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Learning ‘bout Jamaica today. - South of Cuba, west of Haiti - Land area 15x the size of Singapore - Pop: 2.9m Columbus arrived in 1494; bringing disease that killed many. Spanish rule England wrested it from the Spanish in 1655 In 1660, pop was 4,500 white, 1,500 black 🤔 https://t.co/mRD5RwJegQ
Then, the British began importing slaves from Africa to work in sugar plantations. Slaves would be forced to yield 6 tonnes of crop a day, working from before sunrise to sunset, and were burnt, tortured and terrorized into obedience. Over 300,000 of them by 1800 https://t.co/xRDmoYl6MY
TIL about The Brethren Of The Coast, a coalition of pirates - mostly French and British, but also Spaniards, Africans, escaped slaves and other outlaws. Henry Morgan of Wales was the famous one. Complicated stuff - proxy conflicts between Empires, romanticized liberty, etc https://t.co/KS1Peb783l
Slavery was technically abolished in Jamaica in 1834, but indentured labor was still a thing. Interestingly, lots of Indians (36,000+) were brought to work in Jamaica, and subsequently some Chinese people too. Not too sure about the numbers and context(s), but interesting https://t.co/yzr3heMiG2
*adds “try Jamaican dim sum” to todo list* https://t.co/n81cRroKgz
