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 JAMAICA

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JAMAICA

d'Oro) was the capital of the island from 1510 till 1520, when Diego Columbo founded a new capital, Santiago de la Vega, which is now known as Spanish Town. In 1521 orders were received from Spain to cease from making the native Indians slaves. Las Casas, deservedly called " Protector-General of the Indians", was instrumental in inducing the pope to issue a Bull in 1542, restoring the Indians to freedom. Unhappily this concession came too late for the aborig- inal inhabitants of the island. Soon after, Africans were imported into Jamaica as slaves. The discredit- able failure to capture San Domingo by the expedition under Admiral Penn — father of the founder of Penn- sylvania — and General Venables, described by Carlyle as "the unsuccessfulest enterprise Oliver Cromwell had concern with", ended in a successful descent on Jamaica, which was captured in May, 1655.

English Occupation. — "To signalise the capture of St. lago" by the English "a small leaven of Puritan feel- ing and a large amount of ruffianism led the troops

into a display of energy The abbey and the two

churches were demolished and the bells melted down for shot" (Gardner). The pioet Milton, secretary to Cromwell, justified this invasion of the West Inflies on the ground of "the most noble opportunities of pro- moting the Glory of God, and enlarging the bounds of the Kingdom of Christ, which we do not doubt will appear to be the chief end of our late expedition to the \\'e.st Indies ". The advent of the English adven- turer gave a considerable impetus to trade with the outside world. The chief seaport of the island, now Port Royal, soon became "a nest of iniquity and a centre of rude lu.xiiry, the emporium of the loot of the buccaneer .... no form of vice was wanting, no indulgence too extravagant for its lawless popula- tion". But it paid the penalty of its lawlessness, being wiped out by an earthquake on 7 June, 1692, after which event Kingston, the present capital, was estab- lished. As a means of repeopling the island, which was being decimated by fever, a large number of Royalists in Ireland were seized and sent out as slaves by the English. "As a result of Cromwell's Irish policy one thousand young women and the same number of young men were by order of the Council of State arrested in Ireland and sliipped to Jamaica, while the sheriffs of several counties of Scotland were instructed to apprehend all known idle, masterless robbers and vagabonds, male and female, and trans- port them to the island " (Ellis). In 1660 the popula- tion of Jamaica was about 4500 whites, and some 1500 negroes. Jamaica was ceded to England by the treaty of Madrid in 1670. On the accession of James II, the Duke of Albemarle (a Catholic), son of General Monk, was appointed governor of Jamaica. One of his suite was Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum.

Slnvert/. — The war with the .American colonies met with little sj-mpathy in Jamaica. The assembly pe- titioned George III to grant more political auton- omy to the struggling colonists. In 177S France, which had recognized the independence of the new republic, was forced into war by England, and Ja- maica, like the rest of the West Indies, suffered accord- ingly. Seven years later the maroons, or half-breed negroes, rose in rebellion, repulsed both the colonial militia and the regular troops, devastated large tracts of country, and were not finally overpowered till 1795. Some 600 of them, men, women, and children, were deported to Nova Scotia, and subsequently to Sierra Leone. In the eighteenth century 700,000 negro slaves were landed in Jamaica. When, in 1807, the slave trade was abolished in the British colonies, there were some :'i2,00l) slaves in Jamaica. Slavery was riestined to eiiiiliuue there for more than another quarter of .i century. The local (iovernment, which consisted almost entirely of slave holders and sym- pathizers with slavery, was a negrophobic plutocracy,

and the Anglican, or Episcopalian, clergy were in sym- pathy with the assembly, as they were dependent on it for their stipends. Ministers of other Protestant denominations were working for the education and enlightenment of the negroes, only to be reviled, hindered, and persecuted by the dominant party. A serious outbreak among the slaves occurred in 1831, property to the value of $3,500,000 being destroyed. The law emancipating the slaves passed by the British Parliament was accepted by the Jamaica Assembly in 1833 under strong protests, and on 1 August, 18.34, slavery was abolished in the island. The number of slaves for whom compensation was paid by the British Government was 225,290, the amount awarded hav- ing been .$29,269,875. As an immediate result of the emancipation of the negroes, the want of labourers was soon experienced. In 1844 immigration of hill- coolies from Hindustan was sanctioned by the Legis- lative Council. During the past sixty years, some 30,000 Hindu agricultural labourers have been im- ported into the island, of whom over 10,000 have, during the last twenty years, returned to India, taking back with them more than $350,000 in government bills of exchange.

Catholic Revival. — From the time of the expulsion of the Spaniards in 1655, and especially after the adop- tion of the Toleration Act of 1688, which "afforded liberty of conscience to all persons except papists" (Gardner), Catholic revival in the island was debarred. It was not until 1792 that the first instalment of free- dom of worship was granted to them. Dr. Douglass, Vicar Apostolic of the London District, and ecclesias- tical superior of the Catholics in the British West In- dies, sent out an Irish Franciscan, Father Quigley, in 1798, who did pioneer work for seven years, and died in 1805. He was succeeded by Fathers Rodriguez d'Arango and Campos Benito, both Franciscans. By a Brief of Gregory XVI dated 10 January, 1837, the British W'est Indies were divided into three vicari- ates Apostolic: the Windw-ard Islands, British Guiana, and Jamaica. Father Benito was appointed first vicar Apostolic of this island in 1837. The same year two Jesuits, Fathers Cotham, an Englishman, and Dupeyron, a Frenchman, arrived. They, with the vicar Apostolic and Father Duquesnay, the first native of Jamaica raised to the priesthood, formed the whole ecclesiastical body. Asiatic cholera broke out in Jamaica in October, 1850, claiming over 30,000 victims; the Catholic clergy won the highest praise for their .self-sacrifice and heroism during the plague. In 1855 the vicar Apostolic, Benito, died and was succeeded by Father Dupeyron, S.J., the first Jesuit to act as Vicar Apostolic of Jamaica.

Jesuit Administration. — We have now to deal with the mature development of the mission in the nine- teenth century. Numerically it was small, but it had attracted public attention by its philanthropic and religious work. With the accession of Father Dupey- ron the Jamaica mission came formally under the control of the Society of Jesus, and has remained so ever since. The new vicar Apostolic, hampered like his predecessors by a paucity of labourers and scanti- ness of resources, could continue only to watch over and safeguard that which had already been effected.

In 1857 four Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis arrived in Jamaica from Glasgow, to in- struct the coloured children. In a short time they opened a poor school and subsequently a high school for voung ladies, both destined to do excellent work. In ISiiCi Father Jo.seph Sidney Woollett. S.J., of the English province, received sub-delegate powers of vicar .'\postolic. The following year Father llath.iway, S. J., arrived from England. He was a distinguished graduate of the Ilniversity of Oxford, and had been a Fellow of Worcester College, and sulisei|uently dean and bursar. In 1849 he accepted the incumbency of Shadwell, near Leeds. Becoming a Catholic in 1851,