That sugarcane was brought to Jamaica by the Spanish?
That Ackee and Saltfish owe their origins to slave diets?
That captain William Bligh brought breadfruit from the South Pacific to Jamaica on the famous Bounty?
That, on their way from Africa to Jamaica, slaves lay down shoulder by shoulder in 'slave rooms' for 10 or more weeks?
That it was Samuel Sharpe who was the instigator of the Christmas Rebellion?
Sugarcane and slaves...
With the arrival of the Spanish in Jamaica, slavery was born. They used the Awarak's to do the hard work, whom they enslaved and killed off though hard labor. However, the Awarak's were not resistant to the European diseases and most died soon. Others choose to commit suicide, rather than work for the Spanish.
The first Africans
After no Awarak Indian was left, the Spanish started to import their slaves from Africa. A new trade was created and it should take till 1838 before slavery ended.
In the 18th century the British did lay the foundation for the current economical structure of Jamaica. Sugarcane, introduced by the Spanish in 1640, became by far the most lucrative business in Jamaica.
Around 1670 there where about 50 plantations, 60 years later there where more that 400 and in 1775 there were almost 800 plantations. Most were located in Manchester, Clarendon and St. Catherine in the south and St. James and Trelawny in the north. For all those labour-intensive plantations they need workers: slave trade became lucrative, but also was corrupt and abhorrent...
The English sailed to Europe with ships loaded with tobacco, sugar and cotton. From there they sailed to Africa with merchandise and came back to Jamaica with lots of slaves. In 150 years about 750,000 slaves were imported in Jamaica. In 1700 the total population of Jamaica was 47,000. 40,000 of them were black and had African origins.
The wealthy and the poor...
The English slave traders controlled the marked. Slave- and sugar trade became big business. Many planters and traders earned a fortune.
For the slaves the story was totally different.
The slaves were a mix of different origin. Yes, the came from Africa, but from a disparate array of groups, like the Ibo's, the Yoruba's or the Fulani's. Those groups had their own lifestyle, with different cultures, food and languages.
The trip from Africa to Jamaica must have been real horror. Starvation, dehydration and disease awaited the future slaves.
Some did not survive the 10 to 12 weeks trip at all, others were too much weakened when arriving in Kingston and their death was just a matter of days or weeks.
The arrival on Jamaica was just the start of their humiliation. Most of them would lost their dignity very soon when they stripped nude while they were showed to potential buyers on the market.
Prices were variable: weakened slaves were not much worth than a few pennies. Average a slave would cost between the 25 and 75 English Pounds. But, according a journal found in ancient St. John, a slave called Jimmy was worth 330 Pounds.
Most of the slaves had to work on the land, a few worked in the house. Life on a plantation was hard and un-human.
The strongest slaves were responsible for the maintenance of the land, planting and cutting the cane or the work at the sugar mill. The younger boys and girls had to weed the fields or feed the cattle.
A heartless regime
Plantation owners were not really nice to their slaves.
The plantation masters were allowed to punish disobedience by the slaves very hard. Burying alive, hanging and beheading were not uncommon in those days, all to suppress possible ideas of rebellion.
The owners were constantly concerned about uprisings, which was not so weird: in 1780 there were 18,500 whities in Jamaica. In the same year there also were 190,000 black slaves on the same island. The production of sugar was totally based on slavery...
The slaves had to work for no pay six days a week, from very early in the morning till late in the evening. Only Sunday was a free day for the slaves, and most of them went to the Sunday market, a meeting place for all the slaves in the neighborhood.
Resistance
Even while punishment of the slaves was very rough, there always was some resistance from within.
When the British arrived in Jamaica, The Spanish released their slaves, who settled in the Blue Mountains, with Queen Nanny as their leader. They were called the Winward-Maroons and still have their own community.
In the west part of Jamaica, slaves escaped to the wooded hills of Cockpit Country, a good shelter. These became the Maroons, a name taken from the Spanish word 'cirmarrón', which means 'wild'.
slavery 
