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420 J Jamaica Jamaica, the largest of the Anglophone Caribbean islands, is distinguished by its rich African religious traditions (see African Caribbean Religions), many of which have come into explosive contact with English- and American-based Protestant traditions (see Protestantism). As a result, Jamaica is in many respects the Haiti of the Anglophone Caribbean, despite the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Haiti as compared to Jamaica. But to see Jamaica simply in terms of Africa, or even Africa and England, would be to miss other influential historical presences: Taíno (Arawak), Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu (see Judaism; Islam; Hinduism), among others, all of which continue to impact on Jamaican culture and religion today and have in various degrees cross-fertilized with African religions and Christian religious traditions (see Christianity). One only has to look at the remarkable birth, growth, and international expansion of the Rastafari to see this process at work. A neighbor of Cuba and Hispaniola, Jamaica shares the history of indigenous civilizations experienced by these countries (see Indigenous Religions). Early waves of indigenous peoples culminated with the establishment of Taíno kingdoms in the Greater Antilles, including the island that the Taínos knew as Xamayca (Jamaica). The spiritual world of the Taínos was governed by cemíes (zemis), or deities, primary among them Yúcahu, the deity associated with cassava, and his mother, Atabeyra (Atabey), who was associated with fertility. Other cemís were associated with particular aspects of nature or the ancestors (Rouse 1992, 13). When the Spanish conquered the island in 1494, they used the encomienda system of forced labor to enslave the Taínos. The holder of an encomienda was entitled to the labor of a specified number of workers for the purpose of mining gold or other minerals and working on agricultural estates. As Rouse (1992, 156) points out, the care and Christianization of the Taínos that was supposed to be a part of the encomienda system was largely ignored, and by 1515 exploitation and disease left very few Taíno remaining on the island. As in the case of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, however, it is likely that some Taínos escaped to remote mountainous areas, and it is clear that a significant amount of racial and cultural intermixing took place as well. Throughout the Caribbean there is mounting cultural and genetic evidence of the survival of indigenous peoples and traditions in areas where it was once considered that none remained (see Taínos—Taíno Spirituality Today). Although Spanish interest in the Caribbean declined with the opening of Mexico and South America, Jamaica remained both a source of agricultural products and other supplies and a transshipment point for Spanish plunder. To supply their labor needs, the Spanish found a new source in the form of enslaved Africans. Beginning in 1444, the Portuguese had started shipping enslaved Africans from western and southwestern Africa to the Iberian Peninsula. Slaves were also taken to Madeira, the Canary Islands, and São Tomé, their labor providing the basis for the early small-scale sugar plantations that were developing in these islands. As the Americas opened and the need for labor increased, enslaved Africans were transshipped from the Iberian Peninsula and these islands and then, in increasingly greater numbers , directly from western and central Africa. Some Africans arrived in the Americas already Christianized by the Spanish and Portuguese, and some came as Muslims from western Africa. Most, however, brought their traditional African religions with them. Under the harsh and inhumane conditions of slavery, some Africans escaped to the mountains in Jamaica to found communities of Maroons (palenques), and it is likely that these had contact with Taínos who had likewise fled the Spanish. Although Roman Catholicism was the religion of the colony, it could hardly be described as flourishing , and for the duration of the sixteenth century there were only a few priests and monks on the island and an abbot administering the monastery, the church, and two hermitages located in the capital, Santiago de la Vega, now Spanish Town (Delany 1930, 12–15). When the British conquered Jamaica in 1655, they ordered all Catholic priests to leave the island. More enslaved Africans took the opportunity to escape to the mountains and join the Maroon communities. It was not until 1792 that freedom of worship was granted to Catholics, and it was another century before the first Catholic bishop,Charles Gordon, was consecrated in 1889. However, the Catholic Church...
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