Jamaica Essay

Jamaica is an island that is well known, but how well do we know it? This island has been through so much during its time of independence, and even before that. Jamaica was once an island inhabited by a group of people called Arawaks also known as Tainos. They lived a simple life of farming and community. The men hunted while the women planted and took care of the household. That was all soon to be changed. Christopher Columbus, and the Spaniards, were the first group to explore Jamaica in 1494. He heard of the island as the land of gold. It was called Xaymaca by the natives, meaning “land of wood and water”. He later found that the land had no gold, but “hostile people”. The Arawakd were overworked and later all died due to a European illness. In 1655, the island was attacked by the English, in which the Spaniards surrendered. Africans were brought to Jamaica for cheap and hardworking labor, to grow many crops, mainly sugar cane and tobacco. The island later became known for sugar and sugar cane. Slaves became unhappy and rebelled. Slavery was then abolished in 1833. Many came and colonize this little island, but all those different types of people left something behind. This made …show more content…
It is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, with the coordinates, 18.1096 degrees North, 77.2975 degrees West. It is in the tropics, not too far north of the equator. The climate is tropical on the mountain sides and semiarid on the leeward side. Its landmass is 4,244 miles squared with a population of over 2.5 million people. The island is very mountainous, with the highest peak being 7,402 feet, which is the Blue Mountain. The Blue Mountain is well known for its coffee. The coffee beans are blue green in color, great acidity with high quality aroma. Jamaica provides its own brand of coffee, Blue Mountain Coffee, which is exported to various areas of the