|
Caribbean Islands Growth and Structure of the Economy
The first European settlers, the Spanish, were primarily
interested in extracting precious metals and did not develop or
otherwise transform Jamaica. In 1655 the English occupied the
island and began a slow process of creating an agricultural economy
based on slave labor in support of England's industrial revolution.
During the seventeenth century, the basic patterns and social
system of the sugar plantation economy were established in Jamaica
(see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). Large estates owned
by absentee planters were managed by local agents. The slave
population increased rapidly during the last quarter of the
seventeenth century and, by the end of the century, slaves
outnumbered white Europeans by at least five to one. Because
conditions were extremely harsh under the slave regime and the
mortality rate for slaves was high, the slave population expanded
through the slave trade from West Africa rather than by natural
increase.
During most of the eighteenth century, a monocrop economy based
on sugar production for export flourished. In the last quarter of
the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as
famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence
disrupted trade. By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less
competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and
production subsequently declined. By 1882 sugar output was less
than half the level achieved in 1828. A major reason for the
decline was the British Parliament's 1807 abolition of the slave
trade, under which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after
March 1, 1808 was forbidden; the abolition of the slave trade was
followed by the abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation
within four years (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1).
Unable to convert the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class
similar to the one established in the post-Civil War South of the
United States, planters became increasingly dependent on wage labor
and began recruiting workers abroad, primarily from India, China,
and Sierra Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or
small farm communities in the interior of the island, the "yam
belt," where they engaged in subsistence and some cash-crop
farming.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of
severe economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and
disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay
rebellions of 1865 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). However,
renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the
form of crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic
progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure.
Agricultural development was the centerpiece of restored British
rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project
was launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded
to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also
in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, a
land reform program of sorts, which allowed small farmers to
purchase two hectares or more of land on favorable terms.
Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica
changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many
former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican
peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement whereas other cane fields
were consolidated by dominant British producers, most notably by
the British firm Tate and Lyle. Although the concentration of land
and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the Spanish-speaking
Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plantation on the island
had increased to an average of 266 hectares. But, as noted, smallscale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by
sugar powers. The number of small holdings in fact tripled between
1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as
peasantry. Most of the expansion in small holdings took place
before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares.
The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the
nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on
the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming
grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as
Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems
(32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems
a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. As
with sugar, the presence of American companies, like the well-known
United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force behind renewed
agricultural exports. The British also became more interested in
Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Expansion of banana
production, however, was hampered by serious labor shortages. The
rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up
to 11,000 Jamaicans a year (see Population, this ch.).
The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and
led to the return of many Jamaicans. Economic stagnation,
discontent with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor
living conditions caused social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in
Jamaica began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western parish of
Westmoreland and quickly spread east to Kingston. Jamaica, in
particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic
development from British colonial rule.
Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region,
the British in 1938 appointed the Moyne Commission (see Labor
Organizations, ch. 1). An immediate result of the Commission was
the Colonial Development Welfare Act, which provided for the
expenditure of approximately £1 million a year for twenty years on
coordinated development in the British West Indies. Concrete
actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's
massive structural problems.
The expanding relationship that Jamaica entered into with the
United States during World War II produced a momentum for change
that could not be turned back by the end of the war (see Political
Dynamics, this ch.). Familiarity with the early economic progress
achieved in Puerto Rico under Operation Bootstrap, renewed
emigration to the United States, the lasting impressions of Marcus
Garvey, and the publication of the Moyne Commission Report led to
important modifications in the Jamaican political process and
demands for economic development. As was the case throughout the
Commonwealth Caribbean in the mid- to late 1930s, social upheaval
in Jamaica paved the way for the emergence of strong trade unions
and nascent political parties. These changes set the stage for
early modernization in the 1940s and 1950s and for limited selfrule , introduced in 1944.
Data as of November 1987
|
