| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 4,365 (0.2% of the total population) 2011 census [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Kingston, St. Andrew Parish Diaspora: U.S: (Miami, etc), Canada | |
| Languages | |
| Jamaican English, Jamaican Patois, Spanish, Portuguese, other | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| British, French, German people, Irish, Jews, Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, Welsh, White Caribbeans |
White Jamaicans (also known as European-Jamaicans) are Jamaican people whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Great Britain and Ireland. [2] There are also communities of people who are descendants of people who arrived from Spain, Germany [3] and Portugal. [4]
Historically, White Jamaicans made up a much larger percentage of the population. They would go on to be the majority, at least for most of the 17th century, after Spanish Jamaica was conquered by the British. [1] Initially, the Spanish colonized the island in the 1600s and, subsequently, the English began taking an interest in it. Following a failed attempt to conquer Santo Domingo on Hispaniola, Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables successfully led an invasion of Jamaica in 1655. After defeat, the Spanish left, aside from the Spanish Jews, and were eventually replaced by a predominately English and Irish white population.
By the 1670s, Jamaica had brought in more enslaved Africans to work on sugar plantations, which then made up the majority of the island’s population. During the First Maroon War, Jamaicans who escaped from slavery fought against British colonialists, leading to another decline in Jamaica's white population. [5] [6]
The White population would dramatically decrease during the 1800s, making up only 4% of the population at a peak.
According to the 2011 Census of Population and Housing for Jamaica, 0.2% of Jamaica's population is considered White. Over half of the White population lives in the Saint Andrew Parish. Seeing as about 4% of Jamaica's population is considered mixed (mostly black and white), the population of those with partial European ancestry is much higher than that of the solely white population. [1]
A number of Jamaicans have light skin, European features, and majority European ancestry. In colonial times it was common for such people to identify simply as "white", but since independence it has been more common for them to identify as "brown" or "mulatto". For instance, four of the first six Jamaican heads of government (Norman Manley, Alexander Bustamante, Edward Seaga, and Michael Manley) had a light-skinned appearance and majority European ancestry, but were not generally considered "white" within Jamaica. Foreign writers applying their own countries' racial standards would sometimes identify them as white – writing for The New York Times , Nicholas Kristof observed that a "95 per cent black population elected a white man – Edward Seaga – as its prime minister". Seaga was born to a Lebanese father and a mixed-race mother. [7]
Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit Jamaica. He claimed the island for Spain on May 3, 1494, during his second voyage to the New World. The proportion of white people among the overall population in Jamaica has varied considerably since the establishment of a permanent Spanish settlement in 1509 by Juan de Esquivel. The native Taíno people were virtually extinct by 1600 and the island's population of about 3,000 was then overwhelmingly European. However, over the next century a significant numbers of African slaves were brought to the island. Jamaica became a colony of England in 1655 and a census in 1662 recorded 3,653 whites (87% of the population) and 552 blacks (13% of the population). However, by 1673 there were 7,768 whites (45% of the population) and 9,504 blacks (55% of the population). By the end of the century only about 7,000 out of a total population of 47,000 (or 15%) were white. Most white immigrants were British, many coming voluntarily from other North American colonies or as refugees from colonies like Montserrat and Suriname, which were captured by other European powers. [8]
By 1734, the proportion of white people had decreased to below 10% of the overall population of Jamaica. [9] In 1774, Edward Long estimated that a third of Jamaica's white population were Scottish, mostly concentrated in Westmoreland Parish. [10] In 1787, there were only 12,737 whites out of a total population of 209,617. [9] There was a flow of French refugees to Jamaica after the Haitian Revolution, though not all remained in the country. In the 1830s, over 1,000 Germans immigrated to Jamaica to work on Lord Seaford's estate. The 1844 census showed a white population of 15,776 out of a total population of 377,433 (around 4%). [9] According to the 1871 census, at least 25% of the population was coloured (having mixed black and white ancestry). [11]
The 1960 census recorded a white population of 0.77 percent, which decreased to 0.66 in 1970, 0.18 in 2001, and 0.16 in 2011. [12] As with most Anglo-Caribbean countries, most Jamaicans who are of mixed ancestry self-report as 'black'. [13] [14] In 2011, the CIA World Factbook estimated that the population of Jamaicans who are of mixed European and African ancestry is at about 96%. [15]
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi), it is the third largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about 145 km (90 mi) south of Cuba, 191 km (119 mi) west of Hispaniola, and 215 km (134 mi) south-east of the Cayman Islands.
The Caribbean Island of Jamaica was initially inhabited in approximately 600 AD or 650 AD by the Redware people, often associated with redware pottery. By roughly 800 AD, a second wave of inhabitance occurred by the Arawak tribes, including the Tainos, prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. Early inhabitants of Jamaica named the land "Xaymaca", meaning "land of wood and water". The Spanish enslaved the Arawak, who were ravaged further by diseases that the Spanish brought with them. Early historians believe that by 1602, the Arawak-speaking Taino tribes were extinct. However, some of the Taino escaped into the forested mountains of the interior, where they mixed with runaway African slaves, and survived free from first Spanish, and then English, rule.
Michael Norman Manley was a Jamaican politician who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992. Manley championed a democratic socialist program, and has been described as a populist. He remains one of Jamaica's most popular prime ministers.
The Jamaica Labour Party is one of the two major political parties in Jamaica, the other being the People's National Party (PNP). While its name might suggest that it is a social democratic party, the JLP is actually a conservative party.
Afro-Trinidadians and Tobagonians are people from Trinidad and Tobago who are of Sub-Saharan African descent, mostly from West Africa. Social interpretations of race in Trinidad and Tobago are often used to dictate who is of West African descent. Mulatto-Creole, Dougla, Blasian, Zambo, Maroon, Pardo, Quadroon, Octoroon or Hexadecaroon (Quintroon) were all racial terms used to measure the amount of West African ancestry someone possessed in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout North American, Latin American and Caribbean history.
The First Maroon War was a conflict between the Jamaican Maroons and the colonial British authorities that started around 1728 and continued until the peace treaties of 1739 and 1740. It was led by self-liberated Africans who set up communities in the mountains. The name "Maroon" was given to these Africans, and for many years they fought the British colonial Government of Jamaica for their freedom. The maroons were very skilled, particularly in guerrilla warfare. It was followed about half a century later by the Second Maroon War.
Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery on the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern parishes. Africans who were enslaved during Spanish rule over Jamaica (1493–1655) may have been the first to develop such refugee communities.
Jamaican Canadians are Canadians of Jamaican descent or Jamaican-born permanent residents of Canada. The population, according to Canada's 2021 Census, is 249,070. The term usually refers to Black Jamaican Canadians. Jamaican Canadians comprise about 30% of the entire Black Canadian population.
General elections were held in Jamaica on 9 February 1989. The result was a victory for the People's National Party, which won 45 of the 60 seats. Voter turnout was 78%.
Afro-Jamaicans are Jamaicans of predominant African descent. They represent the largest ethnic group in the country.
Afro-Costa Ricans are Costa Ricans of African ancestry.
Afro-Hondurans or Black Hondurans are Hondurans of Sub-Saharan African descent. Research by Henry Louis Gates and other sources regards their population to be around 1-2%. They descended from: enslaved Africans by the Spanish, as well as those who were enslaved from the West Indies and identify as Creole peoples, and the Garifuna who descend from exiled zambo Maroons from Saint Vincent. The Creole people were originally from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, while the Garifuna people were originally from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Garifunas arrived in the late seventeen hundreds and the Creole peoples arrived during the eighteen hundreds. About 600,000 Hondurans are of Garífuna descent that are a mix of African and indigenous as of Afro Latin Americans. Honduras has one of the largest African community in Latin America.
Santiago was a Spanish territory of the Spanish West Indies and within the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in the Caribbean region. Its location is the present-day island and nation of Jamaica.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
White Bermudians are Bermudians whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably the British Isles and Portugal. At the 2016 census the number of Bermudians who identify as white was 19,466 or 31 percent of the total population.
Afro-Haitians or Black Haitians are Haitians who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. They form the largest racial group in Haiti and together with other Afro-Caribbean groups, the largest racial group in the region.
The Colony of Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. In Jamaica, this date is celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday.
Black Bermudians, African Bermudians, Afro-Bermudians or Bermudians of African descent, are Bermudians with any appreciable Black African ancestry. The population descends from Africans who arrived in Bermuda during the 17th century as indentured servants and slaves, mostly via Spanish, or former Spanish, territories or Spanish and other ships wrecked at Bermuda or captured by Bermuda-based privateers.
Norman Washington Manley was a Jamaican statesman who served as the first and only Premier of Jamaica. A Rhodes Scholar, Manley became one of Jamaica's leading lawyers in the 1920s. Manley was an advocate of universal suffrage, which was granted by the British colonial government to the colony in 1944.
Free black people in Jamaica fell into two categories. Some secured their freedom officially, and lived within the slave communities of the Colony of Jamaica. Others ran away from slavery, and formed independent communities in the forested mountains of the interior. This latter group included the Jamaican Maroons, and subsequent fugitives from the sugar and coffee plantations of coastal Jamaica.
| |||||||||||
| European emigration by location |
| ||||||||||
| Historical concepts | |||||||||||
| Sociological phenomena and theories | |||||||||||
| Negative stereotypes of Whites | |||||||||||
| White identity politics | |||||||||||
