangs according to the age and physical ability. The first labor gang was the most important labor gang and the members of it were at ages from 16 to 54. They digged cane holes, planted the canes, and cut off the stalks. Children like me picked up the stalks and bunched them. Yonger children were responsible for weeding. I became a member of first gang at age of 16 and was much busier than before. During the out-of-crop season, I worked from daybreak to sundown, 5:00 am to 7:00 pm, or eleven and one-half hours, excluding meal breaks. There was a half-hour midmorning break for breakfast in the field and a two-hour break at noon for dinner. The work was much busier in the havest period. The work time expanded to about seventeen hours. Sometimes I even worked for twenty hours every day. In addition, we usually received severe punichment for just a little fault. I had been tied up in a tree and recieved the whip for several hours because I trampled on some stalks carelessly.

           That time was really a terrible time. I desired to get freedom every minute. I heard that some female slaves collected money to earn their freedom through selling something at the absent of master. Some even earned money through prostitution. I had not such thought and chance to do that, however. I had worked for the field for eleven years when I met a free person of color, James Davis. He was a carpenter and we fall in love. He bought my freedom from my master, and we married. I was a free woman now.

Cited: Thomas Cleveland Holt, The Problem of freedom, race, labor, and politics in Jamaica and Britain 1832-1938. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London, 1992.

labor in Jamaica from seventeenth century to nineteenth century

       Jamaica was a relatively desolate island when British captured it from Spanish in 1655. Compared with Cuba and Hispaniola, there were few settlements and plantations in Jamaica. To exploit the island, British government demands a lot of manpower to be imported to Jamaica. The first wave of immigrants were mainly British colonists who came from other British colonies of West Indies such as Barbados. These British immigrants built up a series of new colonies and decided to set up a plantation system as Barbados. At the beginning of the period of British rule, many Irish prisons banished by Oliver Cromwell from their hometown were shipped by government to the Jamaica. These group of Irish were mainly young people and they were mostly servants, bondsmen, or indentured servants. Irish and indentured servants from other parts of Europe usually had to bear the hard work and terrible condition as slaves, however, they themselves were not chattel and they could get freedom when the contracts were finished. 

      From seventeenth century the, sugar were popular and profitable in Europe and British made Jamaica gradually become one of the world's leading center of sugar production. Sugar production required a greater labor supply than the available European servants. Therefore, British decided to import a great number of African slaves regularly. As a result, African slaves became the major labor in the sugar plantations and persons with African ancestry became the majority of Jamaica population in the late seventeenth century. In the early nineteenth century, for example, fewer than five percents of the population in Jamaica were whites while the blacks made up of more than ninety percents of population of Jamaica.

       Sugar cultivation was both an agricultural and an industrial regime and there were some special processes which demands workers with professional skills. Hence, the workforce of the field was divided into four field gangs, constituted according to age and physical ability. For instance, digging cane holes with crude hoes in often hard and rocky soil was too difficult for ordinary slaves to do. Therefore, a gang of professional workers were assigned for such work specially. At the usual time, slaves worked from five o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night, or eleven and one-half hours, excluding meal breaks. There was a half-hour midmorning break for breakfast in the field and a two-hour break at noon for dinner.  During the harvest season, slaves were much busier than usual because they had to cut stalks,extract cane juice, and processed the cane as soon as possible. In the mean time, they also had to replant for future crops. As a result, work day extended to about twenty hours during the four to five month harvest season, or a minimum of eighty hours a week, excluding meal break. 

           The hard work and cruel treatment from planters made slaves rebel to challenge the slavery. The slave rebellion of 1831 made whites think about the abolishment of slavery. Many antislavery societies appeared in Europe and West Indies in eighteenth and nineteenth century and they used reason to challenge the moral and legal basis of slavery. At last, the slavery of Jamaica was abolished in 1834. ex-slaves gained freedom, however, they were controlled under apprenticeship which was considered by whites to help ex-slaves transform from slaves to competent citizens. Under apprenticeship, ex-slaves must bear hard work for forty and one-half hours of the work week as slaves, except being recognized as employee who could freely negotiate the work conditions and wages. In the rest time, they could do what they want. In addition, British brought a lot of East Indians and Chinese indentured servants to make up the shortage of slaves.

              In conclusion, when British occupy Jamaica. the main labor were indentured servants from Europe, including a great number of Irish. Nevertheless, the set up of sugar plantation made African slaves quickly became the main labor and Jamaica had been a slave-dependent island for about two hundred years. After abolishment of slavery in 1834, ex-slaves worked as "apprentices" at a short time and then became free workers while a lot of East Indian and Chines indentured servants migrated to the island.

Sources 

     1. Thomas Cleveland Holt, The Problem of freedom: race, labor, and politics in Jamaica and Britain, p.55-62 

        2. Rob Mullally, A short History of the Irish Jamaica, Part 1 of 3,

        3. The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, US. Library of Congress

Racial development in Jamaica

      Jamaica is a multiracial country and it has a population of 2.8 millions revealt in the latest census. African Jamaicans is the largest ethnic group in the island and it comprises more than 90 percents of the population of the island. People with mixed ancenstry is the second largest ethnic group. There are around 6 persents of Jamaican in this group. Besides, East Indians comprises 1 persent of population and there are also a few whites and Chinese reside in the Jamaica. How do these ethnic groups appear and develop in the island. Now I will find the answers through looking back to the history.
      The original residents of Jamaica were Tainos, a large group of Indians residing in the West Indies. They lived for thousands of years in the island when Christopher Columbus arrivied at the island in 1494. The first European immigrants were Spaniards and they built their first settlement in 1509. At that time, Jamaica became a Spanish colony and whites began to reside in the island. The native people suffered disease and Spaniards' coercion and they had to flee to the mountains. As a result, the group of natives gradually disappeard in the island.
      In 1655, British catched the island from Spanish and found that the island was not comfortable residence for Europeans as well as other islands of West Indies. Instead, they made the island become a base of sugar plantation. Hence, British brought a great number of black slaves from Western Africa to work in the plantation. Blacks soon became the major population in the island after 1670. Actually, Jamaican economy and society relied on large planation and slavery heavily for near 200 years and blacks outnumbered whites by a ratio of almost 20 to1 at the beginning of 19th century. When the slavery was abolished in 1834, there were about 316,070 blaks, 15,000 whites, and 40,000 mixed race. The mixed race has mixed ancestry of white and black. In fact, many mixed-blood have ancestry of Irish. In fact, many Irish indentrued servants has migrated to Jamaica since 1655 and they were easier to marry with blacks than other whites because of their lower status. People with mixed race usually identified themselves as a nation of "Jamaican" and now they comprise the second largest group in the islands, just next to African Jamaicans.
       When slavery was abolished in 1834, British Brought East Indians and Chinese indentured servants to supplement the laboul pool in the plantation in the latter half of 19th century. The descends of these indentured servants continue to live and become influential groups in the island.
        Nowadays, Africans Jamaicans are much more than other ethnic groups and they make the fundation of Jamaican society. They work in all types of jobs, including the highest political, professional, and commercial activities. Most African Jamaicans, however, live a relative poor and unhealthy life and their skin color is still considered as a symbol of uncivilized, ignorant, lazy, and untrustworhy. The bulk of national wealth is owned by the few white families. In addition, East Indians and Chinese usually live as middle class. East Indians move gradually from agricultural labor into professional and mercantile activities while Chinese usually engage in retail and wholesale activities.
 
Resources
1. Countries and their Cultures: Culture of Jamaica, Advameg.Inc, 2011

2. Rob Mullally, A Short History of the Irish in Jamaica, Port 1-3. 2010